In this commentary, I evaluate the potential of bipartite network projections of multilocational corporations in quantitative structural analyses of world/global cities. My starting point is that the Geographical Analysis paper by Pazitka, Wójcik, and Knight (2019) paper provides a number of useful critical observations in this regard, but their analysis is also incomplete and at points potentially misleading. I make three points. First, in this literature the notion of “construct validity” is vague because there is no such thing as a comprehensive world city network: we are dealing with abstractions of a complex and multilayered reality at best, and bipartite network projections are no more than generic tools that can help capturing the multiple globalizations of specific sets of cities. Second, there is no reason to assume that a spatial interaction-based benchmark model can be used to assess the “structural validity” of these bipartite network projections. And third, rather than replacing bipartite network projections of multilocational corporations with bipartite network projections of project ecologies, this literature could above all benefit from geographers no longer borrowing projections from the social networks literature. Instead, we should try and come up with bipartite network projections that more adequately capture the geographical nature of how multilocational corporations/projects operate/unfold.

中文翻译：

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多地区公司的双向网络投影：实现潜力

在这篇评论中，我评估了多地点公司的双向网络预测在世界/全球城市的定量结构分析中的潜力。我的出发点是地理分析Pazitka，Wójcik和Knight（2019）的论文在这方面提供了许多有用的批判性观察，但它们的分析也不完整，有时可能会产生误导。我提出三点。首先，在该文献中，“构造效度”的概念含糊不清，因为没有诸如全面的世界城市网络之类的东西：我们充其量只是在处理复杂和多层现实的抽象，而二分网络的投影只不过是通用的而已。可以帮助捕获特定城市集的多个全球化的工具。其次，没有理由假设可以使用基于空间交互的基准模型来评估这些二分网络投影的“结构有效性”。第三，与其用项目生态学的双向网络预测代替多位置公司的双向网络预测，该文献尤其可以从地理学家中受益，而不再从社交网络文献中借用预测。相反，我们应该尝试提出两方网络预测，以更充分地把握多地点公司/项目如何运作/展开的地理特征。