| This research investigates, within a global perspective, U.S. international banking's spatial organization in relation to technological change in international telecommunications. The study hypothesizes that the U.S. banks' foreign office locational pattern changes through office dispersion into new host locations as a result of the 1964 introduction of satellite telecommunication. This hypothesis is based on the fact that satellites' comparative technical advantages over cable systems for distance insensitive transmissions created equal communication accessibility among all potential office host sites. These capabilities enabled banks to locate offices in accommodation to the independent variables of financial opportunities, regulatory constraints, and time zone locations of countries without regard to the spatial separation between them.;The study found that office agglomeration, not dispersion, was the predominant trend in office pattern change. The notable dispersal of "phantom" offices, which only book funds, to locations exhibiting low financial opportunity levels and favorable regulatory conditions, such as the Bahamas, produced marginal pattern changes in relation to office accretions in international financial centers such as London, where office swarming by lower-ranked banks, after 1965, followed the largest banks' lead in office placements.;The study concludes that equalization of communication access was not discovered in the office pattern. The study concludes that the organizational framework which develops and uses the technology forms the meaning for its use and potential.;For the period 1950 to 1980, the hypothesis was tested using data assembled from industry souces on the twenty-five largest U.S. banks and their foreign offices. Using Chi-Square, the study found that the office pattern, at the regional level, changed significantly between 1970 and 1975, and between 1975 and 1980, because of office dispersion into host sites, particularly in Eastern Europe and Africa, where none had been before. Employing multiple regression, the study found that, for 1980, financial opportunities, measured by GDP, GDP per capita, and GDP growth, explained about fifty percent of the variation in the dependent variable, office frequency. The regression residuals' pattern was highly correlated with the spatial variation in host site regulatory constraints and financial center size. |
