Review of Related Literature

One of the ten key decision areas in operations management is location

choice, which tries to achieve at least one goal such as cost, distance, service time,

or waiting time minimization, as well as profit and other business performance

optimization. Although studies on the impact of location decisions on organizational

success have been undertaken over the last few decades, there has been a lack of

review studies on this aspect of operations management. As a result, this study

provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of location decisions based on

literature-informed data. Also included is a brief historical perspective on the

geographical decision. These summary give “new” location decision researchers with

a thorough reference guide to the initial publications in the subject. The findings

highlighted two research gaps: a lack of mixed method studies and the utilization of

sophisticated analytical techniques due to sample size constraints (Lumbwe, et al.,

2021).

Empirical research, mostly in economic geography, have used jurisdictional-

level variables and indicators to study spatial variations of new company formations

while accounting for geographical conditions and quantifying locational attributes.

The studies use aggregate measures of locational settings at the state, metropolitan

statistical area (MSA), and county levels to conduct geographical analysis. Such

studies provide information about the factors that influence new enterprises, but they

are not geographically specific enough to be employed in the implementation of local

plans and policies (Chin, 2020).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the location and cluster pattern of

manufacturing SMEs in Khulna City, as well as the causes for such patterns,

because SMEs’ localisation has a substantial impact on the economic growth of

and a semi-structured personal interview was used to gather information from

manufacturing SME entrepreneurs to determine why such patterns exist. To answer

the research questions, a cross-sectional qualitative multiple case study approach

with pattern matching was used. The study found that SME location choice was

impacted by a combination of location-specific, personal, and community variables,

with personal considerations taking precedence over other elements in location

selection. While the cluster formation or localisation of SMEs depends on just

location-specific factors. The results of the study are anticipated to aid in regional

development and urban planning by offering practical insights into the distribution of

areas for the growth of industry (Rahman, et al., 2019).

The sustainable development of supply networks has become a popular topic

in recent years. Previously, much of the study centered on the debate of supply

chain management frameworks and evaluation methodologies. Kusi-Sarpong et al.

discussed sustainable innovation in the context of supply chain management and

believed that innovation would be necessary for its sustainability. Other scientists

disagreed, studying the location and sustainability of manufacturing plants before

concluding that environmental, social, and economic considerations are essential

variables determining placement selections. The choice of location is a critical

company-level decision-making issue. It is broken into two components: “how”

(ownership and governance strategies) and “where” (location strategy). This study

will concentrate on analyzing the “where” aspect, specifically by design in a

framework for “selection of the best geographical location” for manufacturing plants.

Past methods for studying location selection can be loosely classified into two types:
qualitative and quantitative models. The majority of quantitative models rely on

statistical or economic models (Huang, et al., 2020).

Consideration of the work of site selection consultants provides a window onto

the frictions inherent in the location decision. In this paper, we draw upon interviews

to interpret site selection consultants as intermediaries between a demand for

locations emanating from MNEs and a supply of locations provided by national and

subnational territories. We show how this intermediary role extends beyond the

economizing on search costs and into the rarely appreciated market-creating and

value adding opportunities offered by location. We also show how the knowledge

mobilised by consultants is quintessentially geographical. Paradoxically, it is the

geographical nature of the knowledge mobilised by site selection consultants that

presents frictions to the professionalisation and globalisation of the industry despite

its seminal role in promoting the mobility of economic activities. In conclusion, we

explore elements of a future research agenda centred on the mediated nature of

MNE location decisions (Phelps, et al., 2018).

Location has always been a primary concern for business startups to be

successful. Therefore, much research has focused on the problem of identification of

an ideal business site for a new business. The process of ideal business site

selection is complex and depends on a number of criteria or factors. Since the

ultimate goal of all businesses is to increase customer footprints and to thus increase

sales, criteria including traffic accessibility, visibility, ease of access, vehicle parking,

customers availability, etc. play important roles (Shaikh, et al., 2021).

Location theory is studying the impact of location on any economic activity,

trying to understand where operations should be settled and what should be the
reason for such a decision. The aim of this paper is to discuss and prioritize the key

location determinants for successful selection of an optimal location for a business

unit in the ICT industry. It emphasizes the importance of this concept in ICT sector

today when the digitalization and big internet revolution occurs. The initial

determinants were formed based on the literature review and evaluated through two

rounds of the Delphi study among experts from ICT companies in Serbia. The

second goal of the study was to reach a consensus about the relative importance of

the agreed determinants. According to the obtained results using the AHP decision-

making model, the priority in selecting a location for a business unit in the ICT

industry is human resource availability, second is the political and economic

environment, and the third is the competition. The paper finds that political and

economic strategies start to play an important role in ICT market, as governments

are getting more interested in this industry. The study confirmed that due to a

shortage of labour supply and fierce competition in the ICT sector, the concept of

location selection is an important success factor for sustainable growth and

development of ICT organizations (Marinkovic, et al., 2018).

Entrepreneurship has been widely considered as the power that drives

development and well-being in the regions it affects. As a result, local, regional and

national institutions, as well as researches in different disciplines, have focused on

finding and researching the factors leading to the installation of business on a certain

location. Therefore, it seems well-timed to present a quantitative survey of the

literature review of this field. The scope of this article is to present past and present

research studies related to the business location factors (BLF) identifying the most

important sub-topics, contributors and their geographical distribution, major outlets,

main empirical methodologies employed, as well as the most frequently studied

be a valuable tool for policy makers in the regional and national level, as well as for

active entrepreneurs and researchers engaged in relevant academic disciples. Policy

makers could take advantage of the BLF to attract investments in regions seeking

development while active entrepreneurs could realize the important role played by

the factors affecting the location of their business in a specific place and researchers

could trace and fill in potential research voids on this subject (Vlachou, et al., 2015).

Business location selection is crucial to the success of businesses. Traditional

approaches like manual survey investigate multiple factors, such as foot traffic,

neighborhood structure, and available workforce, which are typically hard to

measure. In this article, we propose to explore both satellite data (e.g., satellite

images and nighttime light data) and urban data for business location selection tasks

of various businesses. We extract discriminative features from the two kinds of data

and perform empirical analysis to evaluate the correlation between extracted

features and the business popularity of locations (Xu, et al., 2020).

Finding an optimal location is a strategic decision, and an error of location

judgment causes problems in the process and directly affects cost and profitability.

Currently, Indonesian National Health Insurance (BPJS) program has high coverage

growth in Indonesia; however, building hospitals targeting BPJS patients have faced

some challenges and may lead to an unprofitable business. Therefore, location

selection is a crucial aspect of a hospital’s operation, highly relates to profitability,

and impacts business performance. Moreover, being profitable is not enough for

businesses to survive in the long run; they have to be sustainable. The purpose of

this study is to develop a reference for a location selection for healthcare

management when building hospitals targeting BPJS patients (Tjitradi, et al., 2021).
 Location has a great impact on the success of many businesses. The existing

works typically utilize the number of customers who are the Reverse Nearest

Neighbors (RNN) of a business location to assess its goodness. While, with the

prevalence of word-of-mouth marketing in social networks, a business can now

exploit the social influence to attract enormous customers to visit it, even though it is

not located in the popular but unaffordable business districts with the most RNNs. In

this paper, we propose a novel Business Location Selection (BLS) approach to

integrate the factors of both social influence and geographical distance. Firstly, we

formally define a BLS model based on relative distance aware influence

maximization in geo-social networks, where the goodness of a location is assessed

by the maximum number of social network users it can influence via online

propagation. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first BLS model that adopts the

influence maximization techniques. Then, to speed up the selection, we present two

sophisticated candidate location pruning strategies, and extend the Reverse

Influence Sampling (RIS) algorithm to select seeds for multiple locations, thereby

avoiding redundant computation. Lastly, we demonstrate the effectiveness and

efficiency of our approach by conducting the experiments on three real geo-social

networks (Zeng, et al., 2020)

The selection of a strategic business location is a crucial factor in the success

of an enterprise. However, the decision-making process for choosing a location often

involves various complex criteria that require careful analysis. This study aims to

develop an Android-based Decision Support System (DSS) to assist entrepreneurs

in selecting an optimal business location using the Analytical Hierarchy Process

(AHP) method. AHP is chosen for its ability to break down complex problems into a

hierarchy and quantitatively evaluate each criterion. The system is designed to allow
users to easily access and operate the DSS through mobile devices. The criteria

used in the location selection process include accessibility, cost, demographics,

competition, security, infrastructure, regulations, and growth potential. Each criterion

is weighted using pairwise comparisons, enabling objective and comprehensive

assessments. The Android-based implementation allows for flexibility, enabling users

to make decisions efficiently anytime and anywhere. System testing results indicate

that the application can provide accurate business location recommendations based

on the desired criteria, and it features a user-friendly interface. This Android-based

DSS is expected to be a practical solution for supporting business decision-making

processes quickly and accurately (Rianingsih, et al., 2025)