This article argues that international human resource management has failed to examine adequately the relations between multinational corporations (MNCs) and the geographies they operate in at sub-national levels. In particular, it needs to go much further in integrating insights from literatures on changing levels of governance, the role of sub-national sites of regulation in the creation and transmission of knowledge, and the geographical and organizational fragmentation of production. In reviewing these literatures alongside relevant contributions within international human resource management, it develops a research agenda by which the degree and nature of sub-national embeddedness of MNCs, and their effects on sub-national business and employment systems, can be analysed.