IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/76805.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The cognitive and geographical structure of knowledge links and how they influence firms’ innovation performance

Author

Listed:
  • Broekel, Tom
  • Boschma, Ron

Abstract

Firms’ embeddedness in knowledge networks has received much attention in literature. However, little is known about the structure of firms’ knowledge exchange with respect to different types of proximities. Based on survey data of 295 firms in 8 European regions, we show that firms’ knowledge exchange systematically differs in their geographical and cognitive dimensions. We find that firms’ innovation performance is enhanced if the firm primarily links to technologically related as well as technologically similar organizations. Connecting with organizations at different geographical levels yields positive effects as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Broekel, Tom & Boschma, Ron, 2017. "The cognitive and geographical structure of knowledge links and how they influence firms’ innovation performance," MPRA Paper 76805, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:76805
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/76805/1/MPRA_paper_76805.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Gluckler, 2007. "Economic Geography and the Evolution of Networks," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 0704, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Apr 2007.
    2. Roderik Ponds & Frank Van Oort & Koen Frenken, 2007. "The geographical and institutional proximity of research collaboration," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(3), pages 423-443, August.
    3. Johannes Glückler, 2007. "Economic geography and the evolution of networks," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(5), pages 619-634, September.
    4. Nooteboom, Bart & Van Haverbeke, Wim & Duysters, Geert & Gilsing, Victor & van den Oord, Ad, 2007. "Optimal cognitive distance and absorptive capacity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1016-1034, September.
    5. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Raphaël Suire & Jerome Vicente, 2013. "Structural and geographical patterns of knowledge networks in emerging technological standards: evidence from the European GNSS industry," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 47-72, January.
    6. Anne Ter Wal & Ron Boschma, 2009. "Applying social network analysis in economic geography: framing some key analytic issues," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 43(3), pages 739-756, September.
    7. Stefano Breschi & Francesco Lissoni, 2003. "Mobility and Social Networks: Localised Knowledge Spillovers Revisited," KITeS Working Papers 142, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Mar 2003.
    8. Rolf Sternberg & Olaf Arndt, 2001. "The Firm or the Region: What Determines the Innovation Behavior of European Firms?," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(4), pages 364-382, October.
    9. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12864.
    10. Cassiman, Bruno & Colombo, Massimo G. & Garrone, Paola & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2005. "The impact of M&A on the R&D process: An empirical analysis of the role of technological- and market-relatedness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 195-220, March.
    11. Silvia Ferrari & Francisco Cribari-Neto, 2004. "Beta Regression for Modelling Rates and Proportions," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(7), pages 799-815.
    12. Holger Graf, 2011. "Gatekeepers in regional networks of innovators," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(1), pages 173-198.
    13. Roman Martin & Jerker Moodysson, 2010. "Innovation in Symbolic Industries: The Geography and Organization of Knowledge Sourcing," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(7), pages 1183-1203, September.
    14. Jasjit Singh, 2005. "Collaborative Networks as Determinants of Knowledge Diffusion Patterns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 756-770, May.
    15. Dirk Fornahl & Tom Broekel & Ron Boschma, 2011. "What drives patent performance of German biotech firms? The impact of R&D subsidies, knowledge networks and their location," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(2), pages 395-418, June.
    16. Cribari-Neto, Francisco & Zeileis, Achim, 2010. "Beta Regression in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 34(i02).
    17. Andre Torre & Alain Rallet, 2005. "Proximity and Localization," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 47-59.
    18. Tom Broekel & Ron Boschma, 2012. "Knowledge networks in the Dutch aviation industry: the proximity paradox," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 409-433, March.
    19. Corey C. Phelps, 2010. "A longitudinal study of the influence of alliance network structure and composition on firm exploratory innovation," Post-Print hal-00528392, HAL.
    20. Ron Boschma, 2005. "Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 61-74.
    21. Daniel Shefer & Amnon Frenkel, 1998. "original: Local milieu and innovations: Some empirical results," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 32(1), pages 185-200.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tom Broekel & Ron Boschma, 2011. "The cognitive and geographical composition of ego-networks of firms – and how they impact on their innovation performance," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1118, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2011.
    2. Lorenzo Cassi & Anne Plunket, 2014. "Proximity, network formation and inventive performance: in search of the proximity paradox," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(2), pages 395-422, September.
    3. Tom Broekel & Wladimir Mueller, 2018. "Critical links in knowledge networks – What about proximities and gatekeeper organisations?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(10), pages 919-939, November.
    4. Tom Broekel, 2015. "The Co-evolution of Proximities - A Network Level Study," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(6), pages 921-935, June.
    5. Tom Broekel & Ron Boschma, 2012. "Knowledge networks in the Dutch aviation industry: the proximity paradox," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 409-433, March.
    6. Ron Boschma & Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Dieter Kogler, 2011. "A relational approach to knowledge spillovers in biotech. Network structures as drivers of inter-organizational citation patterns," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1120, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Dec 2011.
    7. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Ron Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2020. "Proximity, Innovation and Networks: A Concise Review and Some Next Steps," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2019, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Mar 2020.
    8. Ron Boschma & Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Mathijs de Vaan, 2014. "The formation of economic networks: a proximity approach," Chapters, in: André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), Regional Development and Proximity Relations, chapter 7, pages 243-266, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Lorenzo Cassi & Anne Plunket, 2015. "Research Collaboration in Co-inventor Networks: Combining Closure, Bridging and Proximities," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(6), pages 936-954, June.
    10. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Ron Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2015. "Proximity and Innovation: From Statics to Dynamics," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(6), pages 907-920, June.
    11. Lorenzo Cassi & Anne Plunket, 2010. "The determinants of co-inventor tie formation: proximity and network dynamics," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1015, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Nov 2010.
    12. Xavier Molina-Morales, F. & Belso-Martínez, José A. & Más-Verdú, Francisco & Martínez-Cháfer, Luis, 2015. "Formation and dissolution of inter-firm linkages in lengthy and stable networks in clusters," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1557-1562.
    13. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Franz Huber & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2016. "Not too close, not too far: testing the Goldilocks principle of ‘optimal’ distance in innovation networks," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 465-487, August.
    14. Maria Tsouri, 2022. "Knowledge networks and strong tie creation: the role of relative network position," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 95-114, January.
    15. Gergő Tóth & Sándor Juhász & Zoltán Elekes & Balázs Lengyel, 2021. "Repeated collaboration of inventors across European regions," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(12), pages 2252-2272, December.
    16. Grzegorz Micek, 2019. "Geographical Proximity Paradox Revisited: The Case of IT Service SMEs in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-18, October.
    17. Susanne Hinzmann & Uwe Cantner & Holger Graf, 2019. "The role of geographical proximity for project performance: evidence from the German Leading-Edge Cluster Competition," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(6), pages 1744-1783, December.
    18. Christian Omobhude & Shih-Hsin Chen, 2019. "The Roles and Measurements of Proximity in Sustained Technology Development: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-30, January.
    19. Stefano Usai & Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2017. "Networks, Proximities, and Interfirm Knowledge Exchanges," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 40(4), pages 377-404, July.
    20. Mariia Shkolnykova & Muhamed Kudic, 2022. "Who benefits from SMEs’ radical innovations?—empirical evidence from German biotechnology," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 1157-1185, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    geographical proximity knowledge networks technological relatedness innovation performance;

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:76805. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.