Proximity and its impact on the formation of product and process innovation networks among producer firms

Abstract

Informal networks among manufacturing firms play an important role in the transfer of knowledge in industrial clusters. Proximity facilitates the networking process; however, empirical evidence on the relationship between multiple proximity dimensions and different kinds of innovation networks is scarce, especially in developing economies. Using multiple regression quadratic assignment procedures (MRQAP), this paper studies the relationship between four proximity dimensions and innovation networks for new product and new process innovations in the Lahore textile cluster in Pakistan. Our findings suggest that both geographic and non-geographic proximity dimensions show a distinct impact on product and process innovations networks.

Spatial structure and proximity mechanism of cross-city patient mobility networks in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China: Based on patient online evaluation data

“…Proximity has commonly been used to explore issues related to enterprise and regional innovation cooperation and has since been widely applied in studies of spatial interactions among various elements (Golra et al, 2023;Sheng & Ding, 2024). Boschma (2005) developed an analytical framework consisting of institutional proximity, geographical proximity, social proximity, cognitive proximity, and organizational proximity; this framework has been recently incorporated into studies of population migration networks (M. Chen et al, 2020;Li Y. et al, 2022;Meng et al, 2023;.…”