Abstract
The article aims to explore which types of proximity approach can foster university–industry (U-I) collaborations for innovation and discuss the role of different dimension regional absorptive capacity in cooperation to promote inter-regional partnerships from “unbalance” to “coordination”. Therefore, we intercept 484 pairs of cooperative entities and analyze proximity effects and heterogeneity cross-regional U-I collaborations by hierarchical regression. The results show: (1) In non-local contexts, geographic distance is not a hamper for improving innovation performance. The economic development level has no significantly different effects on such a role. (2) Technological proximity plays a negative role in increasing innovative performance, and the eastern region has the most noticeable results. (3) The closer in social distance can get more innovation performance in eastern and western, but the central area negatively affects. (4) The U-I collaborations for innovation performance-enhancing advantages are not equal for all regions but are moderating by specific regional absorptive capacity dimensions. The areas with a higher level of internal human capital can get more catch-up effects. The lagging regions should increase talents to promote cross-regional cooperation for catching up. In contrast, the prosperous areas should take advantage of the talent-gathering effects to promote knowledge spillover.
Highlights
From academic “ivory towers” to complex economic organizations, the relationship between universities and the economy is getting closer [1]
We explore the influences of diversity proximity on university– industry (U-I) collaborations and analyze whether there is a catch-up effect of regional absorptive capacity on such a relationship to promote
Social proximity is positively related to the cross-regional innovation performance of U-I collaborations
Summary
From academic “ivory towers” to complex economic organizations, the relationship between universities and the economy is getting closer [1]. The blurring of organizational boundaries and the emphasis on external resources’ availability have made U-I collaborations a major source for knowledge production and new technological innovations [4,5]. The regional edge as the externality is rooted in the correlation between knowledge production and the overall level of economic activities and is more significant than the barriers such as organizational structure, goals, and culture on the scale of cities or regions [10]. Context perspective showed us that U-I interactions in prosperous or lagging regions might lead to Sustainability 2021, 13, 3539. Context perspective showed us that U-I interactions in prosperous or lagging regions might lead to very very different outcomes [11,12]. Understanding the inter-regional U-I collaborative knowledge great significance.
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