Accessing and Integrating Distant Capabilities in Smart Industry Projects

Information asymmetry between backers and project creators impedes the crowdfunding success. Consequently, creators usually rely on various information to alleviate information asymmetry. Particularly, the location information of both backers and creators embodies their geographic and cultural distance, which may affect crowdfunding project attractiveness. Whereas current literature almost ignores the role cultural distance in crowdfunding, this research focuses on the reward-based crowdfunding, so that it becomes salient to form the appreciation and judgment of the innovative, creative, or artistic nature of projects. Meanwhile, geographic distance is examined to join the debates between flat world hypothesis and home bias proposition. A series of econometric models are examined based on a sample of 264 fundraising projects collected from Kitckstarter.com through Python program. Results show that cultural distance exerts a U-shape effect, which initially impedes the crowdfunding performance but promote projects when large enough. Geographic distance generally exerts insignificant impact on crowdfunding performance. Furthermore, cultural and geographic distance exerts the asymmetric effects on experienced versus new backers. This article underscores the important implications of cultural distance on reward-based crowdfunding. By showing the differential effects of cultural and geographic distance on experience versus new backers, it empirically infers the social capital as the underlying mechanism.

Bridging what we know: The effect of cognitive distance on knowledge-intensive business services produced offshore

How does distance affect foreign direct investment? Subject of this research is to determine important factors for the United Kingdom, when undertaking foreign direct investment (FDI). The UK is therefore estimated as the home country of investment, investing in the form of FDI in multiple host countries. More specifically, this research measures determinants of FDI outward stock from the UK to other OECD countries. This research examines how distance affects foreign direct investment and provides twofold contribution. First: Hofstede culture distance effects on foreign direct investment is measured. Second: Geographical kilometer distance effects on foreign direct investment is measured. Methodology used in this research is based on the gravity model, presenting a model setup designed for international trade. Moreover, the research applies foreign direct investment OECD data, together with data on gross domestic product and population. The equation specification combines the economic variables with measures for geographical distances, and the Hofstede Culture measure. First regression equation estimates FDI as a function of GDP, population and Culture Distance. Second regression equation estimates FDI as a function of GDP, population and Geographical Distance. This regression setup provides a clear opportunity to estimate the difference between impact of cultural and geographical distance, represented in the estimation coefficients of the regressions. The British Empire has evolved and through time developed the British culture. Purpose of this current research is to examine how cultural distance and geographical distance impact foreign direct investment, with foreign direct investment often being an indicator of the long-term commitment of foreign investors. Furthermore, with the purpose of finding how foreign direct investment is impacted by several different cultural factors, we analyze various dimensions of the Hofstede culture. These are the power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), the masculinity/femininity (MAS), and the uncertainty avoidance (UAI). Conclusion is that, all taken together, the research finds foreign direct investment from the UK going to other OECD countries to be more highly affected by geographical distance than cultural distance. Which is interesting considering Brexit. Potentially, this is because the UK is not so culturally different from its main trading partners in the OECD, which is an interesting subject for future research.

Research Summary While geographic and cultural distances deter firms' international expansion, they do so via different mechanisms, such that firms with advantages in overcoming one‐dimension may face disadvantages in overcoming the other. Larger, older, and state‐owned firms have better access to resources in their home countries than smaller, younger, and non‐state‐owned firms, and thus are less concerned about the high operating costs associated with larger geographic distances. However, they are less adaptable to culturally distant countries and thus are more concerned about larger cultural distances. We propose that firm size, age, and state ownership weaken the deterrent effect of geographic distance while amplifying the deterrent effect of cultural distance. Results using data on Chinese firms' location choices of foreign direct investments in 2001–2013 support our predictions. Managerial Summary A key decision that managers need to make in expanding overseas is the foreign location choice. Although managers generally refrain from expanding to geographically and culturally distant countries, the importance of geographic and cultural distances in their consideration varies across firms, which tend to differ in resource endowment and adaptability. Because larger, older, and state‐owned firms are better positioned to absorb additional operating costs but are less adaptable to foreign countries' local environments than smaller, younger, and non‐state‐owned firms, the deterrent effect of geographic distance (cultural distance) is weaker (stronger) for the former than for the latter. Our findings show that foreign countries that seem to be good fits when considering geographic distance may be misfits when considering cultural distance, and vice versa.

The design of a distributed architecture for the detection of covert attacks in interconnected Cyber-Physical Systems is addressed in this paper, in the presence of stochastic uncertainties. By exploiting communication between neighbors, the proposed scheme allows for the detection of covert attacks that are locally stealthy. The proposed methodology adopts a decentralized filter, jointly estimating the local state and the aggregate effect of the physical interconnections, and uses the communicated estimates to obtain an attack-sensitive residual. We derive some theoretical detection properties for the proposed architecture, and present numerical simulations.

This study tests geographic distance as a moderator of the curvilinear relationship between cultural distance and a firm's preference for shared ownership entry mode. The sample consisted of US foreign direct investments in 60 countries spread over 18 years. Results showed that an inverted U‐shaped relationship between cultural distance and preference for shared ownership is stronger for firms separated by high geographic distance. While full equity ownership is most likely when both cultural and geographic distances are either low or high, shared ownership is most likely when the cultural distance is high (low) but the geographic distance is low (high). Copyright © 2012 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ABSTRACTThis research focuses on how cultural and geographical distance affect trade. The question is whether UK exports are similarly affected by Hofstede national culture distance and geographical distance. OECD data is applied to the United Kingdom’s exports as well as Hofstede cultural distance. The research also accounts for the trading countries’ economic size, as well as their market size, in order to account for economies of scale. Results indicate that exports are more impacted by geographical distance than the cultural distance between the UK and its main trading partners.

This research aims to investigate the entry process of higher education institutions in Brazil, in particular, the case of Laureate International Universities. To do so, Cultural, Administrative, Economic and Geographic distances – CAGE Framework – were used and which of these distances has more importance in this entry process. A single case study was carried on. Data were collected from interviews, newspapers, and documents. Content analysis was done by grouping convergent ideas on dendrograms (trees words) which were evaluated 17 key terms to elucidate this research. The survey showed that in the case of Laureate international universities the cultural, administrative, geographic and economic distances influenced the entry process partially. Regarding all distances, Cultural distance is the most important aspect of the language and religion which imposes very different norms and behavior for conducting business and personal relationship. A second distance that has an impact is Administrative, concerning with currency instability as inflation, and for Economic distance, infrastructure differences are the most important point.

The prior literature suggests that both geographic distance and cultural distance between countries deter foreign direct investment (FDI) between them. We propose that influence of geographic and cultural distances on FDI location choices may hinge on the level of the investing firms establishment in their home countries. More specifically, we propose the level of home country establishment may paradoxically influence the effects of geographic distance and cultural distance on FDI location choices in which it weakens the effect of geographic distance but amplifies the effect of cultural distance. Based upon a large sample of Chinese MNEs in 2001-2013, our findings strongly support these predictions. Using firm size, firm age, and state ownership as the proxies for the level of firm establishment in home country, we find that the negative effect of geographic distance on FDI location choice is weaker for larger firms, for older firms and for SOEs, whereas the negative effect of cultural distance on FDI location choice is stronger for larger firms, for older firms and for SOEs.

Management at a distance is increasingly employed to organize hospital resources, of which professionally skilled staff is the key component. Mergers often imply distant management. The study examines the internal management aspects for two hospitals in two consecutive mergers, 5 years apart. We focus on how geographical and cognitive distances are experienced by middle managers and their followers. We find that the concept of distance plays significant and different roles in managing units in an organization with distant top management teams. Our findings indicate that hospital professionals’ positive perception of their relationship with top managers, as measured by cognitive distance, can outweigh the possible negative effects of large geographical distances between hospital units and top management teams. Our study also indicates that information systems and communication mechanisms may mitigate the possible perceived negative effects of distance. Our findings imply that politicians, policymakers, and National Health Service’ management should be aware of the effects of distances in implementing new collaborative management arrangements. We recognize that our study is limited in context, time, and scale. We welcome further research on comparative analyses of the complex interplay between physical and cognitive distances in other hospitals and also other types of organizations.

We propose an intelligent supply chain system collaborating with customer relationship management system in order to assess change in a supply partner's capability over a period of time. The system embeds machine learning methods and is designed to evaluate a partner's supply capability that can change over time and to satisfy different procurement conditions across time periods. We apply the system to the procurement and management of the agricultural industry.

As distance is often one of the main factors in a tourist’s decision to visit a given location, tourism companies often attempt to lower the impact of geographic distance through promotion and related efforts. The focus of this paper is on the business strategy of tourism companies in a competitive market. We examine methods to shorten geographic distance and cognitive distance within a homogenous market consisting of two competing tourism companies. Specifically, we first deal with the question of how to shorten the cognitive distance between a tourism company and its potential tourists’ psychological status. We then address the impact of geographic distance on the tourist’s choice of travel destination. Through an endogenous business strategy, we discuss the differentiation strategies under the three-stage game process, acquiring a better understanding of the relationship between proximity investment sizes and pricing. The results show that spill-over effect is the decisive factor in a tourism company’s investment decision. We also find that non-cooperation is a better strategy for a tourism company in a competitive market. Key words: Friction of distance, cognitive proximity, three-stage game, spill-over effect.

This paper estimates a hedonic model of revenues for 1431 American movies in 45 non-American countries over the period 2002–2013. Such an extensive analysis is proven to be useful to estimate the effect of indicators of geographical and cultural distance on total revenue and the number of American films exported to non-American countries once the model specification also controls for relevant film features. It is found that indicators of cultural and geographical distance, in addition to the Human Development Index, have a significant effect on both the number of American films shown and the revenue obtained. Estimation results have been also used to appraise the importance of film features in different groups of countries from the perspective of their degree of development and distance from the USA.

Cross-national uncertainty and level of control in cross-border acquisitions: A comparison of Latin American and U.S. multinationals

Which distance dimensions matter in international research collaboration? A cross-country analysis by scientific domain