Institutional Proximity Research Articles

Exploring financial centre networks through inter-urban collaboration in high-end financial transactions in China

ABSTRACTThis study employs social network analysis to investigate financial networks in China through collaboration between advanced producer services firms in initial public offerings. The results reveal that Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai have strategically dominant network positions, and that Beijing–Shenzhen is the most influential city dyad. Cities’ positions are explained by the advantages of both spatial and institutional proximity, defined by arm’s-length transactions to relevant partner firms and government bodies. The network hierarchy mirrors the country's political hierarchy, as network positionality is tied to the location of large state-owned enterprises, government regulators and the embedded power structures that reflect this.

Foundations in Spain: An International Comparison of a Dynamic Nonprofit Subsector

The goal of this article is threefold. First, it aims at understanding the dynamic positions of foundations (institutional proximities and purposes, approaches and roles) relative to church, state, market, and civil society. The institutional factors behind the transformation of the small and heterogeneous set of foundations existing in the country in the late 1980s, under scattered and restrictive regimes, into a relatively sizeable and influential sector of formally homogeneous nonprofits are explored. Second, it approaches the conceptualization of foundations in Spain and describes the recent evolution and current configuration of the sector with 2009 (year of the first foundation census) and 2014 (latest estimate available) as reference dates—illustrating them in comparative perspective. Third, its goal is to shed light on their advantages and disadvantages for relevant stakeholders in the context of evolving institutional proximities, foundation models, and prevailing typologies. In order to structure the discussion, the purposes, approaches, roles, benefits, and drawbacks of Spanish foundations will be compared with the German and U.S. anchors as depicted by Anheier and Hammack in this issue.

Addressing Complex Societal Problems: Enabling Multiple Dimensions of Proximity to Sustain Partnerships for Collective Impact in Quebec

Sustainable solutions for complex societal problems, like poverty, require informing stakeholders about progress and changes needed as they collaborate. Yet, inter-organizational collaboration researchers highlight monumental challenges in measuring seemingly intangible factors during collective impact processes. We grapple with the question: How can decision-makers coherently conceptualize and measure seemingly intangible factors to sustain partnerships for the emergence of collective impact? We conducted an inductive process case study to address this question, analyzing data from documents, observations, and interviews of 24 philanthropy leaders and multiple stakeholders in a decades-long partnership involving Canada’s largest private family foundation, government and community networks, and during which a “collective impact project” emerged in Quebec Province, Canada. The multidimensional proximity framework provided an analytical lens. During the first phase of the partnership studied, there was a lack of baseline measurement of largely qualitative factors—conceptualized as cognitive, social, and institutional proximity between stakeholders—which evaluations suggested were important for explaining which community networks successfully brought about desired outcomes. Non-measurement of these factors was a problem in providing evidence for sustained engagement of stakeholders, such as government and local businesses. We develop a multidimensional proximity model that coherently conceptualizes qualitative proximity factors, for measuring their change over time.

Sustainability-Oriented Innovation in the Minerals Industry: An Empirical Study on the Effect of Non-Geographical Proximity Dimensions

Minerals mining and processing companies (hereinafter referred to as “minerals industry”) face the increasing demand for a comprehensive approach towards innovations aimed at sustainability. While the ability to learn from external sources of knowledge is at the core of this process, lack of geographical proximity and multiplicity of external sources impose challenges for mineral companies in this respect. The present study proposes that organizational, institutional and cognitive proximities could provide a platform for this industry to overcome those challenges, thereby achieving a superior innovation performance across various sustainability dimensions. Results of an analysis based on a sample of 101 mineral companies in Norway reveal that these dimensions of proximity are conducive to process, product and social innovation in different ways. More specifically, organizational proximity (diversity of non-local collaborations) and informal institutional proximity (shared cultural norms and values) spur social innovation. Furthermore, formal institutional proximity (similarity of rules and laws) and cognitive proximity (familiarity of knowledge base) support both process and product innovations. This paper provides some insights on the determinants of innovation in sustainability contexts, and contributes to the recent debate on the role of non-spatial proximity dimensions for innovation in the peripheral regions.

Racial Expropriation in Higher Education: Are Whiter Hispanic Serving Institutions More Likely to Receive Minority Serving Institution Funds?

Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) are colleges with 25 percent or higher Latinx student bodies. Categorization as HSI permits institutions to apply for restricted competitive federal grants that are meant to help alleviate Latinx educational inequalities. However, HSI designations have increased fivefold over recent decades, leading to greater competition between them for these racially designated resources. This is the first known study to investigate patterns of racialized resource allocation to this subset of colleges. Multivariate results indicate that HSIs with larger white and smaller black student bodies are more likely to receive competitive funds, whereas the proportion of Latinx and Asian students is unassociated with funding receipt. These findings point to important distinctions among racialized organizations. Despite their overarching categorical racial designations (e.g., Hispanic Serving Institutions), racialized organizations’ institutional proximities to whiteness and distance from blackness may still shape the distribution of opportunities and resources.

Attitudes to trainee-led surgical mentoring.

Surgical mentorship remains important especially in an era of run-through training but can be hindered by the 'generation gap' between consultants and students. To cater for this, we established a trainee-led mentorship programme for medical students interested in surgery and herein report our initial findings. Our aim is to assess the attitudes of surgical mentors and mentees to a newly established surgical trainee-led mentorship programme to determine factors desirable for its successful delivery. Six first year surgical trainees enrolled as mentors in September 2014. Ninety students enrolled as mentees. During the second semester both mentees and mentors were surveyed by an anonymous questionnaire to assess attitudes to the programme. Data was collected from 85 respondents. Eighty-nine percent of mentees felt their participation had positively impacted their decision to pursue a surgical career. The main benefits were found to be in improving technical skills (40%), providing surgical career guidance (35%) and information about surgical training programmes (14%). Of the mentor qualities most appreciated, 89% preferred institutional proximity while 30 and 27% valued enthusiasm and approachability. Ninety-three percent felt gender is unimportant; 49% preferred a mentor in their speciality of interest. Mentors valued this responsibility drawing greater job satisfaction. Our study, the first to describe the experience and potential benefits of a surgical trainee-led mentoring programme in Ireland, demonstrates a significant appetite amongst students and surgical trainees for mentorship. Further evaluation of the importance of mentoring programmes and the role of trainees in their delivery are necessary.

Resource availability, international acquisition experience, and cross-border M&A target search

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explain how factors relating to resource availability affect managerial risk-taking with regard to the geographic and institutional proximity of cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) targets. The paper further considers the impact of organizational learning by testing the moderating effect of the acquiring firms’ prior international M&A experience.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses linear regression with robust standard errors to account for dependence among clustered observations at the firm level. The authors used country and industry fixed-effects specifications to account for unobserved heterogeneity.FindingsThe results suggest that when internal and external resources are more abundant, firms pursue cross-border M&As that are more geographically and institutionally distant. The findings further indicate that a firm’s prior international M&A experience positively moderates the aforementioned relationships..Research limitations/implicationsExtending the behavioral theory of the firm beyond organizational slack resources, the results highlight the importance of taking a multi-level, open-systems perspective of the strategic impact of resource availability. The authors’ theory and findings also provide a more nuanced view of the critical role organizational learning plays in the relationship between resource availability and organizational outcomes.Originality/valueThis is the first study to the authors’ knowledge that develops and tests a theoretical model exploring the impact of both internal (organizational slack) and external (environmental munificence at both the industry and home-country levels) resource availability, as well as prior organizational experience on an important multinational business practice.

Pan-European patterns of environmental concern: the role of proximity and international integration

While previous literature has studied the characteristics of populations and nations that shape cross-national patterns of environmental concern, one feature that may affect such patterns has largely been neglected in those studies: countries’ connectedness. This paper uses data for more than 260,000 individuals in 34 European countries, 2002–2013, to study how nations’ geographic, cultural, institutional, and economic proximity affect cross-national differences in environment-related attitudes. Borrowing from the literature on international policy diffusion, we hypothesize that citizens have more similar environmental attitudes if their countries are more proximate along those dimensions. Controlling for countries’ demographic, economic, and environmental characteristics, we find that countries that are more proximate in terms of geography, common culture and institutions, and intensity of trade relations have more similar environmental attitudes. Though we find a general cross-national divergence of environmental attitudes over the period considered, cultural and institutional proximity attenuate or reverse this trend. The significant role of proximity and connectedness suggests that the prospects for international coordination of environmental policies are most favorable within sufficiently integrated sets of countries.

Spatial effects in hospital expenditures: A district level analysis.

We use spatial econometric methods to analyse spillovers in hospital expenditures across Health Districts of the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy). We estimate spatial models that allow for global spillovers and distinguish between the expenditures associated with potentially inappropriate hospitalizations and those associated with complex medical procedures. We also investigate the relative contribution of geographical and institutional proximity in explaining spatial dependence, by explicitly modelling different connectivity structures and exploiting them to build alternative spatial weight matrices. We find that interactions largely differ between types of expenditures, with positive spatial effects for potentially inappropriate admissions, the effect being generally not significant for high-complexity expenditure. Relying on the estimated direct and indirect effects, we also test for the presence of spatial spillovers across districts. Finally, the paper draws policy implications for the public health planner.

De las redes de colaboración para la innovación al desarrollo de clusters de ciencia y tecnología. Dos casos de estudio en la Universidad Nacional de San Martín en Argentina

En este artículo discutimos las políticas orientadas a la promoción de clusters de ciencia y tecnología. En un cluster en formación vinculado a una universidad pública localizada en el conurbano de Buenos Aires, analizamos dos redes de cooperación desarrolladas bajo esquemas diferentes de políticas: bottom-up (kits diagnósticos para salud humana y animal) y top-down (diseño y caracterización de microdispositivos electrónicos). Adoptamos el enfoque de proximidades que permite caracterizar las tensiones entre oportunismo y encerramiento presentes en estas redes de cooperación. La metodología propuesta nos permite comparar cómo la red enfrenta estas tensiones bajo esquemas diferentes. Los resultados muestran que: ante una proximidad organizacional baja, con alto riesgo de oportunismo (bottom-up), la tendenciaes a compensar con mayor proximidad social y mayor estabilidad a partir de usuarios líderes; y ante una proximidad organizacional y tecnológica alta, con riesgo de encerramiento (top-down), la tendencia es de mayor apertura a nuevos usuarios.

Proximity and multinational enterprise co-location in clusters: a multiple case study of Dutch science parks

This paper explores the role of proximity in strategic asset-seeking multinational enterprises’ (MNE) co-location in subnational knowledge/innovation intensive clusters. MNE co-location in three Dutch science parks is examined in terms of the perceived importance of geographic, cognitive, social, organisational and institutional proximity dimensions. While all five proximity dimensions are found to play a role, organisational proximity emerged as the most important factor influencing MNE co-location in the Dutch science parks. This paper argues, in contrast to expectations for a high degree of relatedness and reinforcing effects between the five proximities, that an ‘optimal’ proximity constellation of low organisational proximity together with high social and cognitive proximity fosters MNE co-location in knowledge intensive clusters, such as science parks.

Economic growth and convergence: Do institutional proximity and spillovers matter?

This paper extends the existing studies on institutions-growth nexus in two ways: firstly, it estimates a growth model that is spatially augmented to capture the countries’ dependence, and secondly it measures the countries’ dependence using a newly proposed concept called institutional proximity, in addition to the commonly used geography. Spatial Durbin model, that includes not only spatially lagged dependent variable but also spatially lagged explanatory variables, is shown to be the most appropriate to describe the panel dataset used in this study, which comprises of observations from 58 developing countries for year 1984–2007. The results find that institutions, specifically the property rights institutions, matter for growth in developing countries. The results also find an evidence of indirect institutional spillovers where institutions in a country lead to growth improvement in the country and subsequently generate positive spillover effects on neighbors’ economic growth. The results also yield robust support to the concept of augmented convergence process as a result of neighboring effects and its speed is relatively higher than the conventional β-convergence of a standard growth model. The greater convergence speed is consistent across a number of spatial models using both geographical and institutional proximity measures. The paper finally concludes with several policy implications for developing countries as far as the effects of institutional proximity and spillovers on growth and convergence are concerned.

Spatial club dynamics in European regions

This paper studies the spatial agglomeration dynamics of a sample of 224 European regions in the period 1991–2012 by a dynamic extension of the Moran scatterplot, consisting in a nonparametric estimate of the joint dynamics of GDP per worker and its spatial lag. We find evidence that the twin-peaked distribution of GDP per worker in 2012 is the result of the existence of three spatial clubs: the first mainly populated by regions belonging to the former Eastern Bloc countries, the second by regions of the Southern Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Italy, and Spain) and the third by regions of other EU countries (notably Germany, France, UK and Northern European countries). Spatial externalities appears to be mainly driven by geographical, technological and social proximities, and only marginally by institutional proximities. Local spatial dependence is a pervasive phenomenon, and only the low-GDP per worker regions with similar neighbours seem to be immune. The 30-year ahead forecast of GDP per worker distribution suggests a weak convergence among the three clubs and a persistent spatial agglomeration in the future.

Proximity as determinant of business cooperation for technological and non-technological innovations: a study of an agribusiness cluster

PurposeThis paper aims to use the proximity approach of economic geography with its spatial dimension (geographic) and their non-spatial dimensions (social, institutional, cognitive and organizational) to shed light on the determinants of business cooperation with other organizations. It is also examined whetherthis cooperation is a determining factor for business innovation (innovation networks), drawing a distinction between technological and non-technological innovations.Design/methodology/approachThe study has a quantitative approach; it analyzes the case of 312 companies in a cluster of agribusinesses in an emerging economy (Chile). The proposal model and its interrelations are tested with exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results show that cognitive-organizational proximity is a positive determinant of business cooperation with other organizations, whereas social and institutional proximity are negative determinants. It is also established that business cooperation is a positive determinant of business innovation. It is more relevant in the case of technological innovation unlike non-technological innovations. In addition, it is noted that business cooperation levels are lower in micro-enterprises, a result that differs from developed countries.Practical implicationsFor business managers, it is best to cooperate with companies that are similar in terms of cognitive and organizational levels for innovation. At the same time, it is necessary develop strategies to reduce the social and institutional barriers to cooperation, especially in the agribusiness sector.Originality/valueThe contributions of the study are as follows: an in-depth quantitative examination of the relationships of various non-spatial proximities as determinants of business cooperation; an analysis of whether business cooperation with other organizations is a determining factor for business innovation, distinguishing between technological and non-technological innovation; and testing these relationships in the context of agribusiness in an emerging economy such as Chile’s because most of studies are related to high-tech sector and developed economies.

Academic inventors: collaboration and proximity with industry

This paper addresses a number of fundamental research questions on university–industry (U–I) collaborations. Are U–I collaborations intrinsically different from other forms of collaboration, such as inter-firm or inter-university collaborations? Are they more difficult to form? Is their output qualitatively different? What factors facilitate their development? By looking at the collaborative behavior of all Italian inventors over the 1978–2007 period, the empirical analysis shows that U–I collaborations are less likely to happen when compared to collaborations involving exclusively university partners of business partners, and suggests that they tend to generate patents of more general applicability in subsequent inventions—measured by forward-citations. As emphasized by the literature, geographical proximity plays an important role in facilitating all forms of collaboration. At the same time, it works as a possible substitute for institutional proximity, facilitating U–I collaborations. However, the involvement of ‘star inventors’ on both sides of the collaboration can play an equally important role in ‘bridging’ universities and industry.

WYŁANIAJĄCE SIĘ MODELE KAPITALIZMU W POLSCE I KRAJACH EUROPY ŚRODKOWO-WSCHODNIEJ NA TLE EUROPY ZACHODNIEJ

This article presents the results of the study which aims to enrich the empirical picture and to better understand the nature of capitalism emerging in Poland and other new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE11). Our main research goal is to assess the degree of similarity of Poland and other CEE11 countries toward each of the four models of capitalism in Western Europe distinguished by Bruno Amable. Each of these models is represented by an “ideal-typical” western European country. At the average level for the whole analyzed group, the CEE11 countries show the greatest similarity to the Mediterranean model of capitalism, represented by Spain/Italy. At the same time, these countries also exhibit quite high institutional proximity to the continental model of capitalism, represented by Germany.

Moving to the Gulf: an empirical analysis of the patterns and drivers of migration to the GCC countries, 1960–2013

The migration system in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf is among the largest such systems in the world. This article identifies the major interacting elements of this system, which primarily includes countries in South Asia and the Middle East, and discusses its generating forces and developments over the past five and a half decades. Departing from panel data from the World Bank and the UN’s population database, which hitherto have been largely under-analysed, we investigate the dynamics of migrations in the period 1960–2013. The panel data are combined with cross-sectional outlooks of contemporary trends and are related to political and economic developments in the region. It is suggested that the patterns of migrations in the Gulf may be explained with reference to the economic, political and demographic idiosyncrasies of the system, and to the migration policies of the GCC countries. In short, the key drivers of GCC migration patterns include: (1) socio-economic realities, in particular income differentials between migrant senders and migrant receivers as well as impressive growth rates in the Gulf region; (2) historical, cultural and institutional proximity among the constituent states in the system; and (3) the particularities of the Gulf states’ liberal labour-migrant regimes, which contrast starkly with their restrictive refugee and naturalisation policies.

Institutional proximity and the size and geography of foreign direct investment spillovers: Do European firms generate more favourable productivity spillovers in the European Union neighbourhood?

The European Union (EU) association framework provides European businesses with an entry advantage into the associated countries by facilitating production links and encouraging institutional convergence. It is believed that this has multiple beneficial effects for the associated countries, including ones related to productivity spillovers accruing to domestic firms. However, no empirical evidence exists to show that the presence of European firms produces larger productivity spillovers in recipient economies compared to firms from other world regions. We examine this question using firm-level data covering 28 transition countries over the period 2002–2009. We estimate the intra-industry productivity effects of foreign ownership and examine how these differ across regional blocks (Central and Eastern Europe, South East Europe and European Neighbourhood Policy), by origin of investor (EU15 versus non-EU15), across geographical scales (national versus regional) and for different types of locations (capital-city regions versus the rest). Our results suggest that investments of EU origin play a distinctive role, helping raise domestic productivity in the associated countries unlike investments from outside the EU. However, this process operates in a spatially selective manner, potentially enhancing regional disparities and spatial imbalances. This assigns a particular responsibility for EU policy to devise interventions that will help redress these problems within its existing association framework.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: When Proximities Matter for Mutual Fund Flows

We analyze the aggregate investment of 22,900 worldwide mutual funds and question factors that promote accessibility to foreign stock markets for these investors when they allocate their assets outside their domestic market. A gravity model is proposed to test the influence of geographical, institutional and cognitive proximity in explaining asset trading by mutual funds. While mutual funds invest primarily in large stock markets and in countries with similar legal systems and the same language or culture, we find robust evidence of a geographical pattern in the distribution of their assets. Investments are located primarily in countries close to home, attesting that despite the globalization of stock markets and the high mobility of capital, geography is still relevant for understanding transactions of mutual funds. Results depending on which geographical, institutional and cognitive proximity promotes accessibility to foreign markets remain robust when introducing the issue of time horizons of investors.

Relatedness and diversification in the European Union (EU-27) and European Neighbourhood Policy countries

This paper analyzes the process of industrial diversification in the countries that were part of the European Union (EU-27) and those that were the target of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in the period 1995–2010 by means of world trade data derived from the BACI database (elaborated UN Comtrade data). Our results show that in both the EU-27 and the ENP countries, the evolution of the productive structure—as proxied by the export mix—is strongly path-dependent: countries tend to keep a comparative advantage in products that are strongly related to their current productive structure, and they also diversify in nearby products. However, this effect is much stronger for ENP countries, signalling their lower resources and capabilities to diversify in products that are not very related to their productive structure. We also show that the future export structures of countries are affected by their imports: both the EU-27 and ENP countries keep a comparative advantage in products that are strongly related to their imports, but only EU countries show a strong capability to diversify in new products from related import sectors. Our results also hold when controlling for geographical and institutional proximity.