The problem of embeddedness revisited: Collaboration and market types

Kristina Vaarst Andersen

Research Policy, 2013, vol. 42, issue 1, 139-148

Abstract: Embeddedness has been touted as a framework for knowledge exchange and innovation, and thus as an important precondition for high-level performance. Embeddedness of economic action in social relations improves access to resources, but over-embeddedness impedes performance. However, until now the association between embeddedness and performance in different markets has been neglected. This paper challenges the predominant view of embeddedness and over-embeddedness as absolute and mutually exclusive conditions. Through regression analyses of novel data from a project-based industry, the paper tests the association between embeddedness and economic performance in different markets, finding a positive association in the domestic market, but a negative association in foreign markets. This divergence in performance is caused in part by selection bias in the access to foreign markets, and in part by accumulation of localized knowledge.

Keywords: Embeddedness; Knowledge transfer; Opportunity allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D85 L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733312001424
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:42:y:2013:i:1:p:139-148

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2012.05.005

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().