A Proximity Approach to Understanding University-Industry Collaborations for Innovation in Non-Local Context: Exploring the Catch-Up Role of Regional Absorptive Capacity

Shu Yu and Takaya Yuizono
Additional contact information
Shu Yu: School of Management, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China
Takaya Yuizono: School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi 923-1292, Japan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-19

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.

Keywords: proximity; university–industry collaborations; regional absorptive capacity; innovation performance; catch-up role (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3539/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3539/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:6:p:3539-:d:522258

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().