Measuring social proximity in the geography of innovation

Marie Ferru (1) , Marie-Pierre Renée Bes (2) , Michel Grossetti (3)

1 CRIEF [Poitiers] - Centre de recherche sur l'intégration économique et financière
2 ISAE-SUPAERO - Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace
3 LISST - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires

Considering the role of interpersonal ties in the formation of innovation partnerships, the concept of social proximity has been increasingly used these recent years for the analysis of the geography of innovation. Nevertheless, the existing works reveal problems of measurement that prevent determining the precise weigh of social proximity in the partnerships build-up and deducing its effect on the geography of innovation. Our purpose is to fill in this gap by defining precisely social proximity as a modality of partners networking. On this basis, we propose an original method for empirically tracking the weigh and effects of social proximity, and we apply it to more than 200 cases of French science-industry collaborations. The combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to construct and analyze relational data makes it possible to reaffirm both the significant and stable role of interpersonal ties and its significant but variable effect on the geography of partnerships.

Mots clés: Interpersonal ties - Social proximity - Science-industry partnerships - Geography of innovation - Mixed method analysis

Domaines: Sociologie; Economies et finances

Marie Ferru, Marie-Pierre Renée Bes, Michel Grossetti. Measuring social proximity in the geography of innovation: application for the French science-industry collaborations study . New Challenges for European Regions and Urban Areas in a Globalised World , 51st European Congress of the Regional Science Association International, Aug 2011, Barelone, Spain. ⟨halshs-01395667⟩