Developing survey metrics for analysing cross-border proximity

Abstract

Cross-border innovation cooperation (CBIC) has been heralded as one of the corner stones of innovation-driven growth opportunities for firms located in cross-border regions (CBRs). The success of this cooperation is affected by varying types of proximities identified in the literature as geographical, institutional, cultural, cognitive, technological, organizational and social. Although the topic has been widely discussed, the validation of the concept of proximity vis-à-vis CBIC has been persistently hindered by a lack of readily available empirical metrics. Therefore, this research note attempts to operationalize the varying types of proximity – in relation to CBIC – in the form of a questionnaire tested through pilot studies of two CBRs, at the Finnish–Swedish and Danish–German border, and for two contrasting service industries, namely knowledge-intensive business services and tourism. The findings indicate that the developed survey metrics are effective in depicting the phenomenon of proximity. The foundational work undertaken in this research note provides a platform, and catalyst, for more extensive investigations of the topic.

Keywords:

• Cross-border region
• cross-border cooperation
• innovation
• knowledge-intensive business services
• proximity
• tourism

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the survey respondents for their time and effort, to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and to Charlotte Lund Hansen, Rannveig Edda Hjaltadóttir and Timo Mitze from the University of Southern Denmark, Stephan Rohde from the University of Flensburg and Mats Stjernberg from the University of Helsinki for their help in translating our questionnaire into Danish, German and Swedish.