Proximities, knowledge acquisition and exploitation in high-tech start-ups

Traditional studies consider the acquisition and exploitation of knowledge as a result of frequent interactions between business actors strongly reinforced by their geographical proximity, since the spillovers of knowledge are geographically localised. However, a lot of other empirical studies suggest that geographical proximity is neither a prerequisite nor a sufficient condition for reinforcing the processes of knowledge management. This paper intends to verify the impact of geographical proximity on the processes of knowledge acquisition and exploitation by co-localised start-ups, considering at the same time the role of both social and cognitive dimensions of proximity. Our results show a negative influence of geographical proximity on both knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation by a local start-up. Moreover, we empirically verify that while social and cognitive proximity have a positive significant influence on acquisition and exploitation of tacit knowledge, they strongly limit the acquisition and exploitation of codified knowledge.