| In the knowledge economy era, enhancing innovative ability has become China’s central link for adjusting industrial structure and changing economic growth pattern due to resource-led growth transferring to innovation-led growth pattern. Innovations are the motivity of economic development and knowledge resources are the key innovative input. Knowledge spillovers are the voluntary or involuntary mobility, transfer or diffusion of knowledge, whose externalities will cause losses to its owner. However, Knowledge resources, which are competitive and partly exclusive public products, can be fully realized their value only through the sharing of knowledge resources. And the sharing of knowledge resources is also conducive to the creation of new knowledge and the increase of overall knowledge stock. The ability to produce, acquire, diffuse, and apply knowledge is the key to improve the innovative ability. The research on the relationship between proximity and innovation by French School Proximity Dynamics shows that the geographic, organizational and technological proximity and their mutual contact among nations, regions, industries and firms are conducive to interactive learning, acquire knowledge and achieve innovative success. Therefore, studying the relationship between proximity, knowledge spillover and innovation is of theoretical and practical significance.Firstly, the paper introduces the scientific trajectory of the French School of proximity, and defines the connotation of proximity based on generalizing the principles and purposes of their research, and further develops the connotation of the geographical proximity, the organizational proximity and the technological proximity within the framework of inter-organizational cooperation. Specifically, in geographical proximity, the economic agents’temporary geographical proximity and their open learning mental attitude are important ways of access to knowledge spillovers; Organizational proximity refers to the close degree of organizations among economic agents, and it is a regulatory structure from the transaction cost theory, which can reduce the transaction costs of knowledge spillover process and inhibit opportunistic behavior of economic agents. Therefore, establishing the appropriate organizational network is an important institution for ensuring knowledge spillovers; Technological proximity refers to the similarity of the knowledge base in economic agents, and it is the premise of the economic agents exchange and access to knowledge spillovers. This paper analyzes the types of knowledge, the knowledge spillovers content, the approaches of knowledge spillovers and its role in innovation, and the mechanism of proximity effects on knowledge spillovers and innovation from the geographical proximity, organizational proximity and technological proximity. In the relationship among the geographic proximity, the organizational proximity and the technological proximity, they can be alone or in the ways of combination to impose on the impact of economic agent’s innovation. The paper derives the relationship between proximity and innovation in mathematical method.Secondly, the paper makes use of microscopic economic model to analyze the relationship among proximity, knowledge spillover and firms cluster innovation. Firms and other relevant institutions have a "natural" geographical, organizational and technical multi-dimensional proximity in the industrial cluster. Industrial cluster is the best spatial organization that firms gain access to knowledge spillovers. Although the multi-dimensional proximity is benefit of knowledge spillovers and innovation for firms and other agents, but too little or too much geographical proximity, organizational proximity and technological proximity are also the negative effects on economic agents. The paper studies the optimization mechanism of the innovative performance in trade-off the positive and negative effects of proximity on firm’s innovation through the introduction of knowledge spillovers parameters and the concept of proximity strength. Specifically, Access to knowledge spillovers is the "centripetal force" for firms in the geographical proximity, organizational proximity, technological proximity, that is to say, firms need multi-dimensional proximity in order to obtain knowledge spillovers. In production, on the one hand, the multi-dimensional proximity for firms can achieve knowledge spillovers, enhance the efficiency factor and reduce variable costs; On the other hand, firms also need to bear the cost of access to knowledge because knowledge is not pure public products, multi-dimensional proximity is conducive to process innovation through sharing the cost and the risk. In demand, consumer’s diverse preferences are the "traction" that enterprises engaged in product innovation. Product innovation requires new ideas and new knowledge, but it is easily for firms to lead to "locking" in the technology because of too much proximity. Firms have a tendency to move to outlying cluster to improve the consumer appeal of their products. Therefore, firms need to balance the positive and negative effects of proximity on innovation in the cluster so as to achieve the maximum innovation performance. Thirdly, this paper studies the high-tech industries and discuses the theory mechanism and the economic effects of geographical proximity, organizational proximity and technological proximity on the innovation performance of high-tech industries. The High-tech industries are tacit knowledge-intensive, the degree of resource flowing fast and strong cross-industry, and proximity is conducive to knowledge spillovers and flows between high-tech industries. This paper examines the geographical proximity, the organizational proximity and the technical proximity effect on high-tech industries innovation by using double logarithmic production function type of regional innovation and innovative input and output data in China’s provincial high-tech industries. The results show that:The innovation performance of high-tech industries is relevant to not only R&D expenditure and human capital investment within the regions, but also a strong links with its activities in the neighboring region, thus confirming the important role of the geographical proximity (including the geographical proximity in the regional level) on knowledge spillovers and innovation in high-tech industries. R&D expenditure and human capital investment have different roles on knowledge spillover. The regional R&D expenditures make localized knowledge spillovers, but the R&D funding for high-tech industries in the neighboring regions has no positive spillover effects, and the human capital investment in the neighboring regions and non-adjacent region’s has significant positive effect on the knowledge spillover and innovation, which also confirmed the importance of the temporary geographical proximity in flows human capital and knowledge spillovers, but also implied the importance of the establishment and improvement of regional high-tech industries network of organizations and the roles of the organizational proximity in knowledge spillover. Under the technical non-neutral conditions, the polarization effects of the high-tech industries in the same field of technology for specialized production and management activities will also affect innovation performance. Under the introduction of technological proximity parameters, the empirical research on this paper shows that: Technological proximity shows a significant positive impact on knowledge spillover and innovation, but the human capital investments in adjacent areas have reduced the impact on innovation, which also shows that technological proximity and the geographical proximity are not a replacement channel for knowledge spillovers, the technological proximity and the geographical proximity are complementary and mutually staggered relationship, which together exert influence on innovation performance. Fourthly, this paper analyzes the relationships among the proximity, knowledge spillovers and regional innovation system. The interaction of the economic agents within the regional innovative system and the linkages with the external regions determines the value of regional networks and regional economic operation quality. In order to reveal the important roles of the proximity on the regional innovative system, the paper analyzes the internal and external links of regional innovative system and the role of the business activities of entrepreneurs and knowledge-based new firms (NKBFs) in regional innovation system. It discusses the proximity effects on knowledge spillovers and the innovative performance in regional innovative systems from the geographical proximity, the organizational proximity and the technological proximity. According to the above theoretical analysis, the paper empirically analyzes of the relationship among proximity, knowledge spillovers and regional innovation system, which based on a sample of the Zhongguancun Science Park. The results of the study show that:Proximity is conducive to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial activities of high-level talent, especially for the knowledge-based new enterprises founded by the returned students play an important role for the internal and external links in Zhongguancun regional innovation system and innovation. Therefore, fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship, introducing high-level overseas returnee’s start-ups are important partes in the construction of the regional innovation system.Finally, the paper summarizes the relationship among the proximity, knowledge spillover and innovation. And it suggests the innovative policies on firms, high-tech industries, and regional innovation system from the perspective of proximity. |
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