The impacts of multi-proximity on University-Industry collaboration toward enterprises innovation performance: A mediating role of knowledge embeddedness

The purpose of this study is to explore the relative influence of multidimensional proximity to explain the innovation performance of university–industry collaboration(UIC) by investigating UIC innovation activities from eight regions in China. Specifically, we focus on the influence of geographical, cognitive, and social network proximity on the innovation performance of enterprises and examine whether knowledge embeddedness affect these relationships. The findings show that both cognitive and social network proximity have a significant positive effect on cooperative innovation performance, whereas geographical proximity does not affect innovation. In addition, proximity drawing on knowledge embeddedness encourages efficient knowledge flow and improves innovation performance. The results clarify the relationships among multidimensional proximity and knowledge embeddedness and provide theoretical guidance for innovation by real-world university–industry collaborations.