The Impact Of Proximity On Knowledge Transfer Performance In Interfirm Networks

With the development of knowledge economy, knowledge is becoming the most important strategic resources which can help enterprises to gain sustainable competitive adavantage. Under the guidance of the open innovation, knowledge transfer activities are essential for enterprises and play a key role in continuous innovation, especially for SMEs. And, in the context of globalization, interfirm network provides an effective mechanism for firms to improve technology and innovation capacity. And interfirm network also creates a good knowledge transfer platform for enterprises to facilitate the performance and innovative capability.In this research, based on the relevant study of interfirm network and knowledge transfer, we put forword the conceptual framework of proximity and interfirm network attributes positively influencing knowledge transfer performance. This study contains empirical analysis and simulation experiments. In the part of empirical analysis, based on the survey on SMEs and statistic analysis, we focus on the effect of proximity to the knowledge transfer performance. In the part of simulation, based on empirical study results, we simulate knowledge transfer activities under different network situations to study the dynamics of network evolution though NetLogo.The main conclusions of this study include: first, the empirical analysis results show that the knowledge proximity and organization proximity have positive impact on firms' knowledge transfer performance, while the geographical proximity has no significant influence on firms' knowledge transfer performance. Second, the simulation study find that the network scale, network stability, and the initial network density have positive impact on interfirm network's knowledge transfer performance. However, the network distribution doesn't have significant influence on interfirm network's knowledge transfer performance.What's more, combined with interviews on SMEs, we suggest some advises from the perspectives of firms and government on how SMEs can obtain competitive advantages in a networked economy. Finally, we propose the prospect for the future research.