On the role and interrelationship of spatial, social and cognitive proximity: personal knowledge relationships of R&D workers in the Cambridge IT Cluster

International audienceAlthough the importance of proximity has been highlighted, it remains an open question which types and levels of proximity are critical for knowledge networks. This paper addresses this issue by examining the role of spatial, social and cognitive proximity of personal knowledge relationships in the Cambridge IT Cluster. It is shown that distinguishing between sub-dimensions of cognitive proximity can clarify the 'proximity paradox'. Moreover, the results highlight that local relationships enable access to cognitively more diverse knowledge than non-local ones. Finally, the paper provides empirical evidence of a compensation mechanism: distance in one dimension is compensated by proximity in at least one other dimension. However, similarity in terms of technical language tends to be a prerequisite and cannot be easily substituted by other types of proximity