Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium - Olaf Rank

In this study, I test the relative importance of two types of proximity predicting interpersonal collaboration among senior managers in MNCs: geographic proximity and social proximity. While it has been shown that each type of proximity separately has positive effects on managerial collaboration, it is largely unclear whether spatial distance or similarity in managers’ attitudes is more important with respect to building and maintaining collaborative relationships. Within a case study design, data have been gathered on the collaborative ties among 187 senior managers of a German high-tech MNC. Applying a class of exponential random graph models (ERMGs), the results clearly reveal the high importance of geographic proximity, whereas they only offer limited support for a positive effect of social proximity on managerial collaboration.