Title: Spatial proximity as an independent variable in (international) marketing and management research

Authors: André Van Hoorn

Addresses: Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, P.O. Box 9108, 6500 HK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract: Spatial proximity matters for a range of managerial and marketing-related phenomena and its use as an independent variable seems innocuous. However, building on recent advances in the contextual distance literature in international management, we argue that analyses involving spatial proximity can be far more intricate than commonly realised. The problem is the statistical biases that can be caused by location-identification, which refers to proximity measures' tendency to correlate with locations in a sample and thus partially capture location-specific effects when included in regression models. Empirical evidence confirms that spatial proximity measures are also prone to location-identification. Further evidence demonstrates how location-identification matters for spatial proximity research because it can bias the estimated relationship between spatial proximity and the phenomenon studied. Our main contribution is to show the relevance of location-identification threatening the validity of spatial proximity studies that are common in international marketing and in management studies more broadly. Export managers are also advised to be wary of conflating distance-driven influences on their firms with effects genuinely due to location factors.

Keywords: location effects; spatial proximity effects; distance-location conflation; distance-location correlations; pure-distance approach; fixed-effects approach.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEXPORTM.2022.128747

International Journal of Export Marketing, 2022 Vol.5 No.2, pp.163 - 182

Received: 17 Jan 2022
Accepted: 03 Oct 2022
Published online: 02 Feb 2023 *