The problem of embeddedness revisited: Collaboration and market types

Embeddedness has been touted as a framework for knowledge exchange and innovation, and thus as an important precondition for high-level performance. Embeddedness of economic action in social relations improves access to resources, but over-embeddedness impedes performance. However, until now the association between embeddedness and performance in different markets has been neglected. This paper challenges the predominant view of embeddedness and over-embeddedness as absolute and mutually exclusive conditions. Through regression analyses of novel data from a project-based industry, the paper tests the association between embeddedness and economic performance in different markets, finding a positive association in the domestic market, but a negative association in foreign markets. This divergence in performance is caused in part by selection bias in the access to foreign markets, and in part by accumulation of localized knowledge. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.