The Geographic Distance of Relocation Search: An Extended Resource-Based Perspective

On the basis of the extended resource-based view of firms, access to external resources can be argued to depend on a firm's location. In this article, I test the notion that firms take the availability of these external resources at a given location into account in the distance of their relocation search. The results show that firms take the strength of, and distance to their interorganizational relationships, as well as regional characteristics, into account when determining the distance of their relocation search. They provide empirical validation of the importance of external resources in the resource-based view of firms. Moreover, they show how a particular type of dynamics, namely, location dynamics, can be used by firms to gain access to resources that can subsequently lead to competitive advantage.