The Strength of Weak and Strong Ties in Bridging Geographic and Cognitive Distances

The proximity framework has attracted considerable attention in a scholarly discourse on the driving forces of knowledge exchange tie formation. It been discussed that too much is negatively associated with effectiveness relation. However, little known about key factors trigger formation boundaryspanning ties. Going beyond “dyadic” perspective dimensions, this paper argues factor bridging distances may reside at “triadic” level. We build notion “the strength weak ties” and its recent development by investigating innovative performance relations more than 600,000 German firms. explored extracted information from textual relational content firms’ websites using machine learning techniques hyperlink analysis. thereby proxied firms deep text analysis approach showed triadic property dyadic reliable predictor innovativeness. Relations embedded cliques (i.e., strong ties) connect cognitively distant are strongly innovation, whereas inter-regional connecting different parts network positively performance. Also, results suggest combination inter-community related innovativeness compared to other relation types.