Does distance matter for technology spillovers?

How does knowledge, i.e. innovations, diffuse over space? Traditional diffusion theory does not consider this question, but instead focuses on diffusion over time. After some early publications such as Gerschenkron (1962) and Abramovitz (1979), research on technology diffusion over countries was deepened during the 1980s. This literature became known as technology gap literature. Main argument of this literature is that technology is regarded to spread to a country due to specific characteristics of that country. The countries between which spillover of knowledge takes place, need not necessarily be geographically close to each other, therefore geographic proximity does not play a substantive role in this literature. The so called spatial factors like agglomeration economies and growth poles as used by geographers were not addressed in this set of theories. Only the geographic stream of researchers used these concepts. Within the field of geography, diffusion is regarded as a purely geographical process and space is a central concept. Scale effects and proximity effects are considered to be the main vehicles which carry the spread of economic activity. This paper develops a theoretical model which tries to explain the development of growth poles, by allowing knowledge spillovers to take place across regions. The aim of this paper is to integrate both streams in the literature (technology gap and geography). The lack of space as an explaining factor in technology gap models is addressed in this paper by extending a simple technology gap model with the concept of geographical distance. The geographical distance towards another region partly determines the amount of spillovers one region receives from another. This paper extends the 'traditional' technology gap models also in a second way, by considering more than two regions. Three geographical spheres are considered, namely a lattice, a column and a globe. Depending on the geographical sphere that is used, 19, 21 or 32 regions are considered. Several theoretical experiments are performed on the different geographical spheres to illustrate the behavior of the model. Economic growth, evolutionary theory, regional growth theory, economic integration

Supervisor idea adoption scale:Construction, reliability and initial validity evidence

Despite the importance of workplace innovation, the adoption of creative ideas at workplace level has received little attention due to a lack of measures for idea adoption. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a scale that measures employees’ perceptions of the process of idea adoption. Specifically, the scale assesses employee perceptions of their supervisor's behavior in terms of idea openness, selection and application. Three studies were conducted to develop the supervisor idea adoption scale and investigate the scale scores’ psychometric properties (Study 1, n = 326); concurrent, convergent and divergent validity (Study 2, n = 333); and test–retest reliability over a three month period (Study 3, n = 189). The findings indicated good psychometric properties: the 3-factor structure was supported, and the scales scores showed internal consistency and retest reliability. Furthermore, the scale scores’ associations with other variables provided initial evidence for concurrent, convergent and divergent validity. Several recommendations are made for the application of the scale in research and practice.</p

Stress and worry in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic: Relationships to trust and compliance with preventive measures across 48 countries in the COVIDiSTRESS global survey

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of COVID-19 restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis