Starting from the top of Figure 1, the left hand side clearly shows that entrepreneurial ventures are more likely to collaborate if cognitive proximity with the university is high. However, if we look at the difference in the probability of collaboration (the graph on the we observe that for low values of distance, the difference in probability is positive and significant, while for values of log(dist)i,j higher than 5 (approximately) the difference is no more significant. These results suggest that the entrepreneurial venture is more prone to collaborate with the university if cognitive proximity with that university is high. However, the effect of cognitive proximity is not so strong to reduce the negative effect of distance when the university is located too far. In other words, when the distance between the university and the entrepreneurial venture is high, the difference in the probability of collaboration between is not statistically different from zero. These results are thus consistent with H2a but not with H2b. Looking at the effect of social proximity, Figure 1 (middle-left) highlights that entrepreneurial ventures are more likely to collaborate if among the founders there is at least one with a previous experience in that university. When we turn attention to the difference in probability between entrepreneurial venture with and without an academic founder from that university (middle-right), we observe that for low values of distance, social proximity reduces the negative effect of distance on the likelihood of collaboration. However, when the distance from the university increases, the difference in the likelihood of collaboration between an entrepreneurial venture with and without an academic founder decreases. However, the difference is always significant at 99% confidence level. This result support H3a and partially H3b, since for very high values of distance the effectiveness of social proximity tends to become lower. Finally, let us now to the bottom of Figure 1. Looking at the role of university quality, we do not detect any significant difference between entrepreneurial ventures that collaborates with high and low quality universities. Looking at the right hand side of Figure 1, we find indeed that the difference in the two curves shown on the left hand side is not significant. Hence we do not find support for H4a and H4b. 6 Discussion and conclusion In this work, we have offered empirical evidence on the role of different forms of proximity (geographical, cognitive and social) and of university quality on the likelihood of collaborations for young high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. In accordance with the
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