The impact of distance on social capital in high-tech born global companies

Building on the limited research that has explored the deterministic view of how distance influences inter-organizational social capital (SC), this study examines how geographic, psychic, technological, and market size distances influence the development of the SC of high-tech born global companies (BGs) with their foreign customers. This perspective presumes that distance and SC can change over time, specifically that SC changes can be associated with different types of distance. Using data from Italian high-tech BGs located in a cluster near Rome, collected in three different periods of analysis (2016, 2018, 2020), we find that the diverse types of distance have significant, varied, and sometimes opposing influences on SC development. Our findings address the research gap concerning SC dynamics in high-tech BGs. We contribute to the literature on SC and BGs by combining SC and distance issues, establishing a foundation for understanding the unique challenges such companies face in foreign markets.