Abstract:

Ethnic proximity is considered a key factor contributing to the success of overseas Chinese businesses. Economic geographers often lean towards utilizing Chinese business networks as representative cases of relational proximity. Nevertheless, due to rapidly changing circumstances, overseas Chinese entrepreneurs are presently engaged in a proactive transformation of their businesses, and the influencing mechanism of ethnic proximity is also undergoing change. Based on the relational perspective of Relational Economic Geography and the multidimensional proximity theory of Evolutionary Economic Geography, this paper explores the dynamics of relational-geographical proximity patterns in Chinese business in response to changing circumstances. To understand the dynamics of relational-geographical proximity adopted by Chinese entrepreneurs, this paper studies two cases of overseas Chinese business: a traditional Chinese retail company in Italy and an online retail company in the USA. The finding reveals that their relational-geographic proximity patterns are both changing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethnic proximity facilitates the development of overseas Chinese business. However, when the previous pattern of ethnic proximity fails to cope with a public crisis, overseas Chinese entrepreneurs demonstrate adaptability by steering their business from ethnic proximity towards ethnic distance. Furthermore, overseas Chinese build ethnic proximity with diverse groups of actors, such as suppliers, employees, and customers. Differences in actors of ethnic proximity and firms' industrial characteristics lead to different transformation directions, either geographic proximity or geographic distance. The crisis-induced transformation of overseas Chinese businesses, fundamentally, is a result of the changing roles of ethnic proximity in cognitive, organizational, social, and institutional dimensions, which in turn lead to the changing relational-geographic proximity patterns adopted by firms. The contribution of this paper is to propose a multidimensional relational-geographical proximity framework and reveal the diversity and dynamics of the impact mechanism of ethnic proximity on overseas Chinese business by integrating research on non-geographic proximity from Relational Economic Geography and Evolutionary Economic Geography. It represents a positive cross-application of Relational Economic Geography and Evolutionary Economic Geography.

Key words: ethnic proximity, geographical proximity, crisis, transformation, overseas Chinese entrepreneur

摘要：

长期以来，华商之间的族群邻近被认为是海外华商成功的关键因素之一，华商网络也被经济地理学者视为非地理邻近的典型案例。随着近年来外部环境的剧烈变化，海外华商积极转型，原有族群邻近模式也发生变化。基于关系经济地理学派的关系视角和演化经济地理学派的多维邻近框架，通过对意大利传统华人零售企业和美国新兴华商在线零售企业面对公共卫生危机转型的个案研究，探讨族群邻近在海外华商企业经营活动中的角色转变以及企业“关系-地理”邻近模式的动态变化。研究发现，族群邻近模式促进了海外华商的发展，但当原有的族群邻近模式无法应对公共危机的冲击时，海外华商从族群邻近转向族群疏远。同时，企业族群邻近对象主体的不同和行业差异使不同海外华商选择了地理邻近或地理疏远的不同转型方向。海外华商企业面对危机的转型，本质上是族群邻近在认知、组织、社会、制度等维度的作用机制产生了变化，并导致企业“关系-地理”邻近模式的转变。本文的贡献在于结合关系经济地理学和演化经济地理学关于非地理邻近的研究成果，提出多维“关系-地理”邻近框架，揭示了族群邻近对海外华商经营活动影响机制的多样性和动态性，是关系经济地理与演化经济地理的一次积极交叉应用。

关键词: 族群邻近, 地理邻近, 危机, 转型, 海外华商