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Virtually Borderless? Cultural Proximity and International Collaboration of Developers

Author

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  • Lena Abou El-Komboz
  • Moritz Goldbeck

Abstract

Are national borders an impediment to online collaboration in the knowledge economy? Unlike in goods trade, knowledge workers can collaborate fully virtually, such that border effects might be eliminated. Here we study collaboration patterns of some 144,000 European developers on the largest online code repository platform, GitHub. To assess the presence of border effects we deploy a gravity model that explains developers’ inter-regional collaboration networks. We fnd a sizable border effect of –16.4%, which is, however, fve to six times smaller than in trade. The border effect is entirely explained by cultural factors such as common language, shared interests, and historical ties. The international border effect in Europe is much larger than the state border effect in the US, where cross-border cultural differences are much less pronounced, further strengthening our conjecture that culture is a main driver of the border effect in virtual collaboration.

Suggested Citation

  • Lena Abou El-Komboz & Moritz Goldbeck, 2024. "Virtually Borderless? Cultural Proximity and International Collaboration of Developers," ifo Working Paper Series 407, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ifowps:_407
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    Keywords

    digitization; software development; knowledge work; culture; language;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O36 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Open Innovation

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