Economic development networks in Kentucky Appalachia
Brandon Ofem, Sara Compion, and Walter Ferrier
Tie Frequency
Collaboration
Research Questions
How do economic development organizations
(EDOs) in eastern Kentucky collaborate?
How do the strategic and collaborative
practices of EDOs impact performance?
Empirical Setting
Visualization of the overall collaboration network.
Reveals a rather dense structure.
Collaboration network with tie width determined by the
frequency of collaboration. Greater width indicates
greater frequency.
0
20
Overall collaboration network with node size
determined by eigenvector centrality. Reveals a coreperiphery structure.
40
60
EDO Funding Sources
government
membership fees
interest income
special events
Summary Statistics
S.D.
1.629
0.883
0.811
19.59
4.196
1.248
1.102
19.632
0.725
0.454
0.162
0.381
384.458
48.972
6.003
2.371
1.985
2.351
2.443
3.517
Min
-4.205
-1.644
-2.157
1
0
0
-2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
-9
-4
-2
-4
-5
-5
Max
2.972
1.727
1.271
54
17
5
2
91
2
1
0.75
1
1983
337
18
6
6
6
6
12
EDO Services
Same as above except node color is determined by
whether or not the EDO serves at least one of the eight
recently designated promise zone counties: Bell, Harlan,
Letcher, Perry, Leslie, Clay, Knox, and part of Whitley
County.
This table shows the total number of EDOs that receive
each type of funding.
Interaction
1
0.8
0.6
Performance
Mean
Performance
-0.028
Peer rating
0
Self-report
0
Service area
12.51
Service generalism
7.286
Funding generalism
1.898
Asset growth
0.083
Organizational age
29.84
Organizational size
0.99
Membership organization
0.286
Network heterogeneity
0.611
ARC funding
0.173
Network strength
275.478
Network size
33.857
Entrepreneurial orientation
7.854
Innovativeness
3.041
Proactiveness
2.907
Risk-taking
1.896
Aggressiveness
1.713
Autonomy
6.074
contributions
commercial income
ARC
This network reveals the collaborations between only
the EDOS serving the promise zone counties.
0.4
0.2
Low network size
0
High network size
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
Forms of Collaboration
-1
Low EO
High EO
60
80
Analysis revealed a statistically significant interaction between an
entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and network size. Fewer ties means
it’s more important to act entrepreneurially.
20
40
Results
0
•Organizational age is positively related to
performance ratings.
business networking
job creation
referrals
leadership development
tourism services
advocacy/lobbying
technical services
business incubation
research
business retention/growth
business recruitment
business coaching
downtown revitalization
workforce training
infrastructure development
historic preservation/restoration
financing/lending
product innovation
This table shows the total number of EDOs that offer
each type of service.
•Network strength, measured by the
frequency of collaboration, has a stronger
effect on performance than network size.
Each of these networks represent a different type of
collaboration. Structural differences can be observed.
Session 3.09: Poster Session
2014 ASA Conference. March 28, 2:00 pm to 3:15 pm.
•EDOs that encourage higher levels of
autonomy receive higher performance ratings.
•EDOs with fewer collaborative ties benefit
more from acting entrepreneurially.