Our study examines the interactive effect of organizational status distance and geographical proximity on interpersonal professional tie formation. Whereas Blau (1977, 1994) proposes that geographical proximity will weaken the negative effect of organizational status distance on professional tie formation, our analysis of co-authorship in academic accounting over a 30-year period shows that geographical proximity between departments strengthens the negative effect of organizational status distance on the likelihood of coauthorship tie formation. These findings support our proposed “salience hypothesis”, which suggests that geographical proximity heightens the salience of organizational status boundary and consequently impedes people from status-distant organizations to form collaborative ties.

我们的研究考察了组织地位距离和地理接近度对人际专业领带形成的互动影响。Blau（1977，1994）提出，地理上的接近会削弱组织地位距离对专业领带形成的负面影响，而我们对30年学术会计中共同作者的分析表明，部门之间的地理上的接近会加剧负面影响地位距离对共同作者关系形成的可能性的影响。这些发现支持了我们提出的“显着性假设”，这表明地理上的接近度提高了组织地位边界的显着性，因此阻碍了来自地位遥远组织的人们形成合作关系。