The mechanism is information, not preference. Searching further away demands more information processing, so firms see nearby opportunities more easily and more completely, and the target list quietly reflects the shape of the search rather than the shape of the opportunity. The finding survives in a setting where the resources being sought are genuinely distributed across the map, which is what makes it a bias rather than sensible localism.
The constructive half is that the effect is not fixed. The authors find firms partially overcome distance through direct experience, contextual knowledge and vicarious learning from others. For an owner this argues for buying the missing information deliberately: an advisor with reach into a region you do not know, or paid data, or simply the discipline of writing the thesis before the list rather than after it. A list assembled from who you happen to have met is a map of your network, not of the market.
Proximity is not always a bias worth correcting. For a buyer whose thesis depends on shared logistics, an overlapping workforce or personal oversight, a local target genuinely is worth more, and the Institute would not argue otherwise. The point is to know which of the two you are doing, since the study shows the drift happens whether or not there is a reason for it.