Labor Mobility, Social Network Effects, and Innovative Activity

We study the mapping between labor mobility and industrial innovative activity for the population of R&D active Danish firms observed between 1999 and 2004. Our study documents a positive relationship between the number of workers who join a firm and the firm's innovative activity. This relationship is stronger if workers join from innovative firms. We also find evidence for positive feedback from workers who leave for an innovative firm, presumably because the worker who left stays in contact with their former colleagues. This implies that the positive feedback ("social network effects") that has been found by other studies not only exists but even outweighs the disruption and loss of knowledge occurring to the previous employer from the worker leaving. Summing up the effects of joining and leaving workers, we find ample evidence for mobility to be associated with an increase in total innovative activity of the new and the old employer.

[1]  Max Nathan.  Ethnic Inventors, Diversity and Innovation in the UK: Evidence from Patents Microdata , 2011 .

[2]  Olav Sorenson,et al.  Noncompete Covenants: Incentives to Innovate or Impediments to Growth , 2011, Manag. Sci..

[3]  Jasjit Singh,et al.  Recruiting for Ideas: How Firms Exploit the Prior Inventions of New Hires , 2010, Manag. Sci..

[4]  Neus Palomeras,et al.  Markets for Inventors: Learning-by-Hiring as a Driver of Mobility , 2010, Manag. Sci..

[5]  P. Mohnen,et al.  Is inter-firm labor mobility a channel of knowledge spillovers? Evidence from a linked employer--employee panel , 2009 .

[6]  Rafael A. Corredoira,et al.  Should auld acquaintance be forgot? the reverse transfer of knowledge through mobility ties , 2009 .

[7]  S. Arts,et al.  Tracing the effect of links between science and industry: The role of researcher interaction and mobility between firms and research organizations , 2009 .

[8]  S. Breschi,et al.  Mobility of Skilled Workers and Co-Invention Networks: An Anatomy of Localized Knowledge Flows , 2009 .

[9]  Matt Marx,et al.  Mobility, Skills, and the Michigan Non-Compete Experiment , 2009, Manag. Sci..

[10]  Dirk Sliwka,et al.  Should You Allow Your Employee to Become Your Competitor? On Noncompete Agreements in Employment Contracts , 2009 .

[11]  R. Winkelmann,et al.  Robust estimation of zero-inflated count models , 2009 .

[12]  April M. Franco,et al.  Covenants Not to Compete, Labor Mobility, and Industry Dynamics , 2008 .

[13]  Karin Hoisl,et al.  Tracing mobile inventors—The causality between inventor mobility and inventor productivity , 2007 .

[14]  T. Eriksson,et al.  Wage and Labor Mobility in Denmark, 1980-2000 , 2007 .

[15]  Jasjit Singh,et al.  Asymmetry of knowledge spillovers between MNCs and host country firms , 2006 .

[16]  Gino Cattani,et al.  Competitive Implications of Interfirm Mobility , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[17]  James B. Rebitzer,et al.  Job-Hopping in Silicon Valley: Some Evidence Concerning the Microfoundations of a High-Technology Cluster , 2006, The Review of Economics and Statistics.

[18]  A. Agrawal,et al.  Gone but not Forgotten: Knowledge Flows, Labor Mobility, and Enduring Social Relationships , 2006 .

[19]  Michael McAleer,et al.  Intellectual Property Litigation Activity in the USA , 2005 .

[20]  Stefano Breschi,et al.  "Cross-firm" Inventors and Social Networks: Localized Knowledge Spillovers Revisited , 2010 .

[21]  Colin Webb,et al.  Analysing European and International Patent Citations , 2005 .

[22]  Jasjit Singh,et al.  Collaborative Networks as Determinants of Knowledge Diffusion Patterns , 2005, Manag. Sci..

[23]  Bronwyn H Hall,et al.  Market value and patent citations , 2005 .

[24]  Michael S. Dahl,et al.  Knowledge flows through informal contacts in industrial clusters: myth or reality? , 2004 .

[25]  Andrea Fosfuri,et al.  High-Tech Clusters, Technology Spillovers and Trade Secret Laws , 2003 .

[26]  Lori Rosenkopf,et al.  Overcoming Local Search Through Alliances and Mobility , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[27]  Paul Almeida,et al.  Learning - by - Hiring: When Is Mobility More Likely to Facilitate Interfirm Knowledge Transfer? , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[28]  Hayagreeva Rao,et al.  Overcoming Resource Constraints on Product Innovation by Recruiting Talent From Rivals: A Study of the Mutual Fund Industry, 1986–1994 , 2002 .

[29]  H. Friedl.  Econometric Analysis of Count Data , 2002 .

[30]  Jinyoun Kim,et al.  Labor Mobility of Scientists, Technological Diffusion, and the Firm's Patenting Decision , 2001 .

[31]  P. Combes,et al.  Labor Pooling, Labor Poaching and Spatial Clustering , 2001 .

[32]  Richard Blundell,et al.  Individual effects and dynamics in count data models , 2002 .

[33]  Andrea Fosfuri,et al.  Foreign direct investment and spillovers through workers’ mobility , 2001 .

[34]  D. Harhoff,et al.  Citation Frequency and the Value of Patented Inventions , 1999, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[35]  B. Kogut,et al.  Localization of Knowledge and the Mobility of Engineers in Regional Networks , 1999 .

[36]  R. Blundell,et al.  Market share, market value and innovation in a panel of British manufacturing firms , 1999 .

[37]  Ronald J. Gilson,et al.  The Legal Infrastructure of High Technology Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route 128, and Covenants Not to Compete , 1998 .

[38]  A. Cameron,et al.  The Analysis of Count Data , 1998 .

[39]  Eric Maskin,et al.  Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation , 2000 .

[40]  Michele Cincera.  Patents, R&D, and technological spillovers at the firm level: Some evidence from econometric count models for panel data , 1997 .

[41]  Bruno Crépon,et al.  estimating the innovation function from patent numbers: gmm on count panel data ¤ , 1997 .

[42]  John Mullahy,et al.  HETEROGENEITY, EXCESS ZEROS, AND THE STRUCTURE OF COUNT DATA MODELS , 1997 .

[43]  W. Boeker.  Strategic Change: The Influence Of Managerial Characteristics And Organizational Growth , 1997 .

[44]  Jean O. Lanjouw,et al.  How to Count Patents and Value Intellectual Property: Uses of Patent Renewal and Application Data , 1996 .

[45]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[46]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test , 1995 .

[47]  R. Blundell,et al.  Dynamic Count Data Models of Technological Innovation , 1994 .

[48]  A. Chandler,et al.  Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 , 1994 .

[49]  M. Brewer,et al.  Intellectual Capital and the Birth of U.S. Biotechnology Enterprises , 1994 .

[50]  P. David.  Knowledge, Property, and the System Dynamics of Technological Change , 1992 .

[51]  M. Trajtenberg.  A Penny for Your Quotes : Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations , 1990 .

[52]  E. Hippel.  Cooperation between Rivals: Informal Know-How Trading , 1987 .

[53]  Edwin Mansfield,et al.  How Rapidly Does New Industrial Technology Leak Out , 1985 .

[54]  Z. Griliches,et al.  Econometric Models for Count Data with an Application to the Patents-R&D Relationship , 1984 .

[55]  Zvi Griliches,et al.  Patents and R&D: is There a Lag? , 1984 .

[56]  Shmuel Nitzan,et al.  Optimum Contracts for Research Personnel, Research Employment, and the Establishment of "Rival" Enterprises , 1982, Journal of Labor Economics.

[57]  W. W. Muir,et al.  Regression Diagnostics: Identifying Influential Data and Sources of Collinearity , 1980 .

[58]  K. Arrow.  Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention , 1962 .