Mobility of R&D workers and technological performance

If knowledge essential for innovation is assumed to be embodied partially in individuals, the “transfers” and “reassignments” engineers and researchers experience in society and among organizations can be surmised to affect the emergence of innovations. This reasoning springs from the fact transfers are linked with meeting new individuals, which in turn is thought to raise the probability of the knowledge integration necessary for innovation. Moreover, the probability of various technological information flowing to the sources of innovation increases if human networks are extended across organizations and departments by means of transfers. This also provides a rationale supporting the validity of the hypothesis that transfers encourage innovation. Research to clarify the patterns of knowledge spillover that originate in RD Appleyard 1996). As the spill-over effects from a high level of worker mobility and unique local knowledge in a concentrated area—best exemplified by Silicon Valley—has been clarified since the 1990s in particular (Almeida and Kogut 1999; Angel 1989; Saxenian 1994), voices propounding the necessity of increasing R&D worker mobility as a factor to stimulate innovation have risen to a roar even in Japan. Arguments have been put forth linking the low degree of R&D worker mobility in Japan and the nation’s economic slump since the 1990s, claiming there is a need to improve the mobility of specialized human resources in order to spur business recovery. Certainly compared with the United States, the mobility of R&D workers