All hands on deck? Comobility and career outcomes after organizational failure

Abstract

The observation of joint transfers of workers, termed collective turnover or comobility is a phenomenon that tends to be inherently contaminated by concerns of selection. We study the phenomenon in a unique quasi-experimental context of organizational failure wherein no employees had the choice of staying on. Studying the phenomenon in this “cleaner” context, we find that overall, comobility is associated with the likelihood of a downward career move. This association is even stronger for junior employees, relative to moving alone. Contrary to our expectations, for senior employees comobility is associated with an increased likelihood of demotion, relative to a solo move. We use of proprietary hand-collected data on 185 traders and trading managers securing jobs in various countries and industries after an exogenous organizational failure in the bunker trading industry supplemented with unique qualitative insights.