The joint effects of individual and firm level knowledge attributes on inventor mobility to entrepreneurial and established firms

Abstract

We consider how inventor- and firm-level knowledge characteristics co-determine an inventor’s propensity of joining another firm. Specifically, we examine the influence of knowledge impact, knowledge specialization, core status within the firm, and knowledge complexity on an inventor’s decision to depart the firm and join either an entrepreneurial venture or another established firm. We then examine how the incumbent firm’s knowledge complexity moderates the relationship between individual knowledge attributes and the inventor’s decision to join another firm. Our study demonstrates that individual knowledge attributes distinctively interact with the inventor’s current firm-knowledge complexity to determine the likelihood of mobility to an entrepreneurial or established firm. The knowledge environment of the incumbent firm may either prepare the inventor for mobility options or further embed the inventor’s work within the incumbent firm. We test our hypotheses using a panel data set of 33,826 inventors in the semiconductor industry.