Research and Development collaboration and employee mobility - 17 April 2019

About the seminar and research paper

“Prior research showed that firms can increase innovation performance by leveraging external sources of knowledge. However, our understanding regarding potential drawbacks of sourcing external knowledge, such as through collaboration, is still limited. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between formal R&D collaboration and the departure of skilled employees. Firms engaged in R&D collaboration expose their scientists and engineers to other organizations, which potentially augments their outside options, resulting in higher rates of outbound mobility. We examine our research question using a representative dataset that combines information from the Swedish Community Innovation survey (CIS) with employer-employee registry data from Statistics Sweden. Our econometric analysis suggests that the use of research collaborations by firms is associated with higher levels of outbound employee mobility, and in particular of highly qualified employees.”

About Ali Mohammadi

Ali Mohammadi is Assistant professor of Entrepreneurship in Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and affiliated researcher at Swedish House of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics. Ali’s research focuses on strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation. He has published in leading academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Product Innovation Management. Also has been selected and nominated for the best paper in international conferences such as Academy of Management Annual Meeting and Strategic Management Society. Ali frequently serves as reviewer for top management and entrepreneurship journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.