How Do Mobility Direction and Human Assets of Mobile Engineers Affect Joint Knowledge Creation

This study examines how engineers who moved either from targets to acquirers or vice versa prior to M&As create joint knowledge in the post-acquisition period. We investigate the effect of mobility direction and human assets on joint knowledge creation by using the data on 693 mobile engineers obtained from high-technology M&As for the period 1973-2009. Our empirical results show that the mobile engineers who moved from acquirers to targets prior to M&As create joint knowledge more by collaborating with other engineers at their previous organizations, which are acquirers. We also find a positive interaction effect of mobility direction with intellectual assets and relational assets, carried by mobile engineers, on joint knowledge creation. Although much of the existing literature on M&As and human mobility has respectively focused on their effects on knowledge creation, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the roles of both the two factors in joint knowledge creation at the individual leve...