How Do Prior Ties Affect Learning by Hiring?
研究雇佣研发科学家时，他们与雇佣公司的先前合作关系如何影响学习效果：先前关系会减少探索性学习、增加利用性学习，并导致新员工产生更渐进、低影响的创新。
Research has shown that hiring R&D scientists from competitors fosters organizational learning. We examine whether hiring scientists who have many collaborative ties with the hiring firm prior to the mobility event produces different learning outcomes than hiring scientists who have few or no such ties. We theorize that prior ties reduce explorative learning and increase exploitative learning. Namely, we posit that prior ties lead the hiring firm to focus on that part of a new hire’s knowledge with which they are already familiar and that they help appropriate the new hire’s newly generated knowledge. At the same time, prior ties induce new hires to search locally within the hiring firm’s knowledge base and to produce more incremental, lower-impact innovations. Using data on R&D scientists’ mobility in the Electronics and Electrical Goods industry, we find broad support for our hypotheses. Our results extend our theoretical understanding of learning-by-hiring processes and bear practical managerial implications.