Exploiting Growth Opportunities: The Role of Internal Labour Markets
研究了商业集团如何通过内部劳动力市场应对经济变化，发现集团附属企业在竞争对手退出后，通过内部招聘快速扩张并获得市场份额，地理邻近性增强了这一能力。
Abstract We explore how business groups use internal labour markets (ILMs) in response to changing economic conditions. We show that following the exit of a large industry competitor, group-affiliated firms expand, and gain market share by increasing their reliance on the ILM to ensure swift hiring, especially of technical managers and skilled blue collar workers. The ability to take advantage of this shock to growth opportunities is greater in firms with closer access to their affiliates’ human capital, as geographical proximity facilitates employee relocations across units. Overall, our findings point to the ILM as a prominent mechanism making affiliation with a business group valuable at times of change. For the ILM to perform its role in the face of industry shocks, group sectoral diversification must be combined with geographical proximity between affiliates.