Skill-biased acquisitions? Human capital and target employee mobility in small technology firms

Jing Xiao and Åsa Lindholm Dahlstrand

No 2021/12, Papers in Innovation Studies from Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between acquisitions and mobility of knowledge workers and managers in small technology companies and how individual skills and capabilities moderate the relationship. Relying on the matched employer-employee data of the Swedish high-tech sectors from 2007 to 2015, we find that acquisitions increase the likelihood of employee departures, mainly in the form of switching to another employer, but that these acquisition effects are weaker for employees with technological competences. Moreover, we also find that managers, compared to other employees, are more likely to exit from the (national) labor market after acquisitions. Our results show that acquiring firms tend to gain access to and retain knowledge workers with engineering background.

Keywords: Acquisitions; Target employee mobility; High-tech sectors; Knowledge workers; Technological capabilities; Managerial capabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 G34 J63 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2021-10-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-lab, nep-sbm, nep-tid and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2021_012

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