Management of Knowledge Workers

Hans Hvide and Eirik Kristiansen

No 6609, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study how firm-specific complementary assets and intellectual property rights affect the management of knowledge workers. The main results show when a firm will wish to sue workers that leave with innovative ideas, and the effects of complementary assets on wages and on worker initiative. We argue that firms protected weakly by complementary assets must sue leaving workers in order to obtain positive profits. Moreover, firms with more complementary assets pay higher wages and have lower turnover, but the higher pay has a detrimental effect on worker initiative. Finally, our analysis suggests that strengthening firms' property rights protection reduces turnover costs but weakens worker initiative.

Keywords: start-ups; R&D; personnel economics; litigation; intellectual property rights; innovation; entrepreneurship; worker mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J30 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Journal of Law & Economics, 2012, 55 (4), 815-838

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Related works:
Journal Article: Management of Knowledge Workers (2012)
Working Paper: Management of Knowledge Workers (2007)
Working Paper: Management of Knowledge Workers (2006)
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