New entrants, incumbents, and the search for knowledge: the role of job title ambiguity in the US information and communication technology industry, 2004–2014

Diego Zunino, Bruno Cirillo (), Filippo Carlo Wezel and Stefano Breschi
Additional contact information
Diego Zunino: SKEMA Business School - SKEMA Business School, GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur
Bruno Cirillo: GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, SKEMA Business School - SKEMA Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Abstract New entrants and incumbent firms rely on new knowledge to innovate and compete in the market. One way to acquire new knowledge is through the recruitment of new employees from competitors, a phenomenon popularly known as "poaching." Digital labor platforms are widely used by firms for this aim. We argue that job titles represent the first and most visible public source of information about knowledge workers and thus play a key role in navigating the vast spectrum of competencies available in digital platforms. Our analyses of the career trajectories of 11,644 knowledge workers in the United States between 2004 and 2014 suggest that increases in the ambiguity of a job title claimed by an employee are negatively associated with the likelihood of the employee being hired by a new employer. This finding appears stronger in the case of transitions to incumbent firms rather than new entrants. In the concluding section of the paper, we take stock of the various analyses presented and reflect on the potential role of job titles in the strategic management of human capital.

Keywords: Job titles Categorization theory New entrant and incumbent firms LinkedIn; Job titles; Categorization theory; New entrant and incumbent firms; LinkedIn (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-knm
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04918213v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Industrial and Corporate Change, 2024, 33 (1), pp.172-193. ⟨10.1093/icc/dtad034⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-04918213v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04918213

DOI: 10.1093/icc/dtad034

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().