Can You Go Home Again? Performance Assistance Between Boomerangs and Incumbent Employees

Thorsten Grohsjean (), Gina Dokko () and Philip Yang ()
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Thorsten Grohsjean: Department of Management & Technology and ICRIOS, Bocconi University, 20136 Milan, Italy
Gina Dokko: Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis, California 95616
Philip Yang: Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

Organization Science, 2025, vol. 36, issue 2, 918-939

Abstract: Boomerangs, that is, rehires, should have advantages over other new hires when integrating into an organization due to their familiarity with the work context and their pre-existing relationships. However, research suggests that the effects of hiring boomerangs may not be straightforwardly positive. To better understand these effects, we investigate how boomerangs’ social integration into a work team differs from that of other new hires due to their pre-existing relationships and how those relationships shape their and incumbents’ competence and motivation to provide assistance for collective performance. We theorize and find that boomerangs, compared with new hires, exhibit more performance assistance toward incumbent former and incumbent new colleagues. In contrast, incumbent former colleagues do not direct their performance assistance toward boomerangs, contrary to our prediction, nor do incumbent new colleagues. This study contributes to the nascent literature on boomerangs and the literature on job mobility by finding evidence that prior relationships condition the behavior of both boomerangs and incumbents.

Keywords: boomerang; newcomer; incumbent colleague; mobility; careers; human capital; collaboration; helping behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:36:y:2025:i:2:p:918-939

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