Filling the Gap: The Consequences of Collaborator Loss in Corporate R&D

Felix Poege (), Fabian Gaessler, Karin Hoisl, Dietmar Harhoff () and Matthias Dorner ()
Additional contact information
Felix Poege: Bocconi University
Fabian Gaessler: Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Karin Hoisl: Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Matthias Dorner: Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg

No 15618, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine how collaborator loss affects knowledge workers in corporate R&D. We argue that such a loss affects the remaining collaborators not only by reducing their team-specific capital (as argued in the prior literature) but also by increasing their bargaining power over the employer, who is in need of filling the gap left by the lost collaborator to ensure the continuation of R&D projects. This shift in bargaining power may, in turn, lead to benefits, such as additional resources or more attractive working conditions. These benefits can partially compensate for the negative effect of reduced team-specific capital on productivity and influence the career trajectories of the remaining collaborators. We empirically investigate the consequences of collaborator loss by exploiting 845 unexpected deaths of active inventors. We find that inventor death has a moderate negative effect on the productivity of the remaining collaborators. This negative effect disappears when we focus on the remaining collaborators who work for the same employer as the deceased inventor. Moreover, this group is more likely to be promoted and less likely to leave their current employer.

Keywords: collaboration; mobility; innovation; inventors; patents; teams (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J62 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2022-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15618.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Filling the Gap: The Consequences of Collaborator Loss in Corporate R&D (2022)
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:iza:izadps:dp15618

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().