The Impact of Open Innovation on Employee Mobility and Entrepreneurship

1 The impact of open innovation on employee mobility and entrepreneurship Preliminary draft: February 2017 ABSTRACT Prior research showed that firms can increase innovation performance by leveraging external sources ofknowledge. However, our understanding regarding potential drawbacks of open collaborative approaches for innovation is still limited. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between R&D collaboration and the departure of skilled employees. Scientists and engineers who interact with external partners for innovation may increase their outside options, resulting in higher rates of employee mobility to other firms and employee entrepreneurship. We analyze our research question using the Swedish Community Innovation (CIS) survey combined with employer-employee register data. Our econometric analysis reveals that a stronger use of research collaborations by firms leads to an increasing number of exits of skilled employees.QC 20180412