Employee External Affiliation and Inter-firm Mobility: Evidence from Swedish Microdata
Employee Inter- and Intra-Firm Mobility
ISBN: 978-1-78973-550-5, eISBN: 978-1-78973-549-9
Publication date: 15 July 2020
Abstract
How does having an external affiliation influence the probability of employee inter-firm mobility? Our review of the literature suggests that it is difficult to predict ex-ante whether holding an external affiliation increases or decreases inter-firm mobility due to the presence of competing arguments related to the benefits of employment flexibility against agency costs. In the absence of a clear direction for prediction, we conduct an exploratory analysis on administrative labor market data from Sweden during 2002–2010. Specifically, we examine the effects of a few contingencies that are prominent in the study of employment and organizations, namely, organizational age, size, and employment tenure. We find that holding an external organizational affiliation reduces inter-firm mobility among younger and smaller organizations, and for recent hires; yet it increases inter-firm mobility for other organizations and employees. We discuss the implications of our work for future research.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the grant 100018_189098 and the Swedish Research Council under the grant DNR445-2013-7681. We gratefully acknowledge the precious editorial guidance of Bruno Cirillo and Daniel Tzabbar as well as the insightful comments received from Matthew Bidwell and Joseph Raffiee.
Citation
Balachandran, C. and Wezel, F.C. (2020), "Employee External Affiliation and Inter-firm Mobility: Evidence from Swedish Microdata", Tzabbar, D. and Cirillo, B. (Ed.) Employee Inter- and Intra-Firm Mobility (Advances in Strategic Management, Vol. 41), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 197-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-332220200000041012
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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