Inter-firm mobility of inventors is a major source of embodied knowledge transfer
and receiving firms enjoy additional benefits from the collaboration networks of mobile
inventors. However, there is still limited understanding on how the firm can maximize
the impact of incoming inventors and what structure of co-inventor networks is the
most beneficial for that. To answer this question, we construct a weighted and time-decayed
co-inventor network from all IT-related patents in the harmonized OECD PATSTAT 1977-2010
database and analyze events of inter-firm inventor mobility. We look at the future
impact of firm innovation and isolate the effect of mobile inventors' network characteristics
from the characteristics of the collaboration network in the receiving firm. Our results
imply that high-impact innovations are produced if the firm hires broker inventors
who have diverse networks and thus has the potential to channel a wide pool of knowledge
into the firm. We find evidence that cohesive networks within the firm, measured by
small world characteristics, exaggerate the effect of incoming brokers and high-impact
inventors.
