Good Girls Go to Heaven, but Not Together: Co-mobility and Homophily after Organizational Failure

Employees’ mobility affects positively individual and firm outcomes. Mirroring these findings, co-mobility research, analyzing group transitions, finds positive links between the co-mobility and performance. Latest population study of co-mobility found that 10-11% of all transitions involve more than one individual. Although co-mobility is an important phenomenon, its antecedents are still unknown. This study addresses this gap in the co-mobility literature by studying the effects of various dimensions of homophily between co-mobile employees as antecedents of co-mobility. Our research context is a natural experiment of an exogenous and unexpected organizational collapse. By analyzing 34.040 moves, we find support for our claims on positive effects of national homophily on co-mobility. We also find strong evidence that gender-based homophily affects co-mobility differently for men and women. For men, a gender-homophilic dyad has a higher likelihood of co-mobility. Such trend is negative for women. We provide some evidence that while dyads composed of males are less at risk of demotion and more likely to be promoted in their new employment, female dyads are vulnerable and more prone to demotion. These include female dyads containing a senior manager.We contribute to the co-mobility literature and extend the literature on the effects of homophily on ties.