The Impact of Open Innovation on Employee Mobility and Entrepreneurship

Prior research shows that firms can increase innovation performance by leveraging external sources of knowledge. 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 examine our research question using a representative Panel dataset that combines information from the Swedish Community Innovation (CIS) survey with employer-employee register data. Our econometric analysis suggests that a stronger use of research collaborations by firms leads to an increasing number of exits of skilled employees.