Losing talent by partnering up? The impact of R&D collaboration on employee mobility

Many firms try to increase their innovation performance by entering R&D collaborations. In this paper, we argue that engaging in R&D collaboration can have the unintended consequence of increasing mobility among highly skilled personnel. We examine our research question using a representative dataset that combines information from the Swedish Community Innovation Survey (CIS) with employer–employee registry data. Our econometric analysis shows that R&D collaborations by firms are associated with higher levels of outgoing mobility among skilled employees, and especially among those with technical (“STEM”) education and master's or doctoral degrees. We do not find equivalent effects for incoming mobility. We discuss the mechanisms and potential strategies for firms to mitigate the risk of increasing outgoing mobility