Strategic human capital management in the context of cross-industry and within-industry mobility frictions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Starr, Evan; Ganco, Martin; Campbell, Benjamin A.
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.2906
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 2226-2254
• 关键词: employee mobility; industry-specific human capital; knowledge expropriation; labor market frictions; strategic human capital

摘要

Research Summary: We develop and test a theory examining how frictions that restrict mobility across industries and frictions constraining mobility within an industry can co-occur to effectively isolate individual human capital, ultimately changing the firm's make-versus-buy decision for human capital. Empirically, we demonstrate that when cross-industry frictions in the form of limited skill transferability and within-industry frictions in the form of noncompete enforceability are both present, employees exhibit longer tenures, firms hire workers with less initial experience, firms change the amount and nature of training provided, and wages marginally increase. These findings suggest that sufficiently strong and complementary mobility frictions shift the emphasis of firms' human capital management practices toward internal development of human capital relative to acquisition on the external market. Managerial Summary: In the face of frictions to employee mobility both within and across industries, which we capture empirically using measures of noncompete enforceability and limited skill transferability across industries, firms tend to hire less experienced workers, such workers exhibit longer tenures, and firms invest more in their training, particularly in the development of new skills. Our findings imply that for firms operating under such complementary frictions, better hiring and internal development capabilities are particularly important for performance, while those firms without such capabilities may benefit from considering ways to circumvent the mobility frictions, including moving out of the focal state or lobbying for different noncompete laws.