Educational diversity and knowledge transfers via inter-firm labor mobility

•Interactions with educationally diverse co-workers promote learning opportunities.•Hiring workers from educationally diverse enterprises is productivity enhancing.•This effect is larger when worker flows originate from knowledge intensive firms.•This effect is stronger if movers have a higher capac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic behavior & organization 2016-03, Vol.123, p.168-183
Main Authors: Marino, Marianna, Parrotta, Pierpaolo, Pozzoli, Dario
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business administration
Companies
Denmark
Educational attainment
Educational diversity
Firm productivity
Hiring
Humanities and Social Sciences
Information sharing
Inter-firm labor mobility
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge transfer
Labor
Labor economics
Labour economics
Level of education
Mobility
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Occupational mobility
Productivity
Recruitment
Specification
Studies
Workforce
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Summary:•Interactions with educationally diverse co-workers promote learning opportunities.•Hiring workers from educationally diverse enterprises is productivity enhancing.•This effect is larger when worker flows originate from knowledge intensive firms.•This effect is stronger if movers have a higher capacity for absorbing knowledge. This article contributes to the literature on knowledge transfer via labor mobility by providing new evidence regarding the role of educational diversity in knowledge transfer. In tracing worker flows between firms in Denmark over the period 1995–2005, we find that knowledge carried by workers who have been previously exposed to educationally diverse workforces significantly increases the productivity of the hiring firms. Several extensions of our baseline specification support this finding and confirm that our variable of interest affects the arrival firm's performance mainly through the knowledge transfer channel.
ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
0167-2681
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.10.019