Collaborative Research: Inter-Industry Differences in the Antecedents and Consequences of Industrial Scientists Mobility and Entrepreneurship Decisions

本研究探讨产业科学家流动与创业决策的前因与后果的产业间差异。分析了三个问题：1）为什么一些高科技产业的科学家流动率和创业率高于其他产业？2)由于科学人员的流动和创业进入，高技术产业的创新扩散模式是什么？3)产业特征如何与企业和个人属性相互作用，以影响工业科学家创建的新企业的就业增长？该项目以互补资产的作用为中心，并假定其重要性的行业间差异在解释工业科学家流动和创业决策的速率和结果的行业异质性方面发挥着关键作用，从而为所有三个研究问题提供理论基础。一个特别的重点是在互补的非人力资产的重要性和可移植性，他们如何塑造个人科学家的职业生涯的决定，以及他们如何影响科学家的流动性和企业家精神的水平在行业内和科学家的流动性和跨行业边界发生的创业方向的行业间的差异。实证分析的数据集中在科学家在高科技产业设置跟踪科学家？知识分子的优点：在大多数研究的前因和后果的科学家的职业选择，在公司层面上，在一个单一的行业背景下，本研究探讨的问题，集中在个人层面的决策，在广泛的跨行业设置。因此，本报告审查了决策者和学术界都感兴趣的多个重要差距。特别是，通过建立知识扩散过程中的微观基础，在分析的科学家个人单位，它有助于建立一个系统的理解工业科学家的流动性和高科技产业的创业精神的行业间差异。了解工业科学家职业选择的前因和后果中的行业异质性，对于了解和促进行业复兴尤其重要，因为科学家可能在新技术的创造和商业化方面发挥关键作用，这些新技术可能在企业、行业和区域层面产生重要的增长效应。这项研究向科学和创新政策制定者提供了信息，说明什么样的行业条件最有利于科学人员通过创业增加就业。此外，它还研究了激励一个潜在的关键，但迄今为止尚未得到充分研究的高科技创业来源的结果：在重点行业之外就业的科学家。研究结果还可以为科学家的职业决策提供信息，了解可能促进或阻碍成功创业和随后发展的行业因素。

This research examines inter-industry differences in the antecedents and consequences of industrial scientists' mobility and entrepreneurship decisions. Three questions are analyzed 1) Why do some high technology industries have higher rates of scientist mobility and entrepreneurship than others? 2) What are the innovation diffusion patterns across high technology industries due to mobility and entrepreneurial entry of scientific personnel? 3) How do industry characteristics interact with firm and individual attributes to impact employment growth of new ventures created by industrial scientists? The project centers on the role of complementary assets and posits that inter-industry differences in their importance play a critical role in explaining industry heterogeneity in the rates and outcomes of industrial scientist mobility and entrepreneurship decisions and thus serve as the theoretical underpinnings for all three research questions. A particular focus is on inter-industry differences in the importance and transportability of complementary non-human assets, how they shape the career decisions of individual scientists, and how they affect both the levels of scientist mobility and entrepreneurship within industries and the direction of scientist mobility and entrepreneurship that occurs across industry boundaries. The empirical analysis of the data focuses on scientists working in high-tech industry settings tracks scientists? entrepreneurship and mobility within and between these high-tech sectors.Intellectual Merit: In contrast to most of the prior literature that studied the antecedents and consequences of the career choices of scientists at the firm level and within a single industry context, this research examines the questions by focusing on individual level decisions in a broad cross-industry setting. This thus examines multiple important gaps that are of interest to both policy makers and academics. In particular, by building the micro-foundations of the knowledge diffusion process at the individual scientist unit of analysis, it helps to build a systematic understanding of inter-industry differences in industrial scientist mobility and entrepreneurship in high tech industries. Understanding industry heterogeneity in the antecedents and consequences of the career choices of industrial scientists is particularly important in the context of understanding and promoting industry renewal as scientists are likely to play a key role in the creation and commercialization of new technologies which can have important growth effects at the firm-, industry-, and regional-level.Broader Impacts: The study informs science and innovation policy makers about what industry conditions are most conducive to employment growth via entrepreneurship by scientific personnel. In addition, it examines the results of incentivizing a potentially crucial but heretofore under-examined source of high tech entrepreneurship: scientists employed outside of the focal industry. The results may also inform scientists' career decisions about industry-level factors that may facilitate or create impediments to successful start-up entry and subsequent growth.