We investigated how the knowledge capabilities of industry incumbents affected the generation, development, and performance of "spin-outs" (entrepreneurial ventures of ex-employees). Analyses of 1977-97 data from the disk drive industry supported our hypothesis that incumbents with both strong technological and market pioneering know-how generate fewer spin-outs than firms with strength in only one of these areas. Also, an incumbent's capabilities at the time of a spin-out's founding positively affect the spin-out's knowledge capabilities and its probability of survival.

No abstract

In many industries, one important method of diffusion is through employee mobility: many of the entering firms are started by employees from incumbent firms using some of their former employer's technological know‐how. This article explores the effect of incorporating this mechanism in a general industry framework by allowing employees to imitate their employers' know‐how. The equilibrium is Pareto optimal because the employees “pay” for the possibility of learning their employers' know‐how. The model's implications are consistent with data from the rigid disk drive industry. These implications concern the effects of know‐how on firm formation and survival.

We investigated how the knowledge capabilities of industry incumbents affected the generation, development, and performance of "spin-outs" (entrepreneurial ventures of ex-employees). Analyses of 1977-97 data from the disk drive industry supported our hypothesis that incumbents with both strong technological and market pioneering know-how generate fewer spin-outs than firms with strength in only one of these areas. Also, an incumbent's capabilities at the time of a spin-out's founding positively affect the spin-out's knowledge capabilities and its probability of survival.