While mobility's effect on knowledge transfer to firms that hire mobile employees is well demonstrated, we choose to explore mobility's effect on knowledge transfer to firms that lose these employees. Focusing on this 'outbound mobility' allows us to isolate effects of social mechanisms associated with mobility. We find that semiconductor firms losing employees are more likely to subsequently cite patents of firms hiring these employees, suggesting that mobilitydriven knowledge flows are bidirectional. In addition, the outbound mobility effect is pronounced when mobility occurs between geographically distant firms, but attenuates for geographically proximate firms since other redundant knowledge channels exist within regions.

In this article, we argue that the ability of a firm to access a variety of knowledge resources and, in turn, upgrade its products depends on its being tied not simply to any or many organizations and institutions, but rather to those that act as social and knowledge bridges between previously isolated producer communities. Through a multimethod analysis of the recent transformation of the Argentine wine industry, we highlight how distinct governance rules for new government support institutions can anchor their multiplex, cross-cutting network qualities, which underpin their ability to provide improved collective resources and reshape the ties between firms.

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