Engineer/scientist careers: Patents, online profiles, and misclassification bias

Abstract

Research summary: This article applies data from LinkedIn to advance strategy research into the effect of human capital on mobility of engineers and scientists. Through an inventor survey, we show that LinkedIn provides more accurate career histories than patents. Compared to LinkedIn, patent measures of mobility generate 12 percent false positives and 83 percent false negatives. Using LinkedIn, we review findings from previous research using patents to track the effect of human capital on mobility. One previous finding is robust: that mobility is higher in Silicon Valley than elsewhere. Other findings are possibly sensitive to the measure of mobility or sample selection. We interpret our results as the outcome of targeted retention of human capital. Data for this study may be accessed at FIVE, five.dartmouth.edu. Managerial summary: How does the mobility of engineers and scientists depend on their human capital? Previous research used patents to track inventor mobility and concluded that employers targeted inventors for recruitment by their human capital. Here, we introduce data from LinkedIn to review the previous research. Through an inventor survey, we show that LinkedIn provides more accurate career histories than patents. Compared to LinkedIn, patent measures of mobility generate 12 percent false positives and 82 percent false negatives. Among the previous findings, we show that one is robust: mobility is higher among inventors in Silicon Valley than elsewhere. Other findings are possibly sensitive to the measure of mobility or sample selection. Our results suggest that current employers target engineers and scientists for retention according to their human capital. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Employee Mobility and Interfirm Relationship Transfer: Evidence from the Mobility and Client Attachments of United States Federal Lobbyists, 1998–2014

“…Second, while the LDA/HLOGA offers me a unique way to observe the dynamics of lobbyist and client mobility, I am unable to observe lobbyists who do not meet the registration thresholds specified in the LDA/HLOGA or lobbyists who exceed these thresholds but choose not to register (Drutman, ). Although the limitations associated with using lobbying registrations to track mobility are similar to the limitations in prior work (Ge et al, ) and my fixed‐effects estimations show that the theoretical mechanisms proposed work with respect to within‐lobbyist variation, evidence suggests the unreported lobbying activity may be substantial (Drutman, ).…”

“…There are multiple ways in which to identify mobility events—particularly given the presence of lobbyists who register to lobby at multiple firms simultaneously. As detailed in the robustness checks, my results are robust to a number of mobility coding schemes—both restrictive and relaxed—which increases the reliability of the results and robustness of the theory developed (see Ge, Huang, & Png, ).…”

“…Next, some lobbyists register to lobby for multiple lobbying firms, making it unclear if these lobbyists are employees or independent contractors (Bidwell & Briscoe, ). Accordingly, I examined a number of alternative ways to code mobility events to ensure that the results are not sensitive to the measurement of mobility (see Ge et al, ). I relaxed my requirements for mobility and treated a lobbyist as mobile even if they did not sever their employment with their prior lobbying firm in period p + 1 or p + 2 .…”

“…A potential limitation of the data is that I do not observe lobbyists who do not meet the requirements to register as federal lobbyists or those who meet the criteria but choose not to register (Drutman, ) . Despite this limitation, the use of lobbying disclosure reports to identify lobbyist mobility compares favorably with other common practices of identifying employee mobility in the strategy literature, such as the use of patents, a technique where mobility is only observed for the fraction of employees who patent at multiple firms (Ge et al, ). That said, there is a strong incentive for actors to comply with the LDA, as whoever knowingly and corruptly fails to comply with any provision of the LDA (e.g., reporting) may be fined up to $200,000 and imprisoned for up to 5 years under Title 18 if the United States Code.…”

Money secrets: How does trade secret legal protection affect firm market value? Evidence from the uniform trade secret act

“…However, the IRR is still the key performance indicator for practitioners in the PE context, which lessens (even if it does not eliminate) concerns about the reliability of our measure. Moreover, using patent data to measure inventor mobility presents major limitations, as suggested by Ge, Huang, and Png (). However, given the long period we take into account (1978–2008) and the fact that we measure intra‐industry cross‐firm mobility of knowledge workers, patent data likely offer the most suitable resource for our study.…”