How Do Mobility Direction and Human Assets of Mobile Engineers Affect Joint Knowledge Creation after M&amp

We focused on mobile engineers, a distinctive employee group that may have unique reactions to mergers and acquisitions (M&amp
As). Mobile engineers, employees that move from one firm to another, were previously recognized as an undesirable loss by most knowledge-intensive organizations. However, in this study, we show that they may return to their former organizations as effective knowledge creators when their previous and new organizations unite through M&amp
As. We specifically investigated how their mobility direction, relational assets, and intellectual assets affect the amount of knowledge that is jointly created through inter-personal collaborations following the M&amp
A. Using the data of 410 mobile engineers in high-technology M&amp
As during 2000&ndash
2004 in the United States, we found that the mobility direction from acquiring firms to targets prior to M&amp
A has a positive impact on joint knowledge creation. We also found that such mobility direction positively moderates the relationship between human assets of mobile engineers and their joint knowledge creation.