Social connections that reach distant places are advantageous for individuals, firms and cities, providing access to new skills and knowledge. However, systematic evidence on how firms build global knowledge access is still lacking. In this paper, we analyse how global work connections relate to differences in the skill composition of employees within companies and local industry clusters. We gather survey data from 10% of workers in a local industry in Sweden, and complement this with digital trace data to map co-worker networks and skill composition. This unique combination of data and features allows us to quantify global connections of employees and measure the degree of skill similarity and skill relatedness to co-workers. We find that workers with extensive local networks typically have skills related to those of others in the region and to those of their co-workers. Workers with more global ties typically bring in less related skills to the region. These results provide new insights into the composition of skills within knowledge-intensive firms by connecting the geography of network contacts to the diversity of skills accessible through them.

到达遥远地方的社会联系对于个人，公司和城市来说都是有利的，它提供了获得新技能和知识的途径。但是，仍然缺少有关企业如何建立全球知识获取渠道的系统证据。在本文中，我们分析了全球工作联系如何与公司和本地产业集群中员工的技能组成差异相关。我们从瑞典当地一个行业的10％的工人那里收集调查数据，并用数字跟踪数据来补充该数据，以绘制同事网络和技能组成。数据和功能的这种独特组合使我们能够量化员工的全球联系，并衡量与同事之间的技能相似性和技能相关性。我们发现，拥有广泛本地网络的工人通常具有与该地区其他人及其同事相关的技能。具有更多全球联系的工人通常会为该地区带来较少的相关技能。这些结果通过将网络联系人的地理位置与他们可以访问的各种技能联系起来，从而为知识密集型公司的技能构成提供了新的见解。