There is growing interest in management and organizational research to study the relocation of knowledge workers, defined as a move by the knowledge worker to a different place of work. Relocation has been well studied as a potential source of losses or gains in human and social capital. However, our understanding of whether and how it disrupts a scientist’s innovation activities is limited. Relocation could disrupt innovation activities in the new workplace by making it difficult for a scientist to coordinate work with prior collaborators with whom the scientist has relational experience and forcing the scientist to work with new collaborators. In this study, we develop a conceptual framework assessing the effectiveness of the scientists’ research and development (R&D) experience to counter these disruptions arising from relocation and develop valuable patented innovations. We hypothesize that both the scientist’s relational experience and working with new collaborators decrease the value of innovations the scientist creates after relocation. Scientist R&D experience, however, is double-edged in nature: It leads to less valuable innovations prior to relocation but facilitates the creation of more valuable innovations after it. Our theory suggests that this is because R&D experience facilitates the scientist’s adaptation to the new context and helps coordinate her or his activities in new collaborations. Nevertheless, R&D experience is less effective in sustaining the efficacy of relational experience with prior collaborators after relocation. Using a longitudinal dataset from the knowledge-intensive genomics industry, we find support for our hypotheses. This study yields important managerial and policy implications.

对于管理和组织研究以研究知识型员工的重新安置的兴趣日益浓厚，这被定义为知识型员工向另一工作地点迁移。搬迁已被研究为人力和社会资本损失或收益的潜在来源。但是，我们对它是否以及如何破坏科学家的创新活动的理解是有限的。搬迁可能使科学家难以与具有相关经验的以前的合作者协调工作，并迫使科学家与新的合作者一起工作，从而破坏了新工作场所中的创新活动。在这项研究中，我们建立了一个评估科学家研究和开发有效性的概念框架（R＆D）应对因搬迁而造成的干扰并开发有价值的专利创新的经验。我们假设，科学家的关系经验以及与新合作者的合作都会降低科学家在搬迁后创造的创新价值。但是，科学家的研发经验本质上是双刃剑：它会在搬迁之前导致价值较低的创新，但会在搬迁之后促进创造更多有价值的创新。我们的理论表明，这是因为研发经验有助于科学家适应新环境，并有助于在新的合作中协调其活动。然而，研发经验在保持与搬迁后的先前合作者的关系经验的效力方面效果不佳。使用来自知识密集型基因组学行业的纵向数据集，我们为我们的假设提供了支持。这项研究产生了重要的管理和政策含义。