In high-technology industries, employee spinouts have increasingly been identified as attractive targets for acquisitions. Yet employee spinouts may originate from different knowledge contexts. This study adopts a resource base perspective to examine the impact of both the knowledge heritage and the product strategy of spinouts originating from different contexts (i.e. from the same industry or from a related downstream industry) on the potential to be acquired by firms in the same industry or in related industries. Our findings, based on data from the semiconductor industry and its related downstream industries, show that spinouts from firms in a focal industry represent appealing targets for a broad range of buyer firms from within the focal industry or from related, downstream industries, independent of their product strategy at entry. By contrast, spinouts from downstream, user industries that enter into an upstream industry, tend to appeal to a more limited set of buyers. Our study suggests that managers and academics should consider the acquisition of spinouts whose founders have origins in related industries as a channel to access critical knowledge from upstream or downstream contexts. Yet because many of the critical knowledge resources that spinouts possess are embodied in their founders, such acquisitions also require careful management of personnel decisions post-acquisition.

在高科技行业，员工分拆越来越被视为有吸引力的收购目标。然而，员工分拆可能源自不同的知识背景。本研究采用资源基础的视角来检验源自不同背景（即来自同一行业或相关下游行业）的衍生企业的知识遗产和产品战略对同一企业被收购的潜力的影响。行业或相关行业。我们的研究结果基于来自半导体行业及其相关下游行业的数据，表明从重点行业公司分拆出来的公司代表了来自重点行业或相关下游行业的广泛买方公司的有吸引力的目标，独立于他们的进入时的产品策略。相比之下，进入上游行业的下游用户行业的衍生产品往往会吸引更有限的买家。我们的研究表明，管理者和学者应考虑收购其创始人来自相关行业的衍生公司，作为从上游或下游环境获取关键知识的渠道。然而，由于衍生公司拥有的许多关键知识资源都体现在其创始人身上，因此此类收购还需要对收购后的人事决策进行仔细管理。我们的研究表明，管理者和学者应考虑收购其创始人来自相关行业的衍生公司，作为从上游或下游环境获取关键知识的渠道。然而，由于衍生公司拥有的许多关键知识资源都体现在其创始人身上，因此此类收购还需要对收购后的人事决策进行仔细管理。我们的研究表明，管理者和学者应考虑收购其创始人来自相关行业的衍生公司，作为从上游或下游环境获取关键知识的渠道。然而，由于衍生公司拥有的许多关键知识资源都体现在其创始人身上，因此此类收购还需要对收购后的人事决策进行仔细管理。