Book Description

A pioneering and innovative analysis of how the social organization of talent and the mobility of talent shape entrepreneurial activity, the spread of organizational innovations, the incidence of mergers and acquisitions and the demise of organizations. A must read for students of organizations, strategy and human resource management. Hayagreeva Rao, Stanford University, US In this book, Pennings and Wezel address a neglected topic in organizational theory: the links between individual behaviors and organizational outcomes. Their study. . . demonstrates how individual careers affect organizational founding, competitiveness, and survival, and provides rich insights on the role of human capital in professional partnerships. It offers a new perspective backed by solid reasoning and evidence. Henrich R. Greve, Norwegian School of Management, Norway The authors of this fascinating and original work contend that by analysing the conduct of organization members, a great deal can be learnt about firm behaviour and about the cooperative and competitive forces that underlie industry evolution. The empirical chapters in this volume are preceded by a conceptual overview of macro-organizational theories that explicitly bring in the role of individual actions. A rich set of studies carried out in the Dutch accounting sector is used to illustrate that changes in competitive positioning and behaviour are triggered by employee actions including advancement and defection to competitors. New insights on entrepreneurship, mergers and acquisitions and organizational dissolution further develop the multi-level focus of the set of studies presented here. The book aims at stimulating intellectual debate on the role of migration of human and social capital through inter-firm mobility and will provide a fascinating read for academics, researchers, students and practitioners with an interest in organizational theory, strategic management and human resource management.