Resource orchestration in the context of knowledge resources acquisition and divestment. The empirical evidence from the Italian “Serie A” football

We investigate how resource orchestration influences performance within the ‘knowledge resource management’ approach by exploiting a novel database on the Italian Serie A top-professional football league spanning from the 1960–61 up to the 1991–92 season. We find that the acquisition of experience via newcomers has a U-shaped non-monotonic relationship with performance. Furthermore, we find that releasing co-specialized employees has a positive moderating role within the relationship between team experience and performance by suggesting that dismissing old routines positively influences the relationship between current routines and team's performance.