Innovating in the periphery: The impact of local and foreign inventor mobility on the value of Indian patents

We examine the impact of local and foreign labor mobility in India by modeling one regional and one global network, each of which captures the inter-organizational mobility of inventors. Our analysis of the regional network shows that, within India, the productivity of inventors does not improve when they move from foreign to Indian organizations. In the global network, we find that Indian organizations remain located in the periphery as a result of employing a small number of inventors from foreign organizations. However, in the instances when inventors are hired from foreign organizations, they are able to produce patents with a higher impact in comparison to inventors hired from other Indian organizations. Furthermore, when the inventors are hired from abroad, the impact of their patents is even higher in comparison. The implications of these findings for innovation and policy in the emerging economy context are discussed.

► We model networks formed by inventor mobility to Indian organizations. ► We examine the effect of foreign and domestic mobility on inventor performance. ► Inventor performance remains the same after they move from foreign to Indian firms. ► We also compare the difference in the inventive impact of foreign and domestic hires. ► Inventive impact is higher for inventors hired from foreign organizations.