A structural study of Big Tech firm-switching of inventors in the post-recession era

TL;DR

This study analyzes inventor mobility within Big Tech firms from 2010 to 2022, revealing that transitioning inventors are central to patent networks and their movement correlates with increased patent impact and network fragmentation.

Contribution

It provides a novel structural analysis of inventor transitions in Big Tech, highlighting their influence on patent network structure and innovation impact during the post-recession era.

Findings

Transitioning inventors have higher degree centrality.

Their removal causes significant network fragmentation.

Higher patent impact is associated with inventor transitions.

Abstract

Complex systems research and network science have recently been used to provide novel insights into economic phenomena such as patenting behavior and innovation in firms. Several studies have found that increased mobility of inventors, manifested through firm switching or transitioning, is associated with increased overall productivity. This paper proposes a novel structural study of such transitioning inventors, and the role they play in patent co-authorship networks, in a cohort of highly innovative and economically influential companies such as the five Big Tech firms (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta) in the post-recession period (2010-2022). We formulate and empirically investigate three research questions using Big Tech patent data. Our results show that transitioning inventors tend to have higher degree centrality than the average Big Tech inventor, and that their removal can lead to greater network fragmentation than would be expected by chance. The rate of transition over the 12-year period of study was found to be highest between 2015-2017, suggesting that the Big Tech innovation ecosystem underwent non-trivial shifts during this time. Finally, transition was associated with higher estimated impact of co-authored patents post-transition.