Shared Stakes, Shared Brains: Common Ownership and Inventor Mobility Along Supply Chains

ABSTRACT Research Question/Issue This study investigates the influence of common ownership on inventor mobility along supply chains and examines its role in shaping the interfirm governance conditions for human‐capital reallocation within portfolios. Research Findings/Insights Using Chinese listed supplier–customer pairs from 2012 to 2023, we find that inventors are more likely to move along supply chains when common owners hold larger stakes in both suppliers and customers. Through mechanism tests, we reveal that common owners increase the likelihood of such flows by facilitating collaboration and information exchange. This effect is more evident when common owners are long‐term, institutional, or state‐owned, and when supply chains have a weaker collaborative culture, less efficient management, or a poorer legal environment. Finally, such flows mainly increase incremental innovation and enhance innovation performance of both supply‐chain partners. Theoretical/Academic Implications This study extends research on inventor mobility from competitors to collaborators and identifies common ownership as a governance determinant of supply‐chain human‐capital flows. It also reframes common ownership's labor‐market effects from horizontal anticompetition to vertical human‐capital reallocation and highlights inventor mobility along supply chains as a person‐level channel for complementary knowledge recombination, rather than another collaboration‐style outcome. Practitioner/Policy Implications Our findings suggest that investors can leverage common ownership to enhance portfolio competitiveness by strengthening the governance conditions that support inventor mobility. For policymakers, particularly those in emerging markets, our results demonstrate that common ownership can fill institutional voids and alleviate supply‐chain frictions, suggesting that regulatory frameworks should recognize its benefits in supporting human‐capital reallocation and supply‐chain resilience.