Movin’ and Groovin’! Increased Prior Mobility Facilitates Newcomers’ Transitions Into Organizations

Integrating insights from research on newcomer socialization and generalization of learning, we theorize that individuals’ prior mobility across organizations may offer learning opportunities that mitigate the barriers they face as newcomers transitioning into subsequent employment contexts. Building on evidence that individuals experience a temporary decline in performance when they switch employers, we argue that more mobile individuals will experience a smaller performance decline and shorter time to performance recovery following entry into a new employer as they are better equipped to adapt to the norms, values, and expectations of new organizational social contexts. We further theorize that the benefits associated with prior mobility are likely to be greatest when newcomers’ social integration into a new organization is more challenging or more central to their new role. We find overall support for our theory using data on moves made by 8,693 hedge fund managers between 2,129 firms in the U.S. hedge fund industry from 2004 to 2019. We contribute to research on the influence of individuals’ career experiences on their transitions into new organizations, and offer insights to ongoing conversations related to the implications of employees’ investments in firm-specific human capital.