On the Move: The Impact of Internal Mobility and Internal Comobility on Unit- and Organization-Level Outcomes

Internal mobility is commonly used to reallocate talent within organizations. Despite its prevalence and potential implications for organizational performance, most prior work has focused on the individual-level outcomes associated with internal mobility. That is, there has been relatively limited theoretical and empirical attention to the mechanisms that connect internal mobility to unit- and organization-level outcomes, making it difficult to predict when or why internal mobility is beneficial to organizations. To address this oversight, we draw from human and social capital literatures to build theory to predict when and why internal mobility will have unit-level implications. We test this by examining a period of growth in a Fortune 500 company and evaluate gains and losses associated with moving employees within firms, including distinguishing between two types of internal movers—those who come from different units in the organization (solo movers) and those who come from the same unit in the organization (comobile movers). In doing so, we contribute to both internal mobility and strategic human capital resource literatures and provide actionable insights regarding when to source internal movers, and where from.