Biography
Ken Younge is a fourth year doctoral candidate in Management and Entrepreneurship. Ken also holds a B.A. in economics from Brown University and a M.A. in international political economy from Stanford University. Before joining the Ph.D. program at Leeds, Ken worked in industry for 14 years, co-founding 4 firms and successfully selling and exiting 2 firms. His research focuses on the role of employee mobility in strategic outcomes of the firm. He has presented his research at Harvard University, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of California at Berkeley, INSEAD (France), and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Germany).
Research
Ken’s first paper (joint with dissertation advisers Tony Tong and Lee Fleming) was selected as the Winner of the 2011 Strategic Management Society Best Conference Paper Prize (out of close to 1,000 submissions) at the Society’s Annual Meetings in Miami on November 8, 2011. The paper examines the effect of employee mobility and mergers and acquisitions and is currently in R&R and the Strategic Management Journal:
During post-merger integration a main concern for many companies is to lose employee talent. The authors investigate this question by looking at how change in the enforcement of employee non-compete agreements impacts the likelihood of a company being acquired. The study focused on a policy change in Michigan where legislators inadvertently changed the legally allowed enforcement level of non-compete agreements, therein reducing employee mobility in Michigan. Findings showed that because of the policy change lowering employee mobility, Michigan companies became more attractive as acquisition targets, at least in the short run. Furthermore, the causal effect was stronger when companies were more exposed to the negative consequences of employee mobility, and was weaker for companies protected by stronger intellectual property rights. These findings have implications for corporate managers as well as policy makers.
Ken is currently working on two additional papers related to employee mobility and strategic outcomes as part of his dissertation.
