Extant research on stars has demonstrated stars’ immense direct and indirect contributions to value creation, yet it lags behind strategy scholarship, which has emphasized the dynamic nature of value creation associated with firms’ core resources. In particular, we lack knowledge regarding how stars’ knowledge creation varies across a star’s career. Drawing on insights from the stars and careers literatures, we develop theoretical arguments that suggest that over their careers, stars shift focus from emphasizing personal attainment and status to prioritizing legacy building—shifts that we predict will correspond to decreases in stars’ relative individual productivity and conveyance of explicit knowledge spillovers to collaborators (which reinforce stars’ status) and increases in stars’ relative conveyance of tacit knowledge spillovers (that aid in colleagues’ development) as stars advance in career tenure. We test our hypotheses through the analysis of patenting activities spanning the years 2000-2022, 291 firms, and 214,398 inventors, cumulating to more than 1,210,989 inventor-year observations. Through the integration of temporal and psychological perspectives in our consideration of stars’ multiple contributions to knowledge creation over their careers, we bring our understanding of stars into alignment with insights related to the dynamic value creation associated with firms’ resources and advance knowledge on stars’ roles in the micro-foundations of human capital-based competitive advantage.

中文翻译：

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揭秘明星生命周期：明星职业生涯中的价值创造

现有的关于明星的研究已经证明了明星对价值创造的巨大直接和间接贡献，但它落后于战略学术，后者强调与企业核心资源相关的价值创造的动态性质。特别是，我们缺乏关于明星的知识创造在其职业生涯中如何变化的知识。借鉴明星和职业文献的见解，我们提出了理论论据，表明在他们的职业生涯中，明星将重点从强调个人成就和地位转向优先考虑遗产建设——我们预测这种转变将对应于明星相对个人生产力和职业生涯的下降。随着明星在职业生涯中的进步，向合作者传递显性知识溢出（这强化了明星的地位），并且明星相对地传递隐性知识溢出（有助于同事的发展）。我们通过分析 2000 年至 2022 年期间、291 家公司和 214,398 名发明人的专利活动来检验我们的假设，累计超过 1,210,989 名发明人年观察结果。通过整合时间和心理角度来考虑明星在其职业生涯中对知识创造的多重贡献，我们将对明星的理解与与公司资源相关的动态价值创造相关的见解相结合，并推进对明星的了解。基于人力资本的竞争优势的微观基础中的作用。