Drawing on a dynamic approach, increasing research investigates network dynamics at the inter-firm level in recent years. However, little is known about intra-firm employee network dynamics and their consequences for firm exploratory innovation. This paper addresses the gap by focusing on employee co-invention network dynamics conceptualized as employee turnover and across-team movement. Based on the knowledge-based view and transactive memory system theory, this research elaborates on the dual mechanism of employee co-invention network dynamics and proposes an inverted U-shaped relationship between employee co-invention network dynamics and firm exploratory innovation. Furthermore, employees and their innovation are structurally embedded in the intra-firm networks. This paper investigates the moderation effect of intra-firm network structures. First, employee co-invention network centralization, indicating a core-periphery co-invention structure among employees, may negatively moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship. Second, knowledge-employee network equilibrium, indicating an evenly- and broadly- distributed knowledge structure among employees, may positively moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship. Based on patent data of 76 high-tech firms over 31 years from 1990 to 2020, this paper develops novel quantitative measures and conducts panel regression analysis. Results support all the above predictions.
