While movement from job to job throughout one’s career is expected, little research has evaluated the effects of hiring boomerang workers — those who return to a former employer. A new study by a University of California, Davis, researcher and colleagues suggests that in addition to benefits that boomerangs can bring to organizations with their knowledge, experience and familiarity with a team, current employees can benefit from boomerangs’ helpfulness.

However, existing workers often are not as helpful to the boomerangs as they are to true newcomers to the organization, researchers said.

“Effectiveness at work often depends on getting assistance from peers,” said Gina Dokko, a Graduate School of Management professor at UC Davis and co-author of the study. “Our work shows boomerangs give more than they get.”

To assess boomerang effects, researchers looked at a sampling of players’ careers in the National Basketball Association, where unlike most corporations, data on players’ movement from team to team and how they interact with one another is easy to track. The premier men’s professional basketball league sees nearly half of all players turning over each season, with 17% returning to their former teams. Previous research estimates boomerangs in all businesses range from 10% to 20%.

Facts, anecdotes

Researchers looked at all boomerangs returning to former teams in the NBA from 1996 until 2019. They also looked at data going back to 1970 to make sure they captured the players’ first NBA employment experience, Dokko said. 

In addition to their quantitative analysis, researchers looked at anecdotal evidence that boomerang players care about building relationships with new colleagues. Among the anecdotes was that of NBA All-Star center Tyson Chandler. Upon his return to the Dallas Mavericks after three years, he talked in news accounts about his contribution, saying: “I’m a more mature player, understanding the moment. A lot more confident. First time I came through I was really trying to establish myself and find my place, but I understand what I bring to my team.” 

Work on a sports team is highly interdependent, with success requiring cooperation, similar to many business settings. Team members may also move from a competing team, which is a relatively common event in business as well, making the NBA data relevant for study, researchers said.

Although it’s difficult to ascertain why existing team members may not want to help their returning colleagues, or boomerangs, researchers thought that resentment might play a role. They proposed that former colleagues might have found the boomerang’s exit disruptive, “making them more likely to hold lingering bad feelings that reduce their propensity to assist the boomerang.”

To explore this idea, researchers showed that former colleagues were even less helpful toward boomerangs when they had worked longer together in the boomerang’s first time with the organization, and the team’s performance suffered after the boomerang left that first time. Another source of resentment could occur if the boomerang’s status rose while they were away.

Together, these findings suggest that even in a highly professional and high-stakes environment like the NBA, behavior can be shaped by various considerations, Dokko said.

The study, “Can You Go Home Again? Performance Assistance Between Boomerangs and Incumbent Employees” was published in advance online in the journal Organization Science this fall. 

Co-authors include Thorsten Grohsjean, Department of Management & Technology and ICRIOS, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy; and Philip Yang, faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany.