International Migration and Knowledge

Allan Williams, Vladimir Baláž

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134108749
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Two unconnected but important recent academic and policy debates have focussed on the idea of the knowledge-based economy and the economic consequences of increasing international migration. This book challenges pre-conceived views on the debates and argues the need to understand that all migrants are potentially knowledge carriers and learners, and that they play an essential role in the globalization of knowledge transactions.

Deconstructing the concept of knowledge, and demonstrating how tacit knowledge is in fact an amalgam of encultured and embrained/embodied forms of knowledge this book considers how international migration has profound consequences, analysed, first, in terms of the economic and immigration strategies of national and regional bodies. And, secondly, the authors explore how the 'diversity dividend' of migration is captured by firms through their management strategies, and by individuals through increasingly boundaryless careers, continuous learning and transnational working lives.

This research is a highly original contribution which provides the first overview of one of the most dynamic forces for change in the globalising economy. It will challenge migration researchers and students to engage with the management and learning literatures, and it will challenge management and economic policy analysts to think through the role of international migration. As such it will contribute to teaching and research in a range of social science disciplines, as well as to those involved in policy arenas ensuring that firms and all migrants engage in mutual learning and knowledge sharing.

1 Introduction

Mobility and knowledge: global challenges

The significance of knowledge to modern economies has long been widely acknowledged (Brown et al. 2001; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995), and this has evolved into more specific notions about learning and knowledge-based economies. In essence, these emphasize that knowledge is not so much a ‘factor of production’ but the key determinant of productivity, competitiveness and economic growth. Not untypical is Welch’s (2001: 21; emphases added) assertion that: ‘Know that the ultimate, sustainable competitive advantage lies in the ability to learn, to transfer that learning across components, and to act on it quickly’.

We return to the nature of knowledge later in this chapter, and at greater length in Chapter 3, but focus here on the words emphasized in Welch’s quotation – ‘transfer’ and ‘quickly’. Knowledge in itself is of limited value, for what matters is how that knowledge is collected, transferred and applied. This was emphasized by Peter Drucker, the management guru who has played a key role in promoting the role played by knowledge. In a seminal paper, Drucker (1993: 176) argued that ‘to make knowledge you have “to learn to connect” ’. It is the notion of ‘connecting’ that is central in this volume, or more precisely how connections can be made that allow knowledge to be used in economic activities.

There are fundamentally two ways in which a particular unit (whether a firm, a region, or a national state) can generate or enhance the knowledge that is available to be applied in economic activities: endogenously, or exogenously, that is internally or externally. With the growing interest in theorizing the role of knowledge in the economy, in recent decades, attention initially focused on endogenous sources. This took several forms, including the debates about national innovation systems, stimulating Research and Development (R&D) capacity and investment in education, skills and training. In addition, economic geographers and regional economists, in particular, focused on one particular aspect of knowledge transfer, that is the importance of spatial proximity in the transfer of tacit knowledge via faceto-face contacts, particularly as epitomized by learning regions or cities (Maskell and Malmberg 1999). More recently, the focus has shifted to the diverse means of knowledge transfer, whether localized or ‘distanciated’ (Amin and Cohendet 2004).

The notion of distanciated knowledge implicitly recognizes the role of exogenously sourced knowledge, and this is linked to the long-established literature on the role of foreign direct investment and trade as sources of knowledge, competitive advantage and growth. The classic model of the use and re-use of knowledge within transnational companies dates from the early writings on industrial organization in multinational enterprises (Hymer 1960; Kindleberger 1969). These argue that foreign investors enjoy absolute, ownership-specific advantage over firms in the host country – which both drives and facilitates foreign direct investment. Trade is also classically used as a surrogate measure of knowledge transfer in many economic analyses – buying goods is, in a way, buying technology and other forms of knowledge, whether directly as technology and capital goods, or indirectly in the form of other products.

This literature on multinationals is of less importance to this volume than the understanding that person to person contacts are also potentially important channels of knowledge transfer. Of course, such expertise or knowledge can be transferred, at least in part, electronically, whether by email, interactive web sites, or videoconferencing. But, as will be argued in Chapters 2 and 3, human mobility is a highly effective, and distinctive, channel for knowledge transfer. Moreover, for some forms of tacit knowledge, it may be the only means of transfer. This brings us to the central concern of this volume, which is the role of international mobility and migration in the transfer and connection of knowledge, and learning. This is still surprisingly under-researched, although – as will be argued in Chapters 2 and 3 in particular – there has long been an implicit, if not an explicit recognition of this important relationship. It is a relationship which has moved to the top of many policy agendas, epitomized by concerns about the so-called ‘global talent wars’.

Global talent wars

The role of migrants in knowledge creation and transfer has to be seen in context of globalization and demographic ageing tendencies in the more developed countries. This leads to intensified competition over attracting pools of potentially mobile knowledgeable migrants, which has rather colourfully but effectively been described in terms of ‘global talent wars’. The OECD (2002) among others, has recognized that there is, or potentially will be, a global talent war, as national governments compete against each other to secure the skills and knowledge of migrants. The same applies to particular regional and urban economies, and to firms, that increasingly are involved in the global sourcing of exogenous talent through international migration. This applies not only to the major western economies, but also to the dynamic economies of South-East and Eastern Asia. For example, commenting on the position of Singapore, Fong (2006: 155) quotes from a speech made by the then Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, at a National Day Rally in 1997, emphasizing that foreign talent is:

a matter of life and death for us in the long term…. If we do not top up our talent pool from the outside, in ten years’ time, many of the high-valued jobs we do now will migrate to China and elsewhere, for lack of sufficient talent here.

It is the sense of urgency, and the implication of fundamental economic consequences, which has fuelled and intensified the so-called talent wars which Clegg (2007: 10), perhaps over-dramatically, extends into a powerful metaphor: ‘Often likened to a military struggle, the war for talent gives every sign of spiralling into an arms race’ (Clegg 2007: 10).

In a theme that recurs throughout the book, we argue that it is not only the obviously highly-skilled workers, such as doctors, IT experts and scientists who are in global demand. Instead, there is a wide, and growing, range of occupations which potentially are the objects of global talent wars, including football players, opera singers, and chefs (see Box 1.1). At a less intense level of demand, there is also strong competition for those with ‘intermediate’ skills, such as electricians, conservation workers, or nurses. Moreover, given that skills are socially defined, many so-called ‘unskilled jobs’ actually have relatively high knowledge contents. In addition, many highly-skilled migrants for a variety of reasons take jobs abroad – at least initially – which are relatively unskilled, so that they represent potentially substantial knowledge reservoirs in the destination country, or in the country of origin if they can be enticed to return. These arguments serve to underline the actual and potential contributions of international migration to knowledge in a range of sectors, and territorial economies – particularly in removing or ameliorating constraints in the supply of skills and knowledge.

While our emphasis on international migration stems from recognition of expertise (that is possession and application of knowledge) as a key component of economic development, this has been reinforced by structural shifts in the economy, especially the expansion of the service sector and increasing international trade in some types of services, notably business services. As Millar and Salt (2007: 43) argue: ‘The main factor of production involved in service trade is expert knowledge: trade in services is trade in expertise’. This opens up several possibilities, including – most commonly – the export of services produced by endogenous labour. Our concern, however, is with how these structural shifts in the economy are leading to new demands for the global sourcing of expertise, talent and knowledge, whether by firms or by territories.

Given that the national state is still the most significant site of regulation of international migration, national ‘migration policies’ (understood to include a range of linked employment and welfare policies, as well as narrow immigration laws) have become a major battleground in the global talent wars. They are a battleground in two senses. First, as the principal vehicles through which states intervene in the global talent wars, in support of national or domestic capital, and national growth strategies. Second, because migration policies are not shaped only by the dictates of national and international capital, but by the outcome of a political process, which engage competing interests ranging from endogenous workers seeking labour market protection from international migrants, to political parties responding to a range of electoral concerns and prejudices. The outcome is a bifurcation of national migration policies, between those that engage positively with ‘skilled workers’ as opposed to the generally restrictive approach to other migrants. As Findlay (2006: 68) writes:

Box 1.1 The international culinary talent wars

Against a background of a shortage of highly skilled chefs in the UK – some 40 per cent do not possess a Level Two qualification which is deemed to be the minimum needed to prepare food from raw materials – the country is becoming engaged in an international culinary talent war. Bob Cotton, the British Hospitality Association’s chief executive said at a launch event: ‘With our food tastes evolving, there is an urgent need for great chefs, and this will become even more of an issue with the influx of millions of tourists heading to London in advance of the Olympic Games’.

Cotton proceeded to argue that:

Foreign chefs wanting to work in Britain should be given the same fast-track treatment as top footballers…. Highly experienced chefs from India, China, Japan and elsewhere were ‘queuing up’ to move to the UK…. There is a strong market for chefs who are based in the EU and move from place to place. However, the high quality Asian restaurants can’t find enough locally and need to look abroad.

Brian Wisdom, chief executive of People 1st, echoed these comments, saying:

The government has known for some time that employers here are struggling to find highly skilled chefs…. There is a certain irony in the fact that a sushi chef with 12 years’ training – who we really need in this country – gets denied entry, yet footballers from the same part of the world with less years’ training behind them take priority.

Source: after Financial Times (2007); also available online on: http://www.personneltoday.com (accessed 28 November 2007)

it is interesting to note the curious contradictions of contemporary migration policy statements. At a time when European governments seem to be competing with each other to emphasize how firmly their borders are closed to so-called ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, there also appears to be a new scramble to recruit highly skilled workers. Thus, while the electorate in most West European democracies are wooed with messages about the front door of the state being firmly bolted to clandestine migrants and unwanted entrants…. Governments have performed a remarkable change of policy over the last ten years with regard to highly skilled migration…. Promoting skilled immigration it has been argued is not only highly appropriate because of low levels of demographic growth, but more significantly it is a prerequisite to sustained economic growth in a competitive global economy.

Global talent wars are usually considered as being the domain of skilled or highly-skilled workers. Unskilled workers are, at best, tolerated as a social and economic necessity to fill particular jobs, often the dirty or low-paid jobs that are required in major cities to support the elite workforce (including highly-skilled migrants). Sassen (2000a) powerfully stressed this argument in her discourse on the dual streams of migration that sustain the economies of global cities. The polarization of migration into two types is, of course, an analytical device, and it does not capture the complex relationships between migration and knowledge. Migrants are no more divisible into two types – skilled and unskilled – than the economy is bifurcated into the knowledge-based economy and the non knowledge-based economy. But the energetic revamping of national migration policies in recent years, as part of the talent wars, is a powerful expression of the way that these have moved up the policy agenda in many, if not most of the more developed countries.

What’s new? The historical context

While emphasizing the important role of international migration in knowledge creation and transfer, this book does not wish to exaggerate its significance. Knowledge is not the only driver of economic growth and competitiveness, and international migration is not the only, or even the most important, channel of knowledge transfer in many situations. We also acknowledge the critique of the ‘newness’ of large-scale international migration, and of the significance of migration-transferred knowledge.

First, consider the critique of the novelty of large-scale migration – with some 200 million people now being estimated to be working outside their countries of birth. The question is whether this constitutes an unprecedented level of international migration. The answer to this disarmingly simple question is inevitably complex. There are considerable difficulties inherent in the historical analysis of international migration, and reliable data over more than a few decades are only available for a few countries (but see Box 1.2). However, even putting aside some of the formative migration flows in the early history of population settlement, a historical analysis emphasizes that, in many ways, the high levels of international migration in recent decades are not as unprecedented as is sometimes implied. It is particularly instructive to compare the late twentieth century to the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, an era of significant international migration. Chiswick and Hatton (2003) provide a useful comparison of migration in these two time periods. They estimate that in the three decades after 1846 there were about 300,000 migrants per annum from Europe – the source for which emigration was probably best documented. This was a period when the earlier dominant migration stream from the British Isles was joined by new streams of migrants from Germany and, after 1870, from Scandinavia and elsewhere in north-western Europe. After the 1880s there was a new surge of emigration, from Italy and the disintegrating Austro-Hungarian empire, followed by southern and eastern Europe. Gross emigration numbers climbed to circa 700,000 a year by the late nineteenth century, and peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century at almost one-and-a-half million a year. In addition, there were also major migration movements within Europe, such as those from Ireland to Great Britain, and from Asia to East Africa, the Pacific Islands and the western regions of North America.

After the First World War, a combination of economic depression and the introduction of immigration quotas in the USA sharply reduced international migration. This was followed after the Second World War by the period that Chiswick and Hatton characterize as ‘Constrained mass migration, 1946–2000’. In this period, gross immigration to the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand alone climbed to over one million per annum by the 1990s. At the same time, there was a shift in the source of global migrants from Europe to Asia, Latin America, Afri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theorizing international migration and knowledge
• 3 Knowledge and knowledge transactions
• 4 The changing context of international migration
• 5 National and regional perspectives
• 6 Firm-level perspectives
• 7 Individual perspectives
• 8 Future challenges
• References
• Index