Linking embeddedness to physical career mobility: How Brexit affected the preference of business, economics and management academics for leaving the UK

Abstract

In this study, we use embeddedness and boundaryless career perspectives to investigate the extent to which Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (‘Brexit’) led business, economics and management academics to consider emigrating. Using a representative survey of two partially overlapping groups, we find that the impact of Brexit was surprisingly broad and nuanced. In particular, individuals who were born in the UK, but had obtained citizenship of another country, and foreign-born academics who obtained UK citizenship prior to the Brexit referendum have considered leaving the country, implying a broad discontent from mobile and less embedded individuals. Surprisingly, we did not find that the reputation of the institution where participants work, or differences in levels of academic seniority, influenced whether they were considering emigrating. More productive researchers are more likely to have considered emigrating, suggesting that Brexit may lead to a ‘hollowing out’ of UK research in the long term. However, personal circumstances, such as having children, or length of tenure, also entered into scholars' intention to emigrate. The results imply that managers should act to address the potential losses, and policy makers need to support the higher education sector, to ensure its sustainable competitive performance.