Skilled Expatriates Research Articles

Does the overall justice climate enhance self-initiated expatriates' creativity during uncertain times ? The mediating role of cross-cultural psychological capital

PurposeBuilding on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to explore how overall justice climate (OJC) and cross-cultural psychological capital (CCPsyCap) help highly skilled expatriates develop creative behaviours despite disruptive global macro-events. This topic has not been extensively researched in the context of expatriation, especially amongst self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected through a web-based questionnaire from 307 SIEs coming from the MENA region and working in different sectors of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The responses were analysed via partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).FindingsEmpirical evidence shows that no significant direct correlation exists between the OJC and the creativity of SIEs. However, the results demonstrate that this relationship was completely mediated by CCPsyCap.Practical implicationsThe context of high uncertainty may limit individuals' cognitive abilities amongst individuals, in turn, reducing their level of creativity. In this regard, this study identifies the need for host organisations to develop fair human resource policies to enhance creative behaviours amongst SIEs in such a context. It also underlines the role of psychological resources as a coping mechanism that helps those expatriates cope with the diverse challenges of their international assignments.Originality/valueThis study offers new theoretical support for understanding how the combination of OJC and psychological resources constitutes a springboard for enhancing SIEs' creativity in a context of hardship. This study also advances the COR theory by adopting a “cross-level resources caravans” approach.

The Need for American Scientific Diaspora Networks

The global nature of science and technology enables professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to emigrate in pursuit of educational and professional opportunities abroad. To support and access these highly skilled expatriates, many countries develop scientific diaspora networks. These networks act as hubs to connect diaspora scientists to each other and to their country of origin, strengthening research collaborations and scientific diplomacy between nations. The U.S. does not have any formal networks for its scientists working abroad. These émigré researchers therefore represent an untapped resource of soft power and diplomacy. U.S. networks would help provide information on current innovation strategies worldwide, promote positive and peaceful relations between the U.S. and the host country, and foster cross-country research collaborations. We recommend the development of scientific diaspora networks for U.S. researchers abroad. We review three organizational and funding structures that the U.S. can use as models to develop its own science diaspora networks: government affiliated, NGO-managed, and grassroots-initiated. Given these, we make the following policy recommendations: 1) The Department of State and other federal agencies should help develop and support U.S. diaspora networks, 2) The U.S. government should create a ‘network of networks’ to scale support and resources for U.S. diaspora networks, and 3) The U.S. government and philanthropic groups should fund programs to establish professional organizations for U.S. scientists abroad.

The challenge of skilled expatriates from the Indian subcontinent losing intellectual capital in Australia: resolving the crisis of habitus

PurposeThis article aims to examine the challenges faced by highly skilled expatriates (i.e. professionals and managers) from the Indian subcontinent (i.e. India and neighboring countries) as they attempt to advance their careers in Australia. Extant literature has revealed significant gaps between policies for skilled migration proposed by governments in developed countries and the response to policies by organizations in those countries. By employing the theories of habitus, disembedding, sensemaking and acculturation as frameworks for analysis, the authors explore and explain how these expatriates settle and integrate into their new lives and careers as they resolve their experience of habitus.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed phenomenology and narrative research techniques using 21 in-depth, semistructured interviews with expatriate professionals from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to explore and examine their expatriation experiences and their occupational progress in Australia.FindingsThe findings reveal that on migrating to Australia, expatriate professionals are uprooted from their home country habitus and thrust into new conditions that cause them to lose their cultural, economic, intellectual and social capital, which further leads them into a state of “disembeddedness.” These highly skilled expatriates then rely on sensemaking and acculturation to resolve their crisis of habitus. The authors also found that gender is a significant factor in this process, as female expatriates faced more career-related barriers compared to their male counterparts.Originality/valueThis article brings into focus previously unexamined avenues of expatriation research and proposes a novel theoretical framework that is instrumental in explaining the settlement and integration process of highly skilled professionals from emerging nations.

Female Migrants and Brain Waste – A Conceptual Challenge with Societal Implications

AbstractGlobal careers and highly skilled expatriates employing their talent in diverse contexts of the world tend to be conceptualized as “male”, and recognized diplomas represent employability. Despite the increasing feminization of migration, highly skilled female migrants and their contributions to economies through careers or entrepreneurship remain overlooked. Many obstacles impede the full employment of their talents. We review extant literature and argue that female migrant talent merits more detailed conceptual attention. By analysing interview data from 2010 to 2019 in two advanced European countries, we found that female migrants suffer from brain waste in multiple ways, partly due to external institutional aspects and discrimination and partly due to inherent internalized practices and sociocultural norms. We call for greater intersectionality and interdisciplinarity in examining equality to advance female economic participation. Private and public sectors may improve female talent perception, integration and employment by developing specific responses to the problems identified.

Forging a force: rulers, professional expatriates, and the creation of Abu Dhabi’s Police

It has long been observed that the development of professional security institutions is a key stage in modern state formation. Leaders of many proto-states embarking on programs of rapid development – such as many of the rulers of the Arab Gulf States in the 1960s – have brought in foreign professional expertise to assist in building up fledgling state institutions, including militaries, police forces and intelligence services. We know little, however, about the relationship between ruler and these key expatriates performing these functions. To help fill this lacuna, this article examines the first three expatriate professional heads of Abu Dhabi Police over the period 1959-68 and their relationship with their paymasters – first Shaikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, then his brother, Shaikh Zayed. It details the difficulties these professional expatriates faced in operating within this ruler-dominated political-administration system. We believe observations made in this study have relevance to the contemporary Gulf, where governments continue to employ highly skilled expatriates in their security institutions and much else besides.

Underemployment of skilled self-initiated expatriates – a skill mismatch or categorisation?

ABSTRACT Despite excellent education and a rich working experience in their home countries, skilled expatriates struggle to find employment that matches their qualifications. This article goes beyond the dominant stress and emotions’ perspective on underemployment and presents the challenges of skilled migrant labour through the lens of the Common In-group Identity Model. It draws from the voices of expatriates and host-country nationals, and employs interviews and personal narratives to study the role of inter-group bias in social and occupational adaptation of skilled expatriates with focus on their underemployment. Its contribution lies in that expatriate employment challenges are examined not from a psychological but from a societal perspective. Thus, it increases our understanding of the factors that lead to underemployment among skilled workers. It also offers solutions to how the problem of underemployment can be overcome through recategorisation, as well as, points to differences in expatriate adaptation among self-initiated expatriates and international assignees.

An empirical analysis of research paradigms within international human resource management: The need for more diversity

The goal of this article is to provide a fine-grained analysis of international human resource management research that addresses the different perspectives applied in that research. We coded 203 peer-reviewed international human resource management articles published between 2011 and 2018 with content analytical methods guided by the compass of management research developed by Sieben, which is rooted in critical management research. We were particularly attentive to the various discursive orientations international human resource management scholars have adopted, including ideologically critical, poststructuralist, functionalist and interpretive perspectives. We further examined which methods, theoretical perspectives and topics were common within and across different perspectives. This analysis indicated that critical research intending to politicize and question existing structures and ways of organizing is still marginal. Along with the dominance of functionalist and interpretive studies, papers in our dataset commonly use a strategic human resource perspective, are predominantly interested in the human resource management–performance link and focus rather narrowly on multinational corporations and expatriates. Furthermore, while international human resource management scholars increasingly account for the contextual embeddedness of organizations through macro-level theories, they mainly apply institutional perspectives that view organizations as adapting to institutional constraints. We propose a more diverse and reflexive approach – inspired by ideologically critical and poststructuralist perspectives – that may help to overcome these blind spots. Such an approach might, for instance, look at types of organizations other than multinational corporations and individuals other than highly skilled expatriates and might explicitly bring multiple, external stakeholders into the picture. We conclude by suggesting that international human resource management research and practice would benefit from more research diversity which enables more holistic analyses of phenomena, more innovative research and resultant insights, and more space for meta-theoretical reflections.

Intra-European Mobility of Skilled Expatriates and Place-Identity: Interwoven Social Representations of Rome and Warsaw

This paper discusses the influence of social representations of a destination city on the motivation and development of individual mobility patterns, using questionnaires with a projective technique and guided interviews. The participants were 60 skilled expatriates in two different European capital cities: Italians residing in Warsaw and Poles residing in Rome. The study demonstrates the relevance of place-identity for the meaning of place within urban culture, in the context where global and local issues are interwoven. It also features the transformation of social representations of the two cities.

Human Capital Management and Future of Work; Job Creation and Unemployment: A Literature Review

An enormous amount of literature has emerged over the last few years in the context of the “human capital management”, “Future of Work” and on “Zambian Case: Job creation and unemployment”. The existing literature on the human capital management, the future of work and the Zambian case on job creation and unemployment, covers a wide range of topics. Investment in the human capital enhances performance, employee engagement, innovation and labor productivity. However, it has been observed that the future of work; technology advancement, automation in the transportation and agriculture sector might disrupt economic and social activities in developing countries including Zambia by the year 2026. Nevertheless, despite this wealth of existing studies, some important gaps remain, which should be addressed in future research: 1) Reduction on poverty levels, little is known about the margin by which poverty levels both in rural and urban areas will be reduced by 2021 considering that technological advancements and automation are expected to alter the way of doing business in service sector: transport Sector and manufacturing sector and also the agriculture sector by 2026. 2) Development strategies on human capital development to address the challenges associated with low labor productivity and how technological advancements, automation in the service sector (transportation), manufacturing sector and agriculture sector will sustain jobs that Zambian Government will have created for the locals by the year 2026. 3) Development strategies on human capital development which will ensure that most workers which enter the labor force after dropping out of school, attain basic numeracy, ICT and literacy skills by 2026. 4) Exploring measures to address wage inequality issues in view of off loading robots and use of articial intelligences on the Zambian market which could have potential to widen the gap between highly skilled expatriates and local Zambians.

Stephen Robert Nagy (ed.), Japan's Demographic Revival: Rethinking Migration, Identity and Sociocultural Norms Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2016. xxvii + 410 p. $128.58.

Japan, recently headlined by The Economist as “the incredible shrinking country,” is by most accounts clearly in need of demographic revival. This collection of essays points to some of the formidable difficulties an activist population policy would face, whether directed at fertility or migration. Its intention, according to the editor, is to widen the policy discussion from migrant numbers as the sole remedy for the country's population decline to “the structural, organizational, and cultural impediments” that contribute to the demographic predicament. Fertility enters as a minor part of the picture, as if little there can be done. A chapter explores the cultural background of Japan's low marriage rate, which given the minimal extent of extra-marital childbearing is a major proximate cause of low fertility. Another points to the conflict between women's childraising and career goals, blamed on employers’ persisting intransigence even as many more women enter the labor force. An only slightly positive slant is given in a case study of adherents (several million families, it is claimed) of the new religion Soka Gakkai, whose doctrines are mildly pronatalist. The migration chapters range more widely. Emphasizing the ideational obstacles to a multicultural Japan, it is noted that the last significant waves of immigrants to be smoothly assimilated into Japan's cultural space ended in the twelfth century—thereafter, the myth of the homogeneous nation took root, one that “has provided its constituents with existential equanimity” for many generations. The history of the Family Registration System and the Alien Registration Law is recounted, tracing the slow emergence of a more unified population management system, albeit one still with nationality determined by family registration rather than at the individual level. Japan's naturalization procedures are depicted as drawn-out and opaque, admitting in recent years a mere 10–15,000 foreign nationals annually, mostly Koreans and Chinese. The cautionary tale is offered of the Brazilians of Japanese ancestry welcomed in the 1990s but never culturally accepted and whose children now have no clear linguistic identity. Temporary migration is explored in several chapters. One presents a positive assessment of the program that recruits care workers from the Philippines and Indonesia, modest in size and subject to demanding nursing credentials and language facility. Another looks skeptically at the solution to labor shortages exemplified by the helot societies of the Gulf States—some with 60–80 percent of their populations non-citizens, most of them migrant laborers rather than skilled expatriates. A concluding chapter by the editor contrasts the migration integration experiences of Tokyo with Hong Kong and Vancouver—only the last of these seen as a qualified success. The contributors are a mixture of scholars and PhD students, the majority at Japanese universities. The editor is in the Department of Politics, International Christian University, Tokyo and the Japan Immigration Policy Institute. Chapter bibliographies, index.

Does High‐skilled Migration Affect Publicly Financed Investments?

AbstractThis paper analyzes the interaction between migration of high‐skilled labor and publicly financed investment. We develop a theoretical model with multiple, ex ante identical jurisdictions where individuals decide on education and subsequent emigration. Migration decisions are based on differences in net income across jurisdictions which may occur endogenously. The interaction between income differences and migration flows gives rise to the potential of multiple equilibria: a symmetric equilibrium without migration and an asymmetric equilibrium in which net income levels differ among jurisdictions and trigger migration flows. In the former equilibrium, all jurisdictions have the same public investment level. In the latter one, public investment is high in host economies of skilled expatriates and low in source economies. We empirically test the hypothesis that emigration rates are negatively associated with publicly financed investment levels for OECD countries.

Gas development in Saudi Arabia assessing the short‐term, demand‐side effects

AbstractThis paper analyses the short‐term, demand‐side effects of a large natural gas investment programme currently being implemented in Saudi Arabia using input–output analysis. Saudi Arabia opened gas exploration and production projects to national and international companies in order to attract substantial new investment in the exploration and production of gas non‐associated with oil output. The expected additional gas production is intended for domestic use, thus freeing for export some of the oil that is currently being used to supply domestic energy. Increased oil exports would generate additional foreign exchange income to help fund further diversification of the Saudi economy. The primary outcome of the input–output analysis shows that the strongest positive impact would be realised by the Saudi construction and manufacturing sectors and that a great deal of the equipment needed for increased gas production would have to be imported. A shortage of educated Saudis may curtail success or require use of more foreign skilled expatriates. So far, Saudi Arabia is having significant difficulties finding and expanding the output of non‐associated gas.

Insights from the Foreign Direct Investment Regulations Indicators of the World Bank Group

The joint International Finance Corporation (IFC) and World Bank department focusing on Global Indicators & Analysis has developed sophisticated indicators (accessible online (1)), which are recognized and used within the World Bank Group and very broadly externally by organizations worldwide. Several projects have been developed, including the flagship product Doing Business, which focuses on domestic small and medium-size companies throughout their life cycle and provides quantified and comparable measures of the relevant business regulations and their enforcement. This product ranks 183 economies globally and is published annually since 2002. The Subnational and Regional Doing Business Reports follow the Doing Business methodology and capture differences in business regulations and their enforcement across locations in a single country or region. In that respect, they also rank each location. The Enterprise Surveys focus on company-level data in emerging markets and developing economies and benchmarks the quality of the business and investment climate across countries. They reach out to more than 130,000 firms in 125 countries but do not rank countries. The Foreign Direct Investment Regulations Indicators initiative (formerly named Investing Across Borders) focuses on regulations related to foreign direct investment around the world and presents quantitative indicators on economies' laws, regulations, and practices affecting how foreign companies invest across sectors; start businesses and access industrial land; hire skilled expatriates; convert and transfer currencies; and arbitrate and mediate their commercial disputes. It does not rank countries. Finally, the Women, Business and the Law Report presents indicators based on laws and regulations affecting women's prospects as entrepreneurs and employees in order to inform research and policy discussions on how to improve women's economic opportunities and outcomes. It does not rank countries either. All these indicators present different characteristics and have different purposes and angles of analysis. However, they all correspond to what an indicator is generally understood to be--a tool to translate a reality on the ground in a given country into a numerical representation, with implicit references to some particular standards. Indicators simplify the reality, make it understandable and comparable across countries, and sometimes offer the possibility to score and rank countries. They are widely recognized and used, as they contribute to greater transparency in providing accessible, understandable, and comparable data, and as they operate as an accountability mechanism and a measure of compliance with laws and regulations. Their costs have also been pointed out, in particular the risk that they can become an end in themselves, that they can mask discrepancies by over-simplification and on the basis of a methodology that could be criticized (critics have notably addressed the fact that the number of contributors is never statistically significant or the fact that there might be an inherent bias of individuals willing to contribute--either because they are very angry or very supportive of the current situation in their country). However, to look at whether indicators are valuable and should be regulated, one would also need to look at how these indicators are actually designed. In that respect, the methodology adopted at the Global Indicators & Analysis Department is straightforward. For example, in the Foreign Direct Investment Regulations Indicators initiative we first design a survey and consult our experts. Then we define our scoring methodology: we score most of our legal questions and our practice questions (in particular, questions on the time, length, and costs of proceedings are usually scored). Then we select our contributors and send them our surveys. Once we receive the completed surveys, we analyze the data (which includes following up with contributors and conducting research), and prepare either a report or an analytical piece. …

Does High-Skilled Migration Affect Publicly Financed Investments?

This paper analyzes the interaction between migration of high-skilled labor and publicly financed investment. We develop a theoretical model with multiple, ex ante identical jurisdictions where individuals decide on education and subsequent emigration. Migration decisions are based on differences in net income across jurisdictions which endogenously may occur. The interaction between income differences and migration flows gives rise to the potential of multiple equilibria: a symmetric equilibrium without migration and an asymmetric equilibrium in which net income levels differ among jurisdictions and trigger migration flows. In the former equilibrium, all jurisdictions have the same public investment level. In the latter one, public investment is high in host economies of skilled expatriates and low in source economies. We empirically test the hypothesis that emigration rates are negatively associated with various kinds of publicly .nanced investment levels for OECD countries.

Évaluation économique des programmes de remplacement de la main d’oeuvre expatriée dans les pays en voie de développement : étude du cas de la Côte-d’Ivoire

This study addresses several problems of educational policy posed by the replacement of highly skilled expatriates in the Ivory Coast's labor force. Conceptualizing expatriate replacement as an import-substitution activity in which Ivorian labor substitutes for previously imported labor services, the authors apply a modified Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) analysis to evaluate Ivorian secondary and university educational programs necessary to train the local labor. This methodology, along with more conventional cost-benefit approach, confirms that education is economically desirable in the Ivory Coast and that resource allocation to the upper secondary level is especially warranted. Lower secondary education is useful in so far as it performs a conduit function for higher levels of training. The importance of university education will probably increase as the occupational-educational structure is upgraded through technological development. Finally, consideration should be given to instituting a system of tuition charges in order to equate social and private rates of return in upper secondary and university education.

Labour Migration to Hong Kong

This article examines two very different types of migration to Hong Kong: the movements from China and the movements of contract labour. These migrations are considered within the context of the structural change in the Hong Kong economy from an entrepot, through its development into a major industrial centre, to the most recent phases of deindustrialization and Hong Kong s emergence as a service economy. Migration from China was an essential component in this transformation although, since its restriction and control after October 1980, Hong Kong has turned more towards foreign sources of labour. Like global cities in other parts of the world, Hong Kong imports highly skilled expatriates from around the world, as well as low-paid labour from regional sources and from China.