Indian Skilled Migration and Development

Return Migration, Wage Differentials, and the Optimal Migration Duration

Purpose Skilled migrants' careers are heterogeneous, with existing theories capturing only some of their diversity and dynamic development over time and circumstance. This paper aims to draw out the multilevel (macro, meso and micro levels) influences impacting skilled migrants' careers by using the lens of the intelligent career framework. Furthermore, structuration theory captures the agency of skilled migrants facing different social structures at and across levels and explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers. Design/methodology/approach Following an abductive approach, this paper examines the career influences for a sample of 41 skilled migrants in three different host countries. Individual career stories were collected through qualitative interviews. Important career influences from these narratives are categorised across the intelligent career competencies (knowing why, how and whom) at the macro, meso and micro levels. Findings Findings illustrate the lived reality for skilled migrants of these interrelated multilevel career influences and go some way in elucidating the heterogeneity of skilled migrants' careers and outcomes. The interplay of individual agency in responding to both facilitating and challenging social structures across the multilevels further explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers and how/whether they achieve satisfying career outcomes. Some potential policy implications and options arising from these findings are suggested. Originality/value By considering multilevel themes that influence skilled migrants' career capital, the authors were able to better explain the complex, relational and idiosyncratic shaping of their individual careers. As such, the framework informs and guides individuals, practitioners and organisations seeking to facilitate skilled migrants' careers.

Globalization has led to an increase in international mobility in many occupational fields. Therefore, scholars from a variety of disciplines have studied the topic of skilled migration. The purpose of this study is to review and synthesize the empirical research on skilled migrants’ qualification-matched employment across multiple disciplines. Skilled migrants are people on the move who possess university degrees or extensive work experience in professional fields when they leave their countries of origin to seek employment elsewhere. This review synthesizes findings of 106 empirical studies published from 1990 to mid-2017 on skilled migrants’ employment. We develop a conceptual model that includes antecedent conditions associated with skilled migrant qualification-matched employment in their host country and its outcomes. We also highlight the role of multilevel factors and moderating variables associated with skilled migrants’ possibility of obtaining qualification-matched employment. Our review has implications for human resource scholars and practitioners concerned with skilled migrants’ employment and labor market.

Medical migration describes the movement of doctors across national boundaries and has historically followed a gradient from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) to high-income countries (HIC), typically for training and income opportunities. Whilst the challenges of being an international medical graduate (IMG) are well-documented, not all doctors stay in their host country, and comparatively little is known about the experiences of those who return to their home country. Qualitative studies examining the experiences of IMGs returning to home countries were identified through database (Ovid, ProQuest, Medline, Scopus and EBSCOhost) and manual searching and were synthesised following a meta-ethnographic approach. A total of seven studies were included in the synthesis, published between 1975 and 2019, charting the experiences of 134 doctors returning to Africa, South America, Europe, Asia or Oceania. A total of 10 third-order constructs were identified that were developed into overarching third-order constructs: reflections on personal development, social and cultural connection to home countries and challenges associated with professional reintegration. Return migration in doctors has received little attention, indicating a need for further research in this area. The commonality of experiences in this review suggests that whilst family trumps finances in reasons to return, disillusionment with state healthcare systems in home countries encourages a drive to private practice and the wasted opportunity for valuable knowledge transfer. These findings can enable medical educators to better support IMGs considering and experiencing return migration, and inform policymakers seeking to optimise conditions for return migration as part of medical workforce planning.

Recent geopolitical tensions and conflicts have escalated, introducing a heightened level of complexity and uncertainty for multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in the global context. This study probes how MNEs can strategically deploy their host country subsidiaries to counterbalance the repercussions of geopolitical risk emanating from their home country. Drawing from the social geography literature, the study perceives the home and host countries as distinct “places”, each possessing unique attributes that can either aid or hinder the operations of MNEs. When the geopolitical risk in the home country influences MNEs’ place bonding with the home country, host country subsidiaries can serve as both functional and emotional sanctuaries to mitigate the impacts of home-country geopolitical risk. The study uncovers that the geopolitical risk in the home country is negatively related to the foreign divestment of MNEs in the host country. However, not all subsidiaries confer the same benefits to MNEs. The role of geographical “space”, defined by the interconnections and relationships between MNEs and the host country, also bears significance. The study proposes that MNEs’ geo-strategies to alleviate the geopolitical risk from their home country should incorporate both geo-ideological and geo-political alignment with the host country for stronger place bonding. Geo-ideological alignment, characterized by the low psychic distance between the home and host countries, and geo-political alignment, achieved through the participation of the local state equity in the host country subsidiary, can augment the subsidiary’s functional and emotional bonding, thereby serving as a bulwark against home-country geopolitical uncertainties.

The current increasing volatility in international politics makes it more important to understand how multinational enterprises respond to political tension between host and home countries. This paper explains the impact of macro-level bilateral political tension on micro-level strategy of multinationals in the host country. We developed the idea that patenting may be used to signal a firm’s commitment and contribution to the host country’s economy and development. Data on 437 large multinationals and interviews with senior managers of 20 foreign subsidiaries in China show that patenting local innovation does indeed help an investing firm signal its usefulness to the host country government. It can thus serve as a response to bilateral political tension. The relationship between political tension and local patenting also depends on the relative trade dependence of the home and host countries and on the investing firm’s technology level and its stake in China. The greater the dependence of an MNE and its home country government on the host country, the more likely patenting of local innovations would increase in times of bilateral political tension.

We investigate international assignment (IA) location decisions of emerging market firms as determined by the institutional contexts of their home and host countries. Using an institutional perspective, assignment patterns of the entire firm population in Slovenia to either other emerging or developed host countries in Europe are analysed. The findings show that both institutional quality and distance influence expatriation flows in firms from a low quality institutional context. These firms expatriate more to markets with high quality institutions and choose host countries with higher rather than smaller institutional distance for their IAs. We refine institutional theory with respect to host and home country institutional determinants of expatriation decisions by taking into consideration the particular features of emerging markets and their firms – separately and compared to developed markets and their firms.

The ‘beneficial brain drain’ hypothesis suggests that skilled migration can be good for a sending country because the incentives it creates for obtaining training increase that country's net supply of skilled labour. Necessary conditions for this hypothesis to work are that the possibility of migration significantly affects decisions to take medical training and that migrants are not strongly screened by the host country. We conducted a survey among overseas doctors in the UK in 2002, which suggested that neither condition is likely to be fulfilled. Apart from the ‘beneficial brain drain’ argument, the survey findings also cast light on the backgrounds and motives of migrant doctors, and finds evidence that there could, nonetheless, be other benefits to sending countries via routes like remittances and return migration.

This study examines how multinational enterprises (MNEs) strategically respond to dual legitimacy challenges arising from geopolitical conflicts between their home and host countries. MNEs might encounter legitimacy issues in both host countries, where they may be seen as adversarial economic entities, and home countries, where their operations in hostile nations might be perceived as conflicting with national interests. Using a resource dependence perspective, we develop a two-by-two matrix typology of MNEs' strategic responses based on the level of economic stakes—high and low—in both the host and home countries. Additionally, we consider how MNE salience and the intensity of geopolitical conflict influence their strategic choices. Our study advances international business studies by offering a theoretical framework for understanding how MNEs navigate complex geopolitical tensions.

Purpose Skilled migrant (SM) and self-initiated expatriate (SIE) women play a key role in meeting skill shortages in advanced economies and could expect to advance as much as counterparts (e.g. native-born) based on their credentials. Instead, they are often marginalized, working in lower-level positions. This review aims to explain the influences on SM and SIE women's managerial career advancement, factors potentially relevant to maximizing the proportion of women in management in the host country. Design/methodology/approach I conducted an integrated literature review, combining systematic and narrative reviewing. The systematic review yielded 64, most often qualitative empirical studies of SM (38) and SIE (26) women's managerial career advancement; the narrative review of the studies sought to identify the influences on managerial advancement, compared for the mobility types, enabling assessing a possible boundary condition. Findings The review revealed that skilled migration and self-initiated expatriation rarely resulted in women's managerial advancement; the women (especially SMs) advanced less than male and female counterparts. Being a woman, a migrant and/or non-white, or a mother, disadvantaged SM women's managerial advancement. Mostly gender-linked environmental barriers (e.g. discrimination) lowered SM women's managerial advancement, whereas individual-level positive facilitators (e.g. agency) enhanced SIEs'. Gender-linked theory explained SM and SIE women's managerial career advancement: three well-established theoretical lenses—intersectional identities, lack-of-fit and stereotyped gender-roles—together provided a coherent conceptual framework. Originality/value In an original contribution, achieved by contrasting SMs and SIEs, mobility type acted as a boundary condition on influences on SM and SIE women's managerial advancement, being more explanatory for SIEs. A tentatively proposed mediator-moderator framework explained the women's managerial career advancement, providing greater theoretical depth through simultaneously examining mechanisms (why) and context (when).

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the diversity, equity and inclusion issues experienced by skilled migrants. Many issues relate to obtaining employment in jobs aligned with their overseas acquired experience and qualifications and the challenges they face in establishing a career in the new host country. Experiences of subtle and direct racism, gender diversity within skilled migrant groups and feelings of marginalisation are explored. Conversely, shining a light on the positive contributions skilled migrants make in regional communities and DEI awareness initiatives allows regions and regional employers to better understand the challenges skilled migrants face. This enables these communities and employers to be better informed when building strategies to attract and retain skilled migrants and their families to regional communities. The chapter presents two case studies of research conducted with skilled migrants in Australia. Both cases provide theoretical perspectives, research designs and data collection methods applied in the field to explore the research questions posited.

The increasing globalization of firms has given rise to an increase in the number of international assignments of human resources. The effect of cultural factors on the relationships of expatriate managers with the cultures of their home and host countries will be explored in this paper. The subjects of this study are the relationships of South Korean expatriate managers with their home and host countries who are assigned to work in Turkey and the USA. The analysis uses the matrix, which was proposed by Black and Gregersen in 1992 and modified by Richardson and McKenna in 2006. The research participants were reached by the trace method and data analyses were done by QSR Nvivo software with thematic analyses. The results indicate that the relationship of participants with their home country depends strongly on the cultural similarities and differences between their home and host countries. The profiles of the participating expatriate managers were located in “hearts at home” and “dual citizens” and no participants were found in the “go native” and “free agents” typologies. As a result, the South Korean managers who live in Turkey and the USA have a very strong relationship with their home country and their relationship with host countries change on the basis of cultural similarities and differences. Key words: Expatriate managers, Black and Gregersen’ matrix, cultural differences and similarities.

The Costs and Returns of Human Migration

Research Summary Ethnic migrant inventors may differ from locals in terms of the knowledge they bring to host firms. Using a unique dataset of Chinese and Indian herbal patents filed in the United States, we find that an increase in the supply of first‐generation ethnic migrant inventors increases the rate of codification of herbal knowledge at U.S. assignees by 4.5%. Our identification comes from an exogenous shock to the quota of H1B visas and from a list of entities exempted from the shock. We also find that ethnic migrant inventors are more likely to engage in reuse of knowledge previously locked within the cultural context of their home regions, whereas knowledge recombination is more likely to be pursued by teams comprising inventors from other ethnic backgrounds. Managerial Summary Managers and policy makers around the world face a vigorous debate on whether to hire skilled migrants or hire locals. We argue that if western firms stop hiring ethnic migrants, innovation at these firms would suffer in two ways: knowledge transfer and knowledge recombination would both be impeded. We argue and show that skilled ethnic migrants bring to their employers, unique knowledge from the cultural context of their host country. Also, local inventors engage in “knowledge recombination” by combining their existing knowledge to knowledge transferred by migrants. Our empirical results relate to the patenting of Chinese and Indian herbal formulations at western pharmaceutical firms before and after an immigration shock related to the admittance of skilled migrants from these two countries.

This paper addresses how corporate social responsibility of multinationals in China influences their Chinese subsidiaries’ performance. Using panel data regression, (1) we investigate the effects of corporate social moderating effects of institutional and geographic distances between their home countries and China. Our findings show, first, that subsidiaries’ corporate social performance is associated positively with their profit in China. Second, we find that the greater the cultural, economic, and geographic distances between the home country and China, the less likely it is that a subsidiary will benefit from corporate social responsibility. We enrich the theoretical understanding of the institutional conditions under which corporate social responsibility leads to specific outcomes by adding new institutional elements—the differences of culture and the economies between multinationals’ host and home countries. Our findings suggest that although corporate social responsibility is still new to China, being socially responsibility provides financial benefits to multinationals. Their global and local corporate social responsibility strategies have to adjust based on local cultures and economic levels, especially with respect to fundamental beliefs about spirituality and values. The paper fulfilled the research gap between multinationals’ social practices and their performance in host countries at the subsidiary level by providing empirical evidence concerning the responses to corporate social responsibility initiatives in emerging markets and clarifying the conditions under which foreign affiliates’ corporate social responsibility engagement in the host country can gain better returns in local markets.