From global careers to talent flow: Reinterpreting ‘brain drain’

Abstract Talent flow is a process whereby economically valuable individuals migrate between countries, and is arguably a more important global career influence than international flows of personnel within global organizations. In this article, we reject the term brain drain as too restrictive and focus on the psychology of migration, specifically the economic, political, cultural, family, and career forces motivating it. Boundaryless global careers are presented as individual phenomena combining into macro-level international effects. These talent flow concepts have HR policy implications at both national and organizational levels. In support of our arguments, we provide a case study of New Zealand, along with preliminary data from a large sample of New Zealand expatriates.

[1]  W. Adams,et al.  The brain drain. , 1969, Journal of the Irish Medical Association.

[2]  Jay E. Aronson,et al.  Spot: Scheduling Programs Optimally for Television , 1998 .

[3]  K. McHugh,et al.  Inside, outside, upside down, backward, forward, round and round: a case for ethnographic studies in migration , 2000 .

[4]  William J. Carrington,et al.  How Extensive Is the Brain Drain , 1999 .

[5]  R. Pernice,et al.  Refugees' and immigrants' mental health: association of demographic and post-immigration factors. , 1996, The Journal of social psychology.

[6]  Michael B. Arthur,et al.  The New Careers: Individual Action and Economic Change , 1999 .

[7]  Chris Brewster,et al.  Making their own way: international experience through self-initiated foreign assignments , 2000 .

[8]  L. Cheng,et al.  Global Interaction, Global Inequality, and Migration of the Highly Trained to the United States 1 , 1998, The International migration review.

[9]  K. Lam.  Interaction between Economic and Political Factors in the Migration Decision , 2002 .

[10]  Lauren McLaren,et al.  Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe: Contact, Threat Perception, and Preferences for the Exclusion of Migrants , 2003 .

[11]  Allan M. Williams,et al.  Tourism and Migration , 2002 .

[12]  A. Crouter,et al.  Immigration and the Family : Research and Policy on U.s. Immigrants , 1998 .

[13]  George B. Baldwin,et al.  Brain drain or overflow , 1970 .

[14]  Donald M. Taylor,et al.  Review of Theories of Intergroup Relations: International Social Psychological Perspectives , 1987 .

[15]  Sean Creehan.  A Forgotten Enemy , 2001 .

[16]  Denise M. Rousseau,et al.  The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era , 2001 .

[17]  F. Rudmin.  Critical History of the Acculturation Psychology of Assimilation, Separation, Integration, and Marginalization , 2003 .

[18]  P. Nystrom,et al.  Handbook of career theory: Propositions linking organizations and careers , 1989 .

[19]  David C. Thomas.  Essentials of International Management: A Cross-Cultural Perspective , 2001 .

[20]  P. Earley,et al.  Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures , 2020 .

[21]  Prejudice, Paradox, and Possibility: Nursing People from Cultures Other than One’s Own , 2001, Journal of transcultural nursing : official journal of the Transcultural Nursing Society.

[22]  Uwe P. Gielen,et al.  Migration: Immigration and Emigration in International Perspective , 2003 .

[23]  Allan Bird,et al.  Careers as repositories of knowledge: a new perspective on boundaryless careers , 1994 .

[24]  Sami Mahroum,et al.  Highly Skilled Globetrotters: Mapping the International Migration of Human Capital , 2000 .

[25]  Michael B. Arthur,et al.  Career creativity : explorations in the remaking of work , 2002 .

[26]  M. Mallon,et al.  My Brilliant Career? , 2001 .

[27]  David C. Thomas,et al.  Cultural Intelligence: People Skills for Global Business , 2004 .

[28]  A. Ferligoj,et al.  Achievement, Power, and Affiliation Motives as Clues to (E)migration Desires: A Four-Countries Comparison , 1998 .

[29]  J. Lidgard.  Return migration of New Zealanders: a profile of 1990 returnees. , 2008, New Zealand journal of geography.

[30]  John W. Berry,et al.  A Psychology of Immigration , 2001 .

[31]  Walter G. Stephan,et al.  Prejudice toward immigrants. , 1999 .

[32]  David Law,et al.  New Zealand’s Diaspora and Overseas-born Population , 2004 .

[33]  D. Chadee,et al.  Insights into International Travel by Students , 1996 .

[34]  Kerr Inkson,et al.  “The big OE”: self‐directed travel and career development , 2003 .

[35]  Douglas T. Hall,et al.  Careers in organizations , 1977 .

[36]  Z. Leibowitz,et al.  Adult Career Development: Concepts, Issues, and Practices , 1992 .

[37]  E. Schein.  Career Dynamics: Matching Individual and Organizational Needs , 1978 .

[38]  G. Hugo,et al.  Australia's Diaspora: Its Size, Nature and Policy Implications , 2003 .

[39]  D. Hall,et al.  Handbook of Career Theory , 1989 .

[40]  A. Marsella.  Toward a "global-community psychology": Meeting the needs of a changing world. , 1998 .

[41]  C. L. Hunt,et al.  Philippine nurses and the brain drain. , 1982, Social science & medicine.

[42]  Margot Edwards,et al.  Exploring the dynamics of New Zealand's talent flow , 2005 .

[43]  M. Arthur,et al.  Expatriate assignment versus overseas experience: Contrasting models of international human resource development , 1997 .

[44]  S. Happel,et al.  Multiple Residence and Cyclical Migration: A Life Course Perspective* , 1995, The Professional Geographer.

[45]  Robert C. Davis,et al.  The Achieving Society , 1962 .

[46]  N. Forster.  'The persistent myth of high expatriate failure rates': a reappraisal , 1997 .