The Spatial Mobility of Corporate Knowledge: Expatriation, Global Talent, and the World City

Abstract

Expatriation, and other forms of transnational labor mobility within and between firms, is a crucial organizational strategy for the spatial mobility of knowledge in the world economy. For firms, transnational mobility is a process that stretches tacit and codified knowledge across time and space, and allows them to deliver specialist know-how, skills, expertise, and outside experience to subsidiaries, suppliers, and clients outside of their host country. Beyond the firm, expatriation feeds into the competitiveness of cities, acting as a conduit to replenish knowledge, skills, and competences, and has become a significant factor of production for world cities to “win the global war for talent.” In this chapter the author seeks to examine the agency of expatriation as an organizational strategy for the spatial mobility of knowledge and as a global process that enhances the competiveness of world cities. The chapter draws on case studies of expatriation within global accountancy firms and London’s financial district.