Portfolios of mobility: the movement of expertise in transnational corporations in two sectors — aerospace and extractive industries

Abstract

This article is about how UK‐based transnational corporations source expertise and move highly skilled people among their sites. TNCs rely heavily on their internal labour markets for skills. We examine patterns and trends in the ways that TNCs in two sectors, aerospace and extractives, dynamically orchestrate and deploy their networks of expertise internationally to address the demands of different markets. We chart the types of mobility that exist, identify how and why they are used, and explore some of the institutional, industrial, organizational and technological factors that influence these trends. We show that different types of mobility play distinct roles in organizations. Companies respond to mobility calls from diverse stimuli by linking together mobility options into portfolios of moves that represent negotiated responses to industrial and individual requirements.

How to cope with mobility expectations in academia: Individual travel strategies of tenured academics at Ghent University, Flanders

“…The information we have at our disposal from this dataset relates to the time period and country of destination of journeys over a two-year time span (2009)(2010). Academic travel in this dataset is highly comparable to "short-term business travel," which is the shortest corporeal mobility type in the mobility portfolio of organizations, according to Millar and Salt (2008). Those journeys involve at least one overnight stay but may last up to one month (see Millar & Salt, 2008).…”

“…Academic travel in this dataset is highly comparable to "short-term business travel," which is the shortest corporeal mobility type in the mobility portfolio of organizations, according to Millar and Salt (2008). Those journeys involve at least one overnight stay but may last up to one month (see Millar & Salt, 2008). Of all registered trips, 97.5 percent meet these criteria, while 2.5 percent of trips last longer than one month.…”

“…And although more "conventional" businesses can benefit from the creation of distance, for instance, to exploit labour-cost advantages (see Millar & Salt, 2008), the emphasis in knowledge-generating institutions, by contrast, is believed to rest largely on seamless knowledge diffusion and, therefore, the creation of proximity. Moreover, since the end of the 1990s, European institutional discourses are favouring "internationalization" of the higher-education sector and, as a consequence, championing the mobility of students and staff (Ackers, 2008).…”

“…Extensive physical travel has thus burgeoned and evolved "from a luxury form of mobility for the wealthy few into a contemporary form of hypermobility" (Gössling & Peeters, 2007, p.402.). Although business travel may constitute only a limited part of all corporeal mobility, being able to travel frequently has proven to be a very important asset for workers in today's globalizing economy (see Aguiléra, 2008;Millar & Salt, 2008;Wickham & Vecchi, 2009Beaverstock et al, 2009;Faulconbridge et al, 2009). Many have argued that despite the various possibilities of "virtual travel" (i.e., the use of information and communication technologies), certain work practises, especially those that are informal and tacit, simply require corporeal proximity Urry, 2007;Aguiléra, 2008;Beaverstock et al, 2009;Faulconbridge et al, 2009), which Urry (2007) referred to as the "mobility burden."…”

New Geographies of Global Managerial Practice: The Case of Business Services

“…International business managers travelling for transnational firms are the most obvious example, but in fact they represent only a small proportion of workers who are undertaking new forms of mobility associated with globalization across a diverse range of sectors 1 . Global work is also producing shifts in work-related personal movements on a daily basis in terms of commuting, home-working and travel to/form new spaces for work activities (Dale & Burrell 2008;Millar & Salt 2008;Faulconbridge & Beaverstock 2008;Beaverstock et al 2010).…”