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This paper analyses the links between the competences acquired via international migration, and the tacit versus explicit knowledge which are encapsulated in these. Whereas most research in this area utilises qualitative methods, this paper utilises a mixed methods approach. It draws on an online quantitative survey of the skills and competences acquired by young Slovak migrants (N = 366), complemented by more traditional in-depth interviews, with a sample of 52 Slovak migrants. The Slovak informants mostly valued those competences which included a distinctive component of tacit knowledge: higher self-confidence and an improved ability to deal with challenges. Migrants simultaneously drew on several types of tacit knowledge (embrained, embedded, encultured and embodied), and a major finding is that in practice these different categories of knowledge are blurred. There are also socio-demographic differences in migrants' experiences. Both the quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that women benefited far more than men from the acquisition of the tacit components of embodied, encultured and embedded knowledge. Migrants with tertiary education reported significantly higher acquisition of all types of competences than those who only had secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on the seminal work of Williams and Baláž (2008a) on international migration and knowledge, by arguing that the economic value of the knowledge is relational, being dependent on how it is recognised by potential employers. By analysing in-depth interviews with sixteen managers which are contrasted with insights from thirty interviews with skilled returnees to Slovakia, this study aims to identify the extent to which return migration is considered to facilitate knowledge transfer, and the diversification of the knowledge available, to organisations. The findings reveal that skilled migration is understood by managers to facilitate accelerated learning that contributes to professional and personal development in several ways. Firstly, formal qualifications gained abroad are valued, particularly in context of perceived limitations to the national educational system. Secondly, the managers consider that returnees have acquired not only technical skills, such as market know-how and business intelligence but also soft skills. Finally, the study indicates that far from facing barriers to the recognition of their knowledge by employers, this was acknowledged and welcomed. Managers with personal exposure to international migration were predisposed to recognising the experiences of returned migrants, and this was most evident in the recruitment practices of the multinationals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Student migration represents the major form of international human capital training and has significant implications for knowledge transfer and economic development, but its highly uneven geography remains relatively underresearched. This paper addresses two gaps in the research literature. First, it provides a temporal perspective by analysing intra‐European tertiary student exchange in three subperiods, within the time frame of 1998–2012, capturing both continuities and major changes in the strong polarisation of intra‐European student exchanges against a backdrop of significant institutional changes in Europe. Alongside the dominant polarisation, there is also regionalisation of exchange within some parts of Europe. Second, the determinants of the changing spatial concentration of international human capital training are analysed in terms of not only traditional migration push–pull factors but also connectivity. The findings indicate that connectivity factors, such as language and/or spatial proximity, and established flows of labour, trade, and knowledge are the most significant determinants and underpin the persistent stability in the polarisation of exchange. In contrast, traditional push–pull factors, such as income and employment differentials or differences in tertiary education quality and investment, are less important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of migration under conditions of potential economic and political upheaval is challenging because these undermine the institutional framework that underpins existing migration trajectories. Therefore, this paper demonstrates how an innovative experimental approach can be used to analyse migration decision making under disruptive scenarios of a deep economic crisis and the introduction of work permits. Such disruptions have particular resonance in Europe, which has experienced deep economic crises, as well as discussions of potential regulatory shifts in the European migration framework following the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum. Data were collected from a sample of 540 experimental participants, drawn from young adults (students and young working people) in nine European Union member states, and used to analyse their propensity to migrate under principles of uncertainty, incomplete information, and information overload. The findings indicate that a sharp rise in unemployment rates is more disruptive than the introduction of work permits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on migration intentions is relatively fragmented, traditionally drawing conclusions from relatively small survey samples, focussing on individual countries, or relying on public opinion polls which provide very few explanatory variables. This paper addresses these limitations by developing a multilevel model of an extensive range of macro, meso, and microdeterminants of migration intentions across different time frames. The paper utilises an online panel survey of 20,473 non-student respondents aged 16-35 from nine European Union countries. Ordinal multilevel modelling, with post-stratification weighting, is used to determine the key drivers of, and barriers to, migration intentions in both a pan-European model and nine separate national-scale models. The findings confirm the significance of macro, meso, and micro factors. Although socio-economic factors emerge as powerful explanatory factors, non-pecuniary factors are also important, including sensation seeking. There are broad similarities in the findings across the separate national-level models but also differences in the relative importance of socio-economic, gender, and personality factors. Migration intentions were highly dependent on the decision-making time frame: 17% of respondents over 1 year, but 30% over 5 years, are likely to migrate or to have made firm plans to migrate. The rank ordering of the countries challenges the notion of there being a simple differentiation between the newer and older member states of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration researchers have demonstrated relatively limited engagement with experimental research. The strongest engagement has been with natural experiments, which observe actual migrant behaviour, typically analysing migration behaviour before and after particular events, but have limitations in terms of control over the 'experiment'. In contrast, researchers have relatively neglected the contribution of true experiments involving the manipulation or simulation of changes in the environment or institutions that shape migration. The paper compares the relative strengths of two types of true experiments - field and laboratory - in terms of their validity and reliability, reviews their current application in migration studies, and sets out opportunities to develop future research around these methodologies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of people leading more mobile lives, with spatially dispersed families, raises questions over how they maintain their family life and friendships and how this is shaped and shapes different forms of migration and different patterns of visiting friends and relatives (VFR). This paper develops an explanatory framework for conceptualising and analysing VFR mobilities, seeking to draw together threads from migration, mobilities, and tourism studies. In unpacking the notion of VFR, this paper understands VFR mobilities as being constituted of diverse practices and discusses five of the most important of these: social relationships, the provision of care, affirmations of identities and roots, maintenance of territorial rights, and leisure tourism. Although these five types of practices are considered sequentially in this paper, they are in practice often blurred and overlapping. The interweaving of these practices changes over time, as does the meaning and content of individual practices, reflecting changes in the duration of migration, life cycle stage, individual goals and values, and the broader sets of relationships with and social obligations to different kin and friends. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration is a risky behaviour because of the uncertainty about future wages, living conditions, changing relationships with family and friends and cultural adjustment. While there has been some research on risk and uncertainty in migration, this has mostly been approached as a form of ‘rational’ decision-making: such approaches explain why some groups of individuals are more likely than others to migrate, but are limited in explaining individual variations in behaviour within these groups. Individual migrants vs. non-migrants are self-selected in terms of tolerance of risk and uncertainty but, with very few exceptions, there has been no research on migration within the framework of risk tolerance/aversion and competence to manage risk. Moreover, existing research is based on, and constrained by the limitations of, incumbent data-sets. Drawing on a specially commissioned large-scale survey of the UK population, this paper uses principal component analysis and logistic regression to analyse the extent to which risk and risk-related measures can be used to predict four different types of mobility profiles. There are significant associations between these individual mobility characteristics and general risk/uncertainty tolerance, and competence-based tolerance. These are strongest in terms of the two most polarised mobility types: the least mobile, the Stayers, and the most mobile, the Roamers. Recognising that previous migration is exogenous, a further analysis of migration intentions, with previous migration included as an independent variable, finds the propensity for future migration is, in fact, negatively associated with previous migration, probably due to the importance of ‘pure risk’ as opposed to acquired competence via migration experience, and to life cycle considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT Risk shapes, and is shaped by, migration: although widely acknowledged, this is unevenly, and mostly only implicitly, theorised and analysed. Starting from the distinction between risk and uncertainty, the paper contrasts the different approaches of economics and sociology to theorising risk, in terms of scale, social constructionism, and being informed by risk as opposed to being at risk. It reviews the extent to which six theoretical approaches have been, and could be, applied to migration, risk, and uncertainty: human capital, risk tolerance, new economics of migration, risk and culture, risk society, and governmentality. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research on the economic contribution of individual international labour migrants has been couched largely in terms of skills, and has focused on mobility within transnational corporations. This article explores some of the broader links between the literatures on international migration and management, and addresses four main questions: is migrant knowledge selective, is it distinctive, what are the barriers to migrant knowledge transfer and what are the implications for individual migrants and firms. This largely conceptual review is informed by three main premises: the value of adopting a knowledge as opposed to a skills perspective on migration; the importance of examining the cycle of migration rather than static snapshots at particular stages, and the need to consider inter-firm and extra-firm migration, as well as intra-firm mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been only limited research on the Vietnamese diaspora, and that has mostly focussed on Western market economies. This paper explores the distinctive migration, dictated by Cold War geopolitics, from Viet Nam to the Eastern bloc countries. It examines how the intersection of migration policies and politico-economic conditions, before and after the end of state socialism in 1989, produced two distinctive migration phases. Faced with economic constraints, and mediated by their relationships with the Slovak population, most Vietnamese who stayed in, or migrated to, Slovakia after 1989 survived economically by finding a niche in market trading. This paper adopts a path-creating path-dependent perspective to examine these migration trajectories through an analysis based on in-depth interviews with Vietnamese migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been limited research on the role of international migration in the transfer of tacit knowledge, as opposed to skills and capital. In part, this results from lack of engagement between research on migration and that on knowledge and learning, even in debates concerning the relative importance of distanciated versus localized knowledge transfers. However, positioning international migration in relation to the literature on knowledge management opens up new perspectives on its role in the overall transfer of knowledge in the economy. Starting from the premise that all tacit knowledge transactions are socially situated, in this article I set out a multi-level approach to understanding the role of migrants in knowledge exchanges. The national, the urban and the firm constitute key levels in this study, although these are understood as interfolded rather than as discrete sites of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are changing but increasingly important ways in which international migration contributes to knowledge creation and transfer. The paper focuses on four main issues. First, the different ways in which knowledge is conceptualized, and the significance of corporeal mobility in effecting knowledge creation and transfer in relation to each of these types. Second, the significance of international migration in knowledge creation and transfer, and how this is mediated by whether migration is constituted within bounded (by company structures) or boundaryless careers, and as free agent labour migration. Third, the situating of migrants within firms, and the particular obstacles to their engagement in co-learning and knowledge translation: especially positionality, intercultural communication and social identities. Fourth, a focus on the importance of place, which is explored through theories of learning regions and creativity, and notions of the transferability of social learning across different public and private spheres. The need to view migrant learning and knowledge creation/transfer as widely dispersed, rather than as elite practices in privileged regions, is a recurrent theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the understanding of skilled labor migration by exploring some of the differences in the economic behavior of three contrasting groups of returned skilled labor migrants from Slovakia to the United Kingdom: professionals and managers; students; and au pairs. Formal professional experiences and training provide only limited understanding of the value of working/studying abroad. Instead, there is a need to look at particular competences, such as interpersonal skills and self-confidence, as well as the role of social recognition. The empirical results also emphasize the importance of spatiality and temporality when analyzing skilled labor migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses migration trajectories and cohabitation patterns of Vietnamese population in Slovakia. It starts with brief introduction on origin of Vietnamese in Slovakia and distinguishes two different waves of migrants. After analysis of the 2001 Census data it turns to authors' own survey on Vietnamese traders in Slovakia. The concluding part of the paper explores likely future of Vietnamese in Slovakia after its accession to the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the trajectory of international tourism and its economic role in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia during the post-1989 transition, leading to their European Union (EU) accession in 2004. Although there are relatively simple, and broadly comparable, trends in all four countries in visitor and tourism flows, this is based on chaotic conceptualisation of international mobility. This apparent bricolage is explored further by considering the role of international tourism in the formal and informal economies. In general, there has been as much change as continuity in the transition period, and this provides the dominant frame of reference for understanding the likely impacts of EU membership. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores three aspects of the all pair migration experience, through a case study of Slovakians, mostly but not all women, who have returned from sojourns in the United Kingdom. First, it argues that an pairs are distinctive from other migrants working in domestic service. Their positions have to be understood in terms of a particular regulatory framework, temporal restrictions, riving-in conditions, and the blurring of rights and responsibilities. Second, there is a need to consider the full cycle of migration. Returned all pairs have been able to commodify many aspects of their UK experiences, despite the constraints of relatively short visits, and the household and care work allocated to them. Third, understanding au pair migration as being socially and spatially constituted provides greater insights into their experiences and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing high levels of temporary migration between Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union (EU) have highlighted a number of concerns relating to the eastern enlargement of the Union. While much of the debate has focused on the destinations, we use Slovakia as a case study to explore economic implications for the countries of origin of highly skilled migrants. First, the paper examines estimates of the scale of“youth brain migration”, comparing survey-based and expert-opinion estimates with our own estimate based on reconciling labour market and educational data. This identifies a substantial loss of graduate workers from the labour force through migration, accounting for a potentially significant proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. Second, we consider whether such migration will constitute“brain drain/overflow” or“brain circulation”: in other words will it be temporary or permanent? In some ways, however, this is a false dichotomy, for there are strong links between initial temporary migration and intended permanent migration, explored here through a survey of the motivations and social networks of returned migrants. Third, we address the ability of national states to intervene to mediate such losses. We generally concur with other commentators on the need for a multi-scalar and multi-functional approach, focusing especially on economic development. However, we are pessimistic about the likely speed of economic convergence and, moreover, argue that initial temporary migration (with implications for permanent migration) will continue to be driven by non-economic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed enlargement of the European Union has focused attention on the implications for both those who do and those who do not become members in the 'first wave'. While discussions have largely centred on labour migration there are complex forms of mobility across different boundaries. This is illustrated through a case study of trans-border mobility between Slovakia and neighbouring countries in the EU, Central Eastern Europe, and the CIS. The paper stresses the complex geography of mobility, which is determined by the porosity of borders, the institutional context and regional economic complementarities. It also explores both the changing forms of labour migration and of shopping and petty-trading mobility. While highlighting the significance of EU enlargement for these deeply embedded patterns of mobility, it also emphasises the need to consider some of the broader influences such as international capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now widely accepted, and commented on, that both within Europe and beyond, not only are millions on the move, but there have been fundamental changes in the very nature of migration and mobility. The large-scale uprooting of people leading to forced migration, the rapid increase of legal and illegal migration of skilled and unskilled people to the growth poles of the global economy, the rapid increase in temporary mobility of both manual labour and service providers, and the growing significance of consumption-led migration are all intimately linked to the processes of globalisation and restructuring in global and European political, economic, social and cultural relations since the late 1980s/early 1990s. It is not only the geography of flows which has been and is being transformed, but also the channels and structures--what Urry (2000) terms the ?scapes'--which mediate and are reshaped by these flows. The ?scapes? are being recast in part by technological changes in transport and communication, opening up new ways of travel and working, but they are also part of and subject to the systems which regulate migration and mobility. In part these are defined by national and supranational systems of regulation, including both the barriers to flows and the rights of permanent residence and citizenship. But they are also conditioned by the creation and renewal of informal migrant networks across space, and the ?grey? area of regulation constituted by the role of organised crime in the trafficking in people.

Provides a comparative study of mobility and migration into and out of the buffer zone in Central Europe through case studies of Ukranians working in Slovakia and Slovaks working in Austria. Mobility and migration in the buffer zone; Labor migration in Central Europe after 1989; Migrant earnings, remittances and the reproduction of inequalities.

Focuses on the prospects of international retirement migration (IRM) in Europe. Provisions of IRM; Effects of IRM on regional economic geography; Significance of IRM for population geography.

Editorial. Discusses how the growth of tourism has been interdependent with that of particular forms of migration. How tourism itself constitutes a form of migration; Generation of distinctive flows of migration in terms of labor migration and consumption-led migration systems; Local conditions that inform the unfolding processes of globalization.

Examines major influences on the relationships between migration and tourism. Broad economic and social trajectories; Examination of specific forms of tourism-related migration in the context of social and economic trajectories; Exploration of labor migration, return migration, entrepreneurial migration, retirement migration and the special feature of second homes.

Examines the relationship between retirement migration and tourism in terms of the changing nexus of social relationships that are implicit in international mobility. Data used from field studies of British retired persons living in Southern Europe; Role of tourism in defining the search spaces of international retirement migrants.