Transnational labour migration and the offshoring of knowledge-intensive business services within global production networks: The case of a German automotive company in Turkey

Abstract

Even though labour has been an important research topic in the field of economic geography for many years, up to now little has been known about transnational labour migration of highly skilled employees in global production networks. This article examines the role and the impact of highly skilled (re-)migrants of Turkish origin who studied and/or worked in Germany for several years in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) offshoring. To do so we analyse the empirical case of a German automotive company that operates as a lead firm within a global automotive production network. The company has insourced enterprise resource planning (ERP) software services from their suppliers in Germany and offshored those to a captive offshore service centre in Istanbul (Turkey). Based on our empirical material, we found that highly skilled (re-)migrants of Turkish origin are used as boundary spanners to efficiently and effectively manage the knowledge transfers from the onshore organizations to the service centre in Istanbul. Thereby, highly skilled (re-)migrants of Turkish origin help to mitigate resistance and facilitate the dis- and re-embedding of knowledge within the offshoring process. The exploration of highly skilled labour migration from a transnational perspective contributes to the discussion about the role of labour in global production networks.