Transcript The Financial Crisis and the Global Auction for Education

Attracting & Retaining
High Level Talent in China:
Cooperation or Competition?
HUGH LAUDER
UNIVERSITY OF BATH
Workshop on China’s Global Search for Talent Policy
CEERP,Honk Kong University of Science &
Technology 7.11.2011
The Key Issues
 National Prosperity depends on transnational processes. Does this lead
to underlying tensions?
 The Chinese Talent Strategy: From ‘Made in China to Created
in China’: the central role of human capital (See Zhang, Wang and Alon
(2011).
 Under the National Medium and Long-term Development Plan (20102020) 6 categories of talent are identified. Not all will need to attract
overseas and returnee talent.
 In this paper I shall focus on two categories (1) high level management
talent (2) and highly skilled researchers. These two categories, in
particular, raise some of the more difficult questions concerning
cooperation and competition between nations.
 However, there are also issues of internal national competition that
need to be considered.
Paper Outline
 There are 3 levels at which
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we can undertake this
analysis:
The transnational
The national
The individual
To understand the possible
impacts of the talent plan
and especially in relation to
returnees we need first to
outline a model of skill
within the global economy
The Global Auction for High Skilled Work
 Trend One: Globalisation of ‘High Skills’

Enrolments in Tertiary Education Doubled Within a Decade from 72 to
136 million (1996-2007; 195 million graduates in China by 2020);
 Trend Two: Quality-Cost Revolution
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‘We have an “inside out” model which is very clever. It gives us more
flexibility over what to do where’.
Senior Indian Manager, EU Electronics, Mumbai
 Trend Three: Digital Taylorism
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Knowledge Work  Working Knowledge
 Trend Four: War for Talent
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‘The Best and the Rest’ (Performance + Skills)
The Implications at the
International-National Interface
 The idea of a war for talent is now well established by TNCs, so that the
idea of attracting top talent from across the globe is now well accepted.
 However, TNCs also interact with national and local labour markets so
that as one leading Chinese economist, talking of Chinese SOEs, told us
‘The TNCs are out teachers and we are the pupils’ so they may impact
on national skill and organisational development in a range of ways.
 However, one reason why high level business returnees are so
important is that they will have experience of market conditions that
will not be the case for many executives in some sectors in China e.g.,
banking. As Chinese businesses move out into the world, the experience
of the returnees will be crucial in how they adapt to global market
conditions.
 This also applies to the development of R&D facilities.
Higher Education and the Globalization of R&D
 Universities since the 19th Century have been seen to have several aims,
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however, until recently one has been that of national development in
relation to research and the supply of educated workers.
However, in the USA and the UK and now in parts of Europe this is
fundamentally changing.
Policy makers in these countries continue to assume that their
universities will act in support of national development but this mat be
an error.
Once universities are placed in market contexts their research is open
to all who are prepared to collaborate and fund it, irrespective of
national interest.
This is most clearly seen in the interactions between TNCs and
university co-operation.
Whether the policies and practices of TNCs and of globally placed
universities bring about a ‘win win’ from all nations is debatable.
Proponents of ‘free trade’ may argue that in the long run all gain.
However, there are counter economic and social pressures that may
imply a return to nationalism and protectionism
Nationalist and Protectionist Pressures
 Continuing recession in the west may lead to new forms of
economic nationalism with calls for protectionism.
 In terms of losing talent this may well focus on the loss of
key research academics rather than in relation to TNCs.
 But an implication of the Global auction is that graduates in
the west will no longer have the opportunities for graduate
incomes and jobs that their parents. This suggests that the
loss of opportunity for the professional middle class may
add to protectionist pressures.
The National-Individual Interface
 Within nations a key to the success of returnee
policies will depend upon the rules by which the
positional competition for credentials and its
relationship to jobs is perceived.
 Merit is considered the basis for legitimacy.
 If the appointment of returnees is seen to reduce the
opportunities of those at home then this may be seen
as rigging the positional competition.
 In turn this may affect the way the returnee policy is
perceived.
Conclusion
 Whether a returnee policy dependent for the highly
talented is a ‘win win’ policy can be understood at
three levels: the transnational, the national and the
individual.
 Crucially it is the interface between these that is
important.
 However, behind these sets of relationships are the
more fundamental questions relating to the economy
and nationalism.