From global careers to talent flow: Reinterpreting ‘brain drain’

Talent flow is a process whereby economically valuable individuals migrate between countries, and is arguably a more important global career influence than international flows of personnel within global organizations. In this article, we reject the term brain drain as too restrictive and focus on the psychology of migration, specifically the economic, political, cultural, family, and career forces motivating it. Boundaryless global careers are presented as individual phenomena combining into macro-level international effects. These talent flow concepts have HR policy implications at both national and organizational levels. In support of our arguments, we provide a case study of New Zealand, along with preliminary data from a large sample of New Zealand expatriates.