HighlySkilled Migration, Recognition and Motivation towards Knowledge Share with the Indigenous CoWorkers: Empirical Findings from the Vietnamese in the Laos Construction Sector45307

Highly-Skilled Migration, Recognition and Motivation towards Knowledge Share with the Indigenous Co-Workers: Empirical Findings from the Vietnamese in the Laos Construction Sector Ngoc

Highly-Skilled Migration, Recognition and

Motivation towards Knowledge Share with the

Indigenous Co-Workers: Empirical Findings from the Vietnamese in the Laos Construction Sector

Ngoc Liem Le 1* , Maggi W.H Leung 1 , Annelies E.B Zoomers 1

1 Utrecht University, the Netherlands

2 University of Economics, Hue University, Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam

* Correspondence: n.l.le@hce.edu.vn

Abstract There has witnessed a large number of Vietnamese nationals working in Laos, in particular

the highly-skilled so far Under assumption that there has been an immense production of knowledge

as well as considerable impacts created by this cohort and the local workers Notwithstanding, very little known about how these subjects recognise the importance of, and motivation towards knowledge share as well This paper is part of a research project on migration flow from Vietnam towards Laos in the host construction sector that its objective was two twofold First, based on in-depth interviews with 25 nationals of both the states, it examined the recognition of and motivation towards knowledge exchange amongst the Viet elites and their local work-partners The data was processed and analysed using QSR Nvivo 12 The findings from this study revealed that most of the workers did recognise the importance of, and express lots of their motivation to knowledge externalisation Of which, sharing knowledge to work correctly and better; to develop profession and social network; and to attain collective goals were most motivated Second, based on the findings,

some concluding remarks and further research implications were exhibited

Keywords: Highly-skilled migration; recognition; motivation; knowledge share; Vietnam; Laos

1 Introduction

To date, there has witnessed a considerable number of Vietnamese highly-skilled working in Laos, tandem with a solid and exhaustive cooperation under a variety of bilateral cooperative agreements signed at national and local levels between two the countries (Chau, 2018; Pham et al., 2017), especially labour cooperation agreement on July 1, 2013 It is estimated that there are some 40,000 Vietnamese highly-skilled mostly working in main sectors in Laos such as construction, energy, transport, agriculture, forestry, mining, telecommunication, and services (Cong Doan, 2019) The great contribution of this Vietnamese cohort towards Laos development in the construction sector has been widely recognised for years (Phetphoxay Sengpaseuth, 2017) This is because Lao workers’ capacity

is said relatively low in comparison with their Vietnamese counterparts and some other its neighbours’ (World Bank, 2013) Therefore, it is expected from Laos government that

“[Vietnamese] workers are expected to train Lao workers” (recited from Ngo, 2012) during their

stay in the country This discloses that, to an extent, Laos highly values the role of knowledge exchange among its nationals with Vietnamese highly-skilled nationals in the construction sector However, a big question arisen here is whether the Vietnamese highly-skilled and local workers do recognise the importance of and then have motivations towards knowledge share More seriously, there is very little, empirical evidence interrogate this

(Nguyen, 2014) To us, this is literally a big gap in research agenda Therefore, this

qualitative research, as part of an ongoing project on Vietnamese migration in the Lao construction sector, was carried out through participant observation and in-depth interviews with 13 are managements and 12 staffs from both the countries to fill out such the niches

The remaining of this article is structured as follows First, a literature review on highly-skilled migration, recognition and motivations towards knowledge mobility are discussed Next, it provides brief but comprehensive description on research contexts as well the methods employed in Then, the section of results and discussion is presented Finally, it comes up with some concluding remarks and implications for further researches

2 Highly-skilled Migration, Recognition and Motivations towards Knowledge Share

The term “highly-skilled” has left constant debates amongst scholars (Samers & Collyer, 2017) General speaking, an individual is deemed as the highly-skilled when (s)he either hold an university degree either or has an equivalent experience in a given field (Iredale, 2001; Triantaphyllidu, 2016) This view is also widely accepted amongst some researchers in the 1990s (Findlay & Cranston, 2015) Epistemic migration has been lots of attention paid by academics (Beaverstock, 1994, 2011; Riemsdijk & Wang, 2017; Williams, 2007a) Highly-skilled migration refers to “migration of persons with tertiary level education, whether they achieved that level before or after migration” (CARIM, 2009; recited in Shalabi, 2010, p 1) In fact, the emergence of the so-called world cities with a dense convergence of international highly-skilled migrants (e.g New York, Tokyo, Singapore, etc.) has grasped lots of attentions from geography researchers (Beaverstock, 1994, 2002, 2005, 2011; Findlay & Cranston, 2015; Ryan & Mulholland, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Skeldon, 2009; Yeoh

& Lam, 2016) However, these studies mightily concentrated on international highly-skilled labours in world cities but not in the rest of the world (Kunz, 2016; Riemsdijk & Wang, 2017), particularly in developing countries (e.g some areas of Asia such as the movement in the Southeast)

Knowledge share, another closely-related term from highly-skilled migration should

be considered within elite migration literature Knowledge share refers to “the process of knowledge possessors transferring personal professional knowledge to knowledge demanders (Gunawan & Shieh, 2016, p 1103) For decades, the link between epistemic migration has been paid by many pundits (Beaverstock, 2002, 2005, 2012; Faulconbridge, 2006; Gertler, 2003; Larner & Laurie, 2010; Saxenian, 2005; Williams, 2006, 2007b, 2007a; Williams & Baláž, 2008) Upon their cross-border passage, migrants bring over their

knowledge to new specific contexts where it may be mixed or integrated to other knowledge

by participating diversely formal and informal practices and not only within but outside their organisation (Beaverstock, 2002) However, a key question arising is that whether these elites migrants and local workers do regconise the importance of and then have motivations towards knowledge exchange Regarding this point, De Vries et al (2006) reckon that individuals do acknowledge knowledge share whether personally worthwhile or important

so as to reach collective goals and are therefore willing and eager for sharing their knowledge

In what follows, we presented research locations as well as the methods used in this study Then, the section of results and discussion in connection with existing literature aforesaid, were exhibited

3 Methodology

In this study, participant observation and in-depth interviews were employed to collect primary data Fieldwork was conducted in Hanoi and Vientiane from the middle July

to the end of October, 2018 (Fig 1) There were three channels were used to identify and recruit participants including: via direct corresponding introduction on the spot, via authors’ social contacts, and through participant observation in the field Thereby, 25 in-depth interviews in total were was conducted with 18 Vietnamese and 7 Laos; 13 managements and 12 non-managements Of Vietnamese nationals, 3 were returnees and the rest were still working in the sector in Laos The recordings were transcribed, and then coded by using QSR Nvivo 12 for analytical purposes For anonymity, pseudonym assigned

to individual participants by codifying from *1 to *25, respectively Of which, the asterisk denoted either V for Vietnamese or L for Lao respondents

Figure 1 Map of Vietnam and Laos and research locations

4 Results

Fig 2 presented the recognition towards the importance of knowledge share amongs Viet highly-skilled migrants and their local workers in the Lao construction sector As Fig

2 showed, 23 respondents contended that sharing knowledge amongst them were

“essential” or “very important,” equivalently accounting 92 percent of the total; whereas only two Vietnamese revealed “not important” and “don’t know,” accounting for 8 percent

of the total For example, V2 recounted:

I considered it [sharing knowledge] very important because we were working in an organisation and therefore sharing knowledge and skills amongst us was in order to develop together.” So, what we knew, we would share and they would also help us to deal with our work in accordance with our intention quickly If we [Vietnamese workers] di not, they had to take much time

to find out the know-how So, it was better to share at work.” [male, returning staff]

This finding was in line with De Vries et al (2006) However, as aforesaid, two Vietnamese migrants claimed that they did not view sharing knowledge between them and their Lao co-workers important or did know This was because many barriers during knowledge exchange process between them that went beyond of this article

Figure 2 Recognition to knowledge share between the Vietnamese highly-skilled and Lao

work-partners (Source: The authors’ data analysis in Nvivo) Also, there were various reasons released to explain why it was essential to share knowledge that permitted us to subsequently scrutinise their motivations towards

knowledge diffusion amongst them By that, motivations to share knowledge amongst Viet

elites and their local co-workers were typed into 6 categories: (1) Doing work correctly and better; (2) Developing expertise and social network; (3) Attaining collective goals; (4) Understanding each other; (5) Saving time, efforts, and costs; and (6) Other motivations (Fig 3) Of which, sharing knowledge to do work correctly and better was uncovered most by 15 participants with 24 coding references, followed by developing expertise and social network and attaining collective goals by 12 participants mentioning with 18 coding references and

10 participants talking about with 13 coding references, respectively For instance, V1, male

returning architect narrated: “All the thing our technicians [Vietnamese highly-skilled] knew, they

would have to share them with our Lao co-workers so that they could do it correctly or as well as possible If we had not share technical materials, we were sure that they would have done it incorrectly.” Or as L8 revealed: “So, it is time for us to exchange our knowledge, skills, and experience each other so that we could know how to do a work, how to deal with a problem properly,

or how to get our targets or goals” (male accountant) In fact, both the Viet highly-skilled and

Lao counterparts stressed their importance and motivations towards knowledge share between them that helped us to confirm the question posed in this study before

Fig 3 Motivations towards knowledge share between the Vietnamese highly-skilled and Lao

work-partners (Source: The authors’ data analysis in Nvivo)

5 Conclusion

The presence of Viet highly-skilled in Laos has been ubiquitous for many decades under of the expectation to boost the local workers’ capacity from Lao government through knowledge diffusion amongst them Nevertheless, little to know if these dividiuals do recognise and are motivated to share their knowledge with each other This study was aimed to challenge this question By that, the findings from this study uncovered that most the Vietnamese highly-skilled and their indigenous coworkers did realised the importance

of knowledge share as well as had motivations towards knowledge share These findings were very helpful for public policy makers of both the states so as to release coming policies and activities to stimulate knowledge externalisation between individuals of the tow countries However, the barriers towards this knowledge exchange process were indeed to

do for further researches so as to deeper scrutinise what really hidden as blockades to knowledge production and communication process between these subjects Also, some other methods, such as group focus discussion, should be employed to indentify multi-perspectives from other stakeholders involved in the process Finally, this paper complemented the lack of literature that contextualised of Vietnam and Laos

Acknowledgement

This paper is sponsored by the 911 Grand Project of Vietnam Government The

authors would like to thank to the project for funding

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Is Public Debt Good or Bad for Economic Growth? Fresh Evidence in Emerging Economies

(1) Ho Chi Minh City Open University, HCM City, Vietnam

* Correspondence: tung.lt@ou.edu.vn

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates the impact of public debt on economic growth in the

case of twelve emerging economies in 1980-2015 Our study maybe is the first one which focuses only

on emerging countries Unlike many previous studies, our result clearly shows that public debt has

a positive impact on economic growth This evidence also presents an important role of public debt which should be robustly motivated in the coming period Besides, our result finds both domestic investment and remittances have positive impacts on economic growth in the studying time However, inflation is pointed out that this variable can harm economic growth The trade openness has a negative effect on economic growth because many countries have deficits in their trade balance

in the study period Finally, our research result is useful information for policy makers to promote economic growth in emerging countries in the near future

Keywords: Public debt; economic growth; emerging economy

Public debt is popularly known as any financial obligation (including bonds or loans) assumed by the governments, where they agree to make interest and principal payments on certain times Public debt maybe is one of the popular research topics of economic development in the past decades In many countries, public debt is an important source of finance for governments to promote economic growth as well as implement socio-economic goals Therefore, public debt is always associated with government activities in many countries Besides serving public investment, sometimes, public debt is also a financial source to serve the state system when tax revenue is not enough to compensate So there is a concern that the increasing public debt will also raise the pressure on repayment

of the government in the future

There are some different kinds of arguments about the role of public debt on economic growth Firstly, some results suggest that public debt has an active role in