Migration Management: Rethinking Inclusion at Work

Описание: Why have migration and management rarely been studied together?

Nearly 300 million people live and work outside their country of birth.

Migration shapes labour markets, organisations, careers and communities.

Yet management research has largely treated migration as peripheral.

In this guest editorial for Academy of Management Discoveries, we argue that migration management must become central to business and management scholarship.

🔎 From “Migration Management” to Migration Governance

The term migration management emerged in the 1990s to describe coordinated, orderly and regulated mobility.

But this framing:

• Assumes rational, linear flows
• Centres state and labour market control
• Ignores migrant agency
• Neglects lived experiences of settlement and work

The concept was later challenged and replaced in policy debates by migration governance, which attempts to account for humanitarian needs and migrant decision-making.

Yet both terms require critical interrogation from a management perspective.

🧠 Why Business and Management Matter

Migration is not only a policy issue.

It is a workplace issue.

It affects:

• Inclusion and exclusion
• Skill recognition and devaluation
• Career trajectories
• Identity and belonging
• Organisational diversity practices
• Entrepreneurship pathways

We argue that migration management must be analysed at multiple levels:

• Micro — migrant agency, identity and experience
• Meso — organisational practices and workplace inclusion
• Macro — policy settings, labour markets and global regimes

Management scholarship is uniquely positioned to bridge these levels.

🌍 Global Context

Migration has intensified in an era marked by:

• Armed conflict
• Economic inequality
• Populist backlash
• Anti-immigration rhetoric
• The gig economy
• AI-driven precarity
• Pandemic-related exclusion

The editorial highlights how crises such as COVID-19 exposed the “dispensable” treatment of migrant workers and how anti-woke movements increasingly target diversity and inclusion efforts.

Migration debates are deeply political.

The rhetoric surrounding migration often overflows into workplaces, shaping inclusion practices.

🔄 Key Questions Raised

The special issue asks critical questions, including:

• Whose interests do migration management interventions serve?
• How is migrant voice amplified or silenced?
• How are skills and qualifications recognised or mismanaged?
• What role do organisations play in reinforcing or challenging inequality?
• Is migrant entrepreneurship driven by opportunity or necessity?

Migration is not a tidy process.

It is messy, intersectional and politically charged.

🔥 Core Contribution

This editorial calls for:

• Exploratory and phenomenon-based research
• Multi-level theoretical development
• Critical engagement with inclusion
• Methodological diversity, including abductive and multimethod approaches
• Recognition of migrants as workers, entrepreneurs and professionals

Migration management is not simply about regulating flows.

It is about how organisations shape belonging, opportunity and exclusion.

🌱 Why This Matters

Migration and inclusion are defining challenges of our time.

If management scholarship ignores migration, it ignores one of the most powerful forces shaping global labour markets.

Understanding migration through a management lens is essential for:

• Ethical governance
• Workplace inclusion
• Talent sustainability
• Social cohesion

Migration is not only about movement across borders.

It is about recognition, dignity and participation in work.

📚 Full Reference

Groutsis, D., Vassilopoulou, J., Özbilgin, M. F., Fujimoto, Y., & Mor Barak, M. E. (2023). Migration management: Introduction and overview. Academy of Management Discoveries, 9(2), 117–124.

📌 PINNED COMMENT

Should migration be treated primarily as a labour market issue, a humanitarian issue, or an organisational inclusion issue?

How can management scholarship better engage with migrant experiences?

I welcome your reflections.