Spatial Distribution Of Highly Skilled Diaspora Of Asean-5: Determinants And Engagement Strategies

Fok, Kuk Fa (2020) Spatial Distribution Of Highly Skilled Diaspora Of Asean-5: Determinants And Engagement Strategies. PhD thesis, UTAR.

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Abstract

The study aims to examine the spatial distribution and diaspora networks of highly skilled diasporas (HSDs), and the capabilities of ASEAN-5 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) to engage their HSDs for the economic development of home countries. The originality of this study is to develop an analytical framework which assesses quantitatively the two important aspects of the diaspora engagement efforts, namely the potential diaspora resources of HSDs, and the access to such resources through diaspora networks. The analytical framework integrates two parts of analysis, PART I and PART II. PART I employs an augmented gravity model to empirically study the macro-determinants for the spatial distribution of the HSDs fromASEAN-5, with the purpose of identifying the potential diaspora resources. PART II extends the empirical results from PART I, employing social network analysis (SNA) to investigate how ASEAN-5 could leverage on their positions and connectivity in the global diaspora network to harness the diaspora resources. The study discovered the heterogeneity in the migratory motives and diaspora resources of the HSDs from ASEAN-5. Thailand and the Philippines possess the strongest positions and connectivity in the global diaspora network relative to other ASEAN-5 countries. The HSDs from Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia are able to play relatively active roles of transnational entrepreneurs and builders of diaspora knowledge networks (DKNs) for their home countries. This study advocated that ASEAN-5 should establish a collaborative platform to pool together the expertise, knowledge and networks of their HSDs. The limitation of the study is that it focuses mainly on the macro-level analysis due to the unavailability of micro-level data to investigate the potential contributions of the HSDs according to their expertise, industries and business units. It is recommended for ASEAN-5 to collect and compile micro-level data in this aspect for future study.

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