ABSTRACT
All of these studies and the broad location theory liter at ure gen erally focus on the existing con ditions of locations. Firms choose locations based on raw materials, transportation access, labour costs, labour quality, talent availabil ity or amenities that are in place. Recent research also focuses on the role of diversity as a locational asset. Jacobs (1961) long ago noted the im port ance of human as well as eco nomic or firm-level diversity in fuelling in nova tion and city growth. Desroshers (2001) follows by ex plor ing the relationship between diversity, creativity and regional in nova tion. Zachary (2001) argues that openness to immigration will be pivotal if the US intends to remain com petit ive in high-technology fields. Saxenian (2000, 2002, 2006) found that roughly 25% of new business formation in Silicon Valley had a Chinese-or Indian-born founder, and that one-third of the region’s current sci ent ists and engineers were foreign-born.2 In their study of leading US tech no logy centres, Wadhwa et al. (2007: 1) found a disproportionate percentage of im mig rant start-ups within these leading tech no logy centres when compared to overall state averages, including Silicon Valley with 52.4% (compared with a state average of 38.8%), New York City with 43.8% (vs 26%), Seattle with 23.4% (vs 11.3%), and Research Triangle Park with 18.7% (vs 13.9%). Florida (2002a) argues that diversity and tolerance within a region is key to attracting talent or human capital. Florida (2005) goes on to state that regions that are more open to diversity and tolerance will be more attractive to highly skilled talent, and will secure an ad vant age over regions that are not as open and receptive. However, none of this existing liter at ure ex plores the location choice pro cess and pref er ences for a world-class firm seeking potential talent and labour not yet realized. There is little liter at ure and there are no studies that we know of that identi fy locations as being attractive or firms choosing locations simply on their potential. There is a liter at ure on the geo graphy of greenfield factory locations, but even this liter at ure argues and finds that firms pick greenfield locations for their low costs and for the flex ib il ity they provide in mobilizing a new labour force – one that already resides in the gen eral area. Feldman and Martin (2005) advance the construct of jurisdictional ad vant age – the notion that firm com petit iveness can be bolstered by certain locational charac ter istics. Specifically, jurisdictional ad vant age argues that the unique and local intan gible assets (managed and facilitated by polit ical will and policy-making) found within a par ticu lar geographic region can enhance a region’s com petit ive ad vant age. The role of locational attributes in en ab ling the mobil iza tion, attraction and re ten tion of talent is a key element of such jurisdictional advantage. Our research is based on a simple hypo thesis. We argue that with the rise of a global eco nomy and the crit ical im port ance of high-skill labour, firms may pick their locations for their potential to attract talent. More specifically, we argue that since high-tech firms depend on high-skill labour from many coun tries of origin (see Saxenian, 2006; Wadhwa, 2008; Richtel, 2009), and they need to amass that labour in one location, then geographic locations where it is easy to gain access to this broad and diverse mix of talent will be favoured. We advance
the main hypo thesis that the eco nomic geo graphy of a high-technology firm will be attracted to a region that enables and facilitates low bar riers of entry for potential global talent. We examine this pro posi tion in light of the de cision of Company X, a Fortune 500 high-technology firm based in Seattle, Washington, to open a new in novation centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. The region is a centre of nat ural beauty, known for its amenities, a city region that has been named one of the world’s most livable cities, and close by is Company X’s main head quar ters location in Seattle, Washington. But we argue that another con sidera tion shaped Company X’s location de cision. Company X picked Vancouver not for its in situ charac ter istics, but for its locational potential to attract talent. Since the mid2000s, Company X has confronted increasing dif ficult ies securing visas and immigration status for its engineering staff, under an increasingly restrictive US immigration pol icy (see Florida, 2005; Richardson, 2006a; Abate, 2007; Wadhwa et al., 2009). Specifically, this location, being situated in Canada but proximous to its US research and corporate centre of gravity, provided a unique locational space where it could de velop a talent portal of sorts to recruit and gain access to high-skill, high-tech labour from around the world. Our case study findings reveal that the key elements of the com pany’s location selection had little to do with the factors offered by the location itself, but rather were based on the abil ity of the location to be used to gain access to global talent.
