ABSTRACT
When employees move within or between localities, knowledge sets are extended through exchanges of labour, and through a resulting creation and reinforcement of personal relationships (Criscuolo 2005). Mobility is thus an opportunity for the recruiting institution (firm, university or government organisation) to acquire skills, outlooks and networks that cannot necessarily be nurtured in-house. Skilled labour is a requisite for innovation-led economic development (Simmie et al. 2002; Florida 2002; Scott 2006) and is highly unevenly distributed, being disproportionately concentrated in persistent ‘Islands of Innovation’ (Hilpert 1992).
