Research Problem

Brain drain is the phenomenon where the professionals travel from the home country to other regions in search of better living standards and pay. This research will be dealing with what are the various  reasons why professionals and students leave their home country and settle in foreign countries, the objective is to see how this can be stopped.

Able qualified professionals are travelling away from the home country in search of better living conditions. This is creating a gap in the talent pool of the country. The governmental sectors and the private companies operating within the developing countries like Vietnam are facing crisis of qualified professionals because of the phenomenon of brain drain (Fukase 2013). This vacancy within the home country is creating economic problems and natural growth is hampered.

The research is conducted to find out the solutions for various reasons behind brain drain so these can be solved and the intelligence can be retained. This will help the developing countries like Vietnam to take various measures that will help in making the job market better within the country and the capable and talented professionals will be retained within the borders.

• What are the various factors that are leading to the drain of qualified professionals?
• What factors attract the talents away to other developed countries?
• What measures can be taken up to retain the talents for countries like Vietnam?

• To identify the reasons behind brain drain from developing countries like Vietnam
• To find factors that attract the talents away to other developed countries.
• To provide suggestions to the governments of the developing countries like Vietnam to take actions to retain the qualified professionals and to provide suggestion to the various big companies that are operating within Vietnam.

The qualified individuals who are unable to get proper remuneration in the home countries tend to look for better options in the outside world. This is also known as the flight of human capital which is a major loss to the home country. This is the reason that the developed countries look forward to incoming human capital who are qualified and capable (Docquier and Rapoport 2012). Most of the brain drain happen from the developed countries where the education rate is increasing among the youth but the opportunities of employment is not increasing to that extent. The youth who are qualified and capable expect to be placed in a higher rank with high payment. The developing countries with a huge population are still lagging behind in the aspect of employment. Because of the huge population liability providing a very high paid placement is often not possible (Kostovetsky 2017). The number of professionals passing out of the educational institutes and looking for job opportunities keep on increasing in these countries, on the other hand the number of job opportunities do not increase with time. According to De Wit (2018) the brain drain does not only happen at the level of individuals who are just passing out of the educational institutes, this also takes place among the individuals who are already employed. The individuals working in reputed or moderately reputed organization in the home country are constantly looking for better opportunities in the global arena (Beine and Sekkat 2013). Brain drain as a concept can also be applied in inter-organizational context where the employees travel vertically by moving between organizations, however in this paper detailed discussion will be done on brain drain at an international level where the professionals leave the home country for better job opportunities outside, mostly in the developed countries. The developing countries and the third world countries have severe problems of infrastructure therefore the problem of unemployment remains constant. In the year 2000 it is estimated that more than 175 million people or 3% of the total world population were living in some other country for the purpose of earning and income. According to Brock and Blake (2014) the country from where such large-scale migration occurs it loses its investment in the field of education and training. This means that the government of the country takes lot of efforts to train the individuals within the borders to become suitable professionals. On the other hand when these professionals leave the country and therefore the investments behind these professionals go in vein.

Rationale

There are many political and social reasons as well behind these migration to foreign countries. In Vietnam especially historically the social situation was very turbulent, and the political setup was problematic. In Vietnam the government is Communist, therefore most of the economic activities are state controlled. The economic development of the country is low and people often face unrests in their workplaces because of political differences among the parties (Fforde 2013). There are provisions for severe punishments in the country for any economic activity that does not have the communist party involved. Therefore new economic activities are limited. Often the developing countries like Vietnam do not have proper infrastructure for research and development in the field of management and professional development. The number of Vietnamese students and professionals leaving the home country and going out for better opportunities is increasing with a more globalized Vietnam and exposure to the foreign culture.

It can be considered how globalization will affect the brain drain. Globalization helps in better exposure to the opportunities abroad, people have more access to information outside the country. Some global organizations in Vietnam are doing well in attracting talents people to work for them, not only just because of high pay but also working environment and culture. Many of the global companies are opening in Vietnam and often professionals recruited here are given options to be moved abroad, which they are taking up, global consumer based companies like Walmart, Ikea, Nike, Adidas, Starbucks and McDonalds are some of such examples (Cox, Hannif and Rowley 2014). The employee friendly internal organizational culture and the possibilities of growth are some of the factors behind professionals getting inclined towards foreign companies.

There are various theories of globalization which explains the phenomenon of globalization in various contexts. The theory of Liberalism is one of the theory which sees the process of globalization as market-led extension of modernization (Rupert and Smith 2016). Political and economy liberty are priorities in this case. Therefore countries which are liberalized are more attractive to the new talents who are newly getting added to the workforce. Another theory of globalization is the theory of constructivism, which explains globalization as the construction of the social world and the various tools are language, symbols, interpretations and understanding (Zajda 2015). The most theory in regard to this is the theory of postmodernism where globalization has been viewed as the construction of identities, knowledge and norms.

Research Questions

In a report in the Viet Nam News by Khanh Van talks about how most of the Vietnamese talents who have achieved great deals of success in global arena has chosen to stay abroad and one of them is 18 year old student Nguyen Trong Nhan “was crowned during the Way to Olympia Peak game show last week” (Van 2014). In this report it is pointed how 70 percent students who has studied abroad did not come back but opted staying in foreign countries.

Japan has been keeping a close watch on the rate of brain drain in the country and it has taken various measures to stop the talents from flowing out of the country. One of the ways the Japanese government has done this is by giving better tempting offers to the talents within the country. It has also ensured a reduction of talent leakage by plugging the various points from where the talents where leaving the country by better payment of wages, more lucrative offers and perks of staying back.

Research Design

The research design chosen in this case is mixed method and descriptive. Therefore both interviews will be done for qualitative primary. Descriptive research design is mainly grounded on the researches based on case studies, observations and qualitative surveys. (Maxwell 2012). The data in this case is qualitative which will explain in detail the reasons and factors behind the migration of the students from the country to outside, this will be done by taking interviews from the concerned people including the students who are leaving and the officials. Then after a detailed review of the factors and reasons the solution will be searched.

Interview will be done for qualitative primary research data.  Sampling of the participants will be done based on the present trends of migration within the country. The students who have already left the country and the students who might leave the country in future will be interviwed.

The data collection technique of primary data will be interviews of the sample population who will be finalized for the research.

 Reliability of the collected data can be tested by various means so that it can be understood the collected data is authentic and reliable or not. Test Retest Reliability test may be done on the collected data to understand the reliability of the data.

Non probability sampling technique will be used in this case, where the participants of the interview will be fixed. Sampling Technique is used in researchers that include interview of participants who give feedbacks and answers to the questions asked by the researchers.

The data analysis will be done on a thematic basis and different themes will be used to understand the ultimate conclusion. The interview feedback on the topic will be reviewed minutely to make different themes (Scheurich 2014).  Then under these themes the various objectives of the research will be discussed to interpret and come to thematic conclusions.

All the information that are taken from the secondary sources will be properly cited. The work will not claim any other researchers work as own work. Ethically it will be ensured that the information are taken from the source are publicly available and not from any confidential source. No confidential information will be leaked in any ways throughout the research. Recognition of the authors of the papers that will be cited will be very carefully maintained.  It will be ensured that no other person will be harmed or disturbed while doing the research.

References:

Beine, M. and Sekkat, K., 2013. Skilled migration and the transfer of institutional norms. IZA Journal of Migration, 2(1), p.9.

Brock, G. and Blake, M., 2014. Debating brain drain: may governments restrict emigration?. Oxford University Press.

Cox, A., Hannif, Z. and Rowley, C., 2014. Leadership styles and generational effects: Examples of US companies in Vietnam. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(1), pp.1-22.

De Wit, H. (2018). Recent Trends and Issues in International Student Mobility. [online] ejournals.bc.edu. Available at: https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ihe/article/view/8481 [Accessed 11 Jan. 2018].

Docquier, F. and Rapoport, H., 2012. Globalization, brain drain, and development. Journal of Economic Literature, 50(3), pp.681-730.

Fforde, A., 2013. Vietnam in 2012: the end of the party. Asian Survey, 53(1), pp.101-108.

Fukase, E., 2013. Foreign job opportunities and internal migration in Vietnam.

Kostovetsky, L., 2017. Brain drain: are mutual funds losing their best minds?. Quarterly Journal of Finance, 7(03), p.1750009.

Maxwell, J.A., 2012. Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (Vol. 41). Sage publications.

Noble, H. and Smith, J., 2015. Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research. Evidence-Based Nursing, pp.ebnurs-2015.

Rupert, M. and Smith, H. eds., 2016. Historical materialism and globalisation: Essays on continuity and change. Routledge.

Scheurich, J., 2014. Research method in the postmodern. Routledge.

Van, K., 2014. Viet Nam needs to address ongoing ‘brain drain’. [online] vietnamnews.vn. Available at: https://vietnamnews.vn/opinion/op-ed/258767/viet-nam-needs-to-address-ongoing-brain-drain.html#iiFYuj8WBDQl4mZ5.97 [Accessed 8 Sep. 2018].

Zajda, J., 2015. Globalisation and its impact on education and policy. In Second International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy Research (pp. 105-125). Springer, Dordrecht.