Soft Skills, Tacit Ties: Exploring the Role of Non-Geographical Proximities in International Knowledge Transfer

Abstract The global city theoretical framework explains the paradox of growing concentration of economic activity in certain places in an era of globalization, in which distance appears to be “tamed” by information technology, by stating global cities manage the complexities that arise from the fact that firms increasingly operate in multiple markets. The sheer complexity of the skills and tasks performed in global cities is often believed to require ‘hypermobile’ professionals. However, literature concerning the geography of knowledge suggests that tacit knowledge (the type of knowledge the aforementioned professionals are assumed to deal with) is hard to transfer without a shared context and tends to be spatially clustered, while codified knowledge has a much more universal character and is more or less flowing freely around the globe. There thus seems to be a tension between the notion of a hypermobile, footloose elite on the one hand and the geographical embeddedness of their tacit knowledge on the other. However, in the literature on the geography of knowledge it is hinted that there could be other, non‐spatial forms of proximity (relational/cultural/institutional) that play a role in facilitating or hampering the transfer of tacit knowledge. Nevertheless, these assumptions have not yet been empirically scrutinized. In an attempt to shed light on these non‐spatial proximities and the role they play in shaping peopleʹs and knowledgesʹ global trajectories, highly skilled Indian employees of Capgemini in the Netherlands were interviewed. The employees dealing with tacit knowledge indeed report on an extensive adaptation process when changing geographies, companies or occupations. Deserving of special mention is the “global corporate sphere” the interviewees experienced at all multinational corporations they worked for. This sphere provides a common interpretational framework for tacit knowledge in different geographical settings, while at the same time it does not hamper the flexibility of the professionals involved.