1 | Introduction |
| Andreas Pyka, Yeşim Kuştepeli, Canan Balkιr and Dominik Hartmann |
Introduction
Rapidly changing conditions in the world economy force firms, regions and countries to innovate and diversify in order to maintain their competitive advantages (Pyka and Hanusch 2006; Hartmann 2014). While local or company internal research and development (R&D) activities are important, no single firm can keep pace with the current speed of technological development in isolation. For this reason accessing external knowledge and actively engaging in international innovation networks becomes crucial (Pyka and Scharnhorst 2010). Recently, several large developing and emerging countries like Turkey, Malaysia, Brazil, India or China have been able to diversify their economies and initiate a technological catch-up process. In this process, international investment, migrant diasporas and innovation networks have played an important role. At the same time, the European Union has emphasized the need to become the most dynamic know ledge based economy in the world to create more and better jobs. An important issue to achieve this goal is the mobility of knowledge, which emphasizes the role of cultural diversity and interactive learning. However, few studies so far have scrutinized the international innovation networks and knowledge migration between European Member states and EU Member candidates like the emerging economy of Turkey.
Recent approaches on innovation and economic growth highlight that people from different cultural backgrounds and knowledge bases can provide different perspectives and develop new solutions to existing problems, thereby spurring entrepreneurial and economic as well as engineering and marketing creativity (Florida 2002; Saxenian 2006; Page 2008). In a globalising world, intercultural boundary spanners, innovation networks and asset augmenting investments create new patterns of knowledge exchange in various ways and different economic realms. Saxenian (2002, 2005, 2006), in her analysis of the diversity of the workforce in the Silicon Valley and on commuting entrepreneurs spanning networks between different countries, argues that high-skill immigration benefits both the host and home country by the process of brain circulation. She suggests that highly skilled workers, far from replacing native workers, tend to start new businesses and generate new jobs and wealth by creating new social and professional networks to mobilize the information, know-how, skill and capital. With these networks, they are able to bridge both the host and home countries. In this way, international migration becomes a two-way process which can support a process of reciprocal innovation by making the transfer of human capital and technology possible. Instead of brain drain, the focus can move towards knowledge exchange and mutual learning as well as on economic gains, resulting from commuting entrepreneurs, knowledge migration and international innovation networks.
International boundary spanners and innovation networks also enhance mutual understanding and knowledge exchange between countries by resolving or even preventing misunderstandings that can occur due to varying values and attitudes. By doing this, they enable international cooperation and knowledge exchange. The long history of Turkish–German migration offers many opportunities to explore this. The grown Turkish–German relationships provide for a large potential to create knowledge and innovation driven dynamics, which can contribute strongly to the economic welfare in both countries. Moreover, an improved technological integration can also be an important step towards more social integration between Turkey and Germany and towards Turkey’s EU integration process.
In this book, we merge the two literatures on innovation networks and knowledge migration and apply it to the Turkish–German case. We analyse the Turkish–German innovation networks in order to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms and dynamics behind and to discover potential risks and shortcomings which might hinder network development. This book provides practical and theoretical insights on:
• how the knowledge linkages between both sides are formed;
• which bottlenecks are important to be dissolved; and
• which strengths and best practices can be fostered.
Once we know the structural and dynamic features of the networks we are able to avoid negative features, overcome rigidities and enhance knowledge flows.
Certainly Turkey’s innovation capabilities still lack behind European innovation leaders, such as Switzerland, Germany or the Scandinavian countries. However, in the last decades, Turkey has started to diversify its export portfolio into more advanced sectors, experienced a remigration of its skilled diaspora network and saw the rise of several new applied universities and research centres. Understanding the Turkish–German innovative networks also helps to explore the impact of Turkish immigrants on development of bilateral innovation activities between two countries in the context of the European economic integration.
The goal of the European Union to develop towards the leading knowledge-based economy is strongly supported by the emergence of innovation networks which connect core European regions with European periphery and catching-up regions characterized by strong dynamics. Given the aging problem in the EU and its impact on the future growth, the EU has to strengthen its human capital, so to decrease the productivity gap and pursue a growth strategy based on knowledge and innovation.
It must be noted that recently also a large amount of refugees, especially from Syria, have been migrating to Turkey, Germany and Europe. It is still too early to estimate the effect of the partially high-skilled, partially lowed skilled migrants on the economic linkages and knowledge exchange between Europe and the Middle East. However, while there are certainly major differences between the new movement of refugees and the historical grown migration relationships between Turkey and Germany, there are also some commonalities concerning the potentials and problems, in particular concerning policy designs which aim at a fast integration into labour markets, as well as opportunities for new economic linkages and knowledge exchange between German, Turkey, Syria, Europe and the Middle East. We are convinced that there are lessons to be learnt in this difficult and complex field from our analysis of migration and innovation.
In what follows, we briefly introduce to the history of knowledge exchange and migration between Turkey and Germany. Then we highlight the previous findings and role of immigration for innovation in Europe, before we present the structure of this book.
The history of Turkish–German knowledge exchange and migration
Turkey and Germany are two countries with various political, economic, social and cultural ties that have developed over the last centuries. The history of Turkish–German relations is noteworthy since it entails interesting cases of knowledge migration and cross-border learning.
While during the seventeenth to the middle of the twentieth century, emphasis was certainly put first on military and political ties, the exchange of knowledge could also be observed. One example is the establishment of the Germany Military Commission (GMC) in 1882, which helped the Ottoman army in fields such as the reorganization and the introduction of the modern military exercises. Since 1890, German academics and educators helped in increasing the effectiveness of the higher education system, establishing and/or developing academic organizations (such as departments and universities) and create manifold academic links between both countries. In the early twentieth century, multiple German schools and hospitals were built in Istanbul. Moreover, as early as 1913, around 1300 Ottomans, mainly students and foreign workers, lived in Berlin. Between 1941 and 1945, Turkey opened its door to many German emigrants fleeing from the Nazi regime. German Jewish scholars made remarkable contributions to Turkey’s scientific and academic studies in these years. Their legacy includes the reformation of higher education, establishment of new faculties and institutions, and more importantly education of new Turkish scholars. Today, these emigrants still play an important role in the ongoing modernization of Turkey.
In 1949 Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe. Due to Germany’s economic boom phase (“Wirtschaftswunder”) and the related shortages on the labour supply side, as well as Turkey’s need to export surplus labour force, Turkey and Germany signed the Labour Recruitment Agreement (number 505-83 SzV/3-92-42) in 1961. This agreement lead to large-scale emigration from Turkey to Germany and made Turks the largest group of the immigrants numbering 649,000 between 1961 and 1974, and reaching almost three million later in the 1980s (İçduygu 2012).
The first immigrants were employed almost exclusively in industry. In the 1970s many Turkish migrants began opening grocery stores or working in markets offering goods which were difficult to get in Germany and thereby complement the so far dominant industrial employment of Turkish migrants. This trend even accelerated in the 1990s and afterwards. In 2010 almost 80,000 private businesses were founded in different sectors by Turkish migrants in Germany. Today a large percentage of Germans with Turkish migration background access higher-skilled jobs with an academic education. Very recently a new trend is observable, namely that many of the high-skilled German citizens with a Turkish background re-migrate at least temporarily to Turkey. The labour market in Germany still is not fully prepared to allow for top careers in German industry with a Turkish name. Their good education and the demand for high-skilled labour in the centres of the Turkish economy, though, partially absorbs these Germans with a Turkish background.
Turkey continues to be a country of outmigration. However, with the above mentioned reversal of high-skilled migration from Germany to Turkey it has become a country of immigration. In 2000, the share of Germans in the foreign born population of Turkey amounted to 21.4 per cent (273,500), the majority of these being highly skilled second-generation migrants who returned to their parents’ home country in order to benefit from employment opportunities in Turkey (Biffl 2011).
Naturally the large patterns of migration between Germany and Turkey has also significantly contributed to the knowledge exchange and economic ties between both countries. Today, multidimensional economic, social and technological relationships exist between Turkey and Germany. With respect to economic ties, Germany is Turkey’s top goods export market according to 2011 data, amounting to US$11.7 billion, with clothing accessories, road vehicles, textile and fabrics being among the top export goods. On the other hand, Germany is Turkey’s second largest supplier of goods in 2011, amounting to US$20.1 billion. Road vehicles, machinery and electrical machinery are the top import categories.
Moreover, in 2009, Germany and Turkey jointly celebrated 50 years of bilateral development cooperation. During this fifty-year period, more than €4.3 billion of funding has been provided to Turkey from Germany in the form of loans and grants under financial cooperation. Germany has also invested heavily in Turkey. Among the 29,000 international firms in Turkey, 4,800 are German firms. Although due to the economic crisis in 2008 the total German FDI (foreign direct investment) decreased from US$110.5 billion in 2010 to US$54.4 billion in 2011, the German FDI to Turkey increased from US$597 million to US$605 million during the same period, showing the commitment of German companies to invest in Turkey (Kustepeli et al. 2013).
Although the phenomenon of innovation networks in the Turkish–German relations can be considered to be in its early stages, there are multiple cases of successful knowledge migration and innovation networks which indicate the rich possibilities for economic integration and development of Turkish–German innovation networks. Turkey can benefit from Germany’s comparative advantage in high-technology sectors and Germany could benefit from the youth and high education level of the Turkish labour force. These benefits are accessible through innovation networks where actors from both sides cooperate and exchange knowledge with goals of R&D and innovation. Innovation networks between the two countries can contribute to the increase of the mutual consideration and positive public percept...
