International knowledge mobility and urban development in rapidly globalizing areas: building global hubs for talent in Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Abstract

This paper examines the processes through which the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai attract and integrate knowledge workers into their labor markets. It focuses on how the UAE has acquired the human capital to create post-oil economies, deploying its oil windfalls into massive urban development strategies in order to create global hubs for talent. More significantly, it analyzes how the UAE’s strategies and frameworks for attracting global knowledge flows ultimately determine the degree to which expatriate knowledge embeds locally. Presentation of results from a large-scale human capital survey of firms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as key-informant interviews with senior human resource administrators at these firms, demonstrate these processes.