According to the findings, both cross-sectoral cooperation and governing the local attempts are at the heart of successful talent attraction and retention attempts. This raises questions of: Who is included in the idea of cooperation? How these attempts can be governed and by whom?
As the findings imply, the regional attempts to attract and retain talents are compromised without ambitious and strategic coordination of actions. This requires definition of the goals and seamless cooperation between the stakeholders.
Coordination responsibility of regions is also linked with ensuring participatory possibilities and making the best out of local expertise within organizations and the surrounding society. Very little was discussed outside of the possibilities of public governance steering the attempts onwards. This raises the question; how can the regional attempts be facilitated if the benefits of talent management ecosystems and international expertise are not recognized within public sector. In theory this argues that the responsibility should be moved to other actors who have wide enough networks, competence and understanding of ecosystem orchestration actions. In practice, moving the responsibility might be difficult if the benefits of ecosystems are not recognized by key organizations within regions. In the Talent Boost context, while public governance, such as cities or ELY-centres, typically orchestrates the actions, HEIs were also considered as potential orchestrators.
7 DISCUSSION
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The role of HEIs was perceived as necessary and important, but it would be useful to review how to best utilize the opportunities for cooperation. HEIs have the central role of attracting students and researchers, but they are also key contributors within regional research, innovation, and development activities. Including HEIs closely to the talent management actions could bring the much-needed perspective, expertise, and well-established international networks which are beneficial in attracting and retaining talent. Moreover, enhancing strategic cooperation between HEIs and local industries would serve the goals of regional development.
Additionally, this would help to create logical paths for international students to enter working life after graduation and aiming to retain them in the local region.
One of the most central goals of talent attraction and integration is the internationalisation and growth opportunities for industries and companies.
Specifically thinking about this goal suggests that the role of the companies should be increased in the regional talent management activities. While some employers already recognize the potentials of international expertise, and may already have well-established ways of recruiting foreign talents, more permanent cooperation should be formed. Specifically, with those industries and employers who are interested in, but have not yet fully able to realize their goals of, recruiting international talents. At the same time, the needs of employers should be assessed realistically, with regards to the available talent pool, finding functional ways to lower the potentially high recruitment thresholds. Some practical tools, such as Talent Explorer funding, have been created, however, it remains debatable how well these services are recognized let alone utilized. At the same time, it should be noted that the private sector alone cannot be responsible for hiring international talents. Specifically, when the public sector champions the benefits and possibilities of employing migrants. Therefore, these possibilities should be reflected in practice within the public sector recruitment as well. Recognizing and utilizing much needed perspectives of international talents is must, especially in terms of talent attraction and retention work.
As the findings show, a lot of cooperation, which relates to talent management, is currently done together with the third sector actors. While third sector actors were seen as specifically important in providing much needed low-threshold services, it remains debatable as to how much of the official services should be outsourced to the associations. This may create more fragmentation, specifically if the cooperation is not systematic and long-term oriented. As the findings indicate, the role of third sector actors was often linked with representing the role and voice of migrants. This raises the question of whether third sector organizations can represent individual voices and experiences better than the people themselves. Additionally, it is important to critically reflect on whether third sector actors are able to represent the recognized heterogeneity of migrants. Since a lot of publications argued over improving the role of the associations, it should be assessed whether the voices and participatory opportunities of migrants can be outsourced. Additionally, whether organizations,
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which encourage ‘interactions between cultures’, fall into an essential understanding of culture (Piller, 2011) should be evaluated. Whilst well meaning, there is a chance of these understandings increasing the, possibly pre-existing, ideas of differentiating cultures and creating unnecessary divisions between “Finns and foreigners”.
While the participatory role of migrants was recognized essential, it was a theme which was discussed in less detail in terms of cooperation. It is understandably a hard challenge when considering how to include individuals into cooperation efforts and ensuring their voices are heard. If a society wishes to be inclusive, the role of migrants should be increased in cooperation with talent attraction and retention. Additionally, it is important to create feedback mechanisms which allow for information flows and participatory possibilities.
The governance of networks is central in terms of creating strategic cooperation of talent management actions. If public governance hopes to gain the recognized benefits from talent management actions, one of their core responsibilities is to ensure the facilitated and focused actions of a network by defining common goals and guiding the conversation. According to research, the notion of ‘discreet influence’
(Pikkarainen et al. 2017) was specifically important, and perhaps even considered as one of the key tasks of governance, alongside creating an environment for further cooperation. Moreover, the public sector may have to balance between the roles of orchestrator and developer in addition to focusing on the much-needed task of being an enabler, whilst recognizing the limitations, yet importance of, each role. As research has shown, perhaps the most necessary and innovative solutions are not always found within public governance, but rather amongst the stakeholders. In the Talent Boost context, this would require strategic cooperation where public governance ensures collaboration possibilities and encourages learning and development amongst the stakeholders. While the Talent Hub ecosystems cannot be managed in terms of traditional governance, a lot can, and should, be done to create nurturing environment for regional actions.
Research findings indicate that, whilst the roles and responsibilities of public governance have been relatively well-realized in the Talent Boost context, there is room for more conversation on the topic. The methods in which participatory possibilities, effective design of services and actions could be guaranteed, and who should be included in the conversations to begin with, have not been discussed in great enough depth. There is still work left for analysing the specific methods which are needed for talent management purposes within public governance. Further questions which can be reflected on by public governance, while steering the regional talent management attempts, as defined by Visnjic et al. (2016), are:
“What is your long-term vision? Are objectives clearly defined? Did you assess internal and external capabilities? Can you clearly identify the players responsible for the different parts of the service? Would their incentives be aligned with the overall objective?” Visnjic et al. (2016)
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