Managing the Performance of Highly Mobile Skilled Individuals in Hi-Tech Firms

The change in business terrain is accelerated by globalization, which has opened many avenues of growth. To survive in this environment, the organization requires alignment of its strategic goals and available human resources. The need is to manage the performance of the employee, who is the most important resource of the organization. The focus has now shifted to the highly skilled workforce in order to leverage technology. This chapter highlights the studies conducted on the factors affecting the people in the workplace. While some researchers have defined what it means to be a skilled employee, other researchers have provided their views on the inequity, identity, compensation, meaning of work and international policy and approach of various countries for workers. This study also came across various aspects of migration of skilled workers studied by number of researchers. The current research provides solutions in the form of requisites to improve performance of skilled employees, which will be especially useful to multinational corporations operating in the hi-tech sector. The validity of the factors can be judged from the research conducted across the continents that includes major industrialized countries in the world. It looked into the work practices followed in these countries. The chapter provides research propositions based on the literature reviewed.