When we talk about knowledge we must distinguish in which forms it occurs, accumulates and disseminates in different contexts through diverse agents. The discourse on knowledge work in a knowledge-based economy has focused on managerial, scientific and technological knowledge, which are supposed to contribute the most to economic growth. Consequently, they also led the way for measures towards a restrictive immigration policy, as entry or residence requirements, in several European countries (Kofman 2007).
However, the range of knowledge goes well beyond the three mentioned categories and do not automatically run parallel to the educational level as Kofman (2007) illustrates when referring to practical, intellectual, spiritual as well as the Polanyi-coined codified and tacit knowledge. The latter is in particular attributed to the labour context as the knowledge that we commonly refer to as the know-how, that we attain on the job, also referred to as “workplace competencies” (e.g. communication and problem-solving skills, team work etc.). Its position is however not perceived separately from the knowledge-economic perspective, but rather presumed to be complementary to for instance scientific or technological knowledge, adding value to it (Gertler 2003; Kofman 2007).
The combination of both provides hence a temporal, spatial and socio-cultural dimension and is thus considered being essential for the growth of research and development, for scientific-technological advances and hence innovation.
It is assumed that tacit knowledge hardly travels over long distances, in other words physical proximity is required to exchange whereas codified knowledge is transferable on temporal, spatial and virtual distances (OECD 2008). This issue becomes particularly interesting in the context of migration and knowledge remittances as a direct benefit. The production of tacit knowledge is experience-bound, localised and thus context-specific, which renders it “spatially sticky” (Gertler 2003: 79). Thus, (tacit) knowledge remittances are less likely to send back home or will be submitted with the socio-cultural filter of the destination context.