The Flight of the Creative Class:

The New Global Competition for Talent

Florida, R.L. (2005).  The flight of the creative class: The new global competition for talent.  New York: HarperCollins.

As a sequel to his best-selling The Rise of the Creative Class, economist Richard Florida extends his discussion of the “Creative Class” to forecasts of the new global competition for talent.  Using his Global Creativity Index (GCI) measure of creative competitiveness of nations along his three T’s of economic growth: technology, talent, and tolerance, he claims, “The elite of any society have, of course, always been highly mobile; what’s distinct about our times is that extent to which more and more people are developing the cultural, political, and economic freedom to choose where to live and work globally.”  Further, he claims that the difference today is that instead of bringing that talent to their existing locations, companies are setting up factories where the talent is already located.

He argues the problem is the United States’ dependency upon foreign talent in its economy.  Florida estimates that “we are tapping at most 10 percent of our latent creative capital.”  He also reveals that in the U.S. nearly one-quarter of all scientists and engineers, 40 percent of all engineering professors, and more than half of all PhDs in engineering, computer science, and the life sciences hail from foreign countries. 

Since the future of organizations succeeding requires creative work, American cities must open doors for technology, talent and tolerance to be fostered.  Fostering these T’s will, in turn, draw industries to the region for its rich local talent pool.  Although Florida’s work has largely been geared toward urban planners, there are several important implications for companies and managers today.  Because global competitiveness is widely-reported to require increasing amounts of conceptual and creative work beyond the traditional business analytics, finding and harnessing creative capital is a requisite to remaining competitive.   In addition, companies should more aggressively look to build mutually beneficial relationships with universities for not only recruiting but also research and development.  Universities excel at serving as hubs for all three of Florida’s T’s (technology, talent, and tolerance); tapping into these resources may prove essential for organizations to maintain a high level of creative capital and, in turn, competitiveness.

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