The value of immigrants to the economy has been a topic that I’ve touched on numerous times over the years. For instance, Wharton research points out that immigrant founders not only create jobs, but also bring considerable finance with them. The authors state that cross-border VC investment is now at record levels, with this in large part due to the increasingly international nature of entrepreneurship.
It’s perhaps no surprise, therefore, that research from MIT’s CSAIL lab has shown that while American continues to lead the way in the development of artificial intelligence, much of the actual breakthroughs are driven by foreign-born scientists.
The researchers assessed improvements made to the key sections of AI over the past 70 years, and found that around two-thirds of the gains in that time were delivered by researchers at North American universities. What is important, however, is that in the last 30 years, over 75% of these breakthroughs have come from foreign-born scientists.
Improving teams
While we may assume that the benefits of immigrants are largely found in the tech sector, research from Wharton suggests that it’s far more extensive than that. The researchers used the high-stakes world of elite football (soccer) to make their point. They highlight how many of the best players, such as Mohamed Salah and Lionel Messi, are immigrants in their respective teams.
Elite football is one of the most diverse arenas, with up to half of players of color. As such, the researchers believed it to be the perfect Petri dish to explore whether teams with more immigrants in do better than their more homogenous peers.
The researchers assessed the makeup and performance of football teams from across Europe between 1990 and 2020, and found that for each extra overseas player, the team’s margin of victory improved by 0.12. This may sound marginal, but when the typical goal difference between teams is less than 1, this represents around a 20% boost to one’s chances of success.
Making the difference
The researchers went on to explore some of the reasons for this improvement in team performance. They tested two core hypotheses, the first being that, as in other fields, increasing the diversity of the team improves its performance, while the second suggested that foreign players are simply more talented than their native peers.
The results suggest that it is talent that is ultimately key. The researchers argue that foreign players, and indeed immigrants in general, often have to overcome distinct hardships during the hiring process. As such, they are usually at the very top of their game and come with the right combination of grit and resourcefulness needed to thrive.
The researchers believe that while their findings won’t be applicable to every industry and every field, there are nonetheless enough similarities to make their results generally applicable, especially in areas where demand for talent is high, such as in the tech sector.
“Both technology companies and football clubs are trying to find the best talent in the world,” they say. “Their success is tightly connected to the quality of the human capital in the organization. And in both places, the technical expertise is more important than anything else.”
More than diversity
The researchers are at pains to point out that while the introduction of foreign players was generally beneficial to their team, it was not their diversity alone that mattered. For instance, it’s been fairly well documented by previous research that diversity can boost the creativity of teams, but it can also lower the harmony and cohesion.
In a football context, the managers were key, as when foreign players played under an immigrant manager, their full talents were unlocked. Indeed, the researchers found that when foreign players played under a native manager, the success of the team actually fell.
“Immigrant managers are able to identify with these immigrant players in a way that helps them manage any potential conflict and reap all the benefits of having immigrants from different countries,” the researchers say.
Of course, recruiting foreign talent is not something that managers can do on a whim and it requires an opening and welcome immigration system in whichever country the company operates from. This is sadly not something that can be assumed.
A broken pipeline
Research from Cornell reminds us that this is a pipeline that is increasingly dysfunctional. The paper highlights how despite many foreign-born Ph.D. graduates applying for jobs at tech startups, and indeed receiving offers to work for them, a large number of them fail to actually take up those jobs due to visa issues.
Instead, those people were much more likely to work at larger tech companies that have the resources and expertise to help them navigate Kafka like H-1B and the permanent residency process.
It’s a situation that has also been chronicled by researchers from Georgetown University, who found that restrictive immigration policies are hampering the ability of American firms to recruit and retain the kind of AI talent they need.
“Historically, immigrants have helped America lead the world in technological innovation,” the authors say. “Artificial intelligence is no exception. Foreign-born talent fuels the U.S. AI sector at every level, from student researchers in academic labs to foreign and naturalized workers in leading companies.”
As such, it may be easier said than done for companies to attract the Salah’s and Messi’s of their own, and to therefore reap the performance benefits that they can bring.
