Understanding migration: Challenges and delay in the integration process

PERSONALquarterly: What personal or professional points of contact have you had with migration or integration so far?

Aida Hajro: My entire life has been shaped by migration. I was a little girl when my parents moved from Sarajevo to Mexico City, where my father worked as an expatriate. Mexico City in the early 1980s was very welcoming to European immigrants. It shaped my earliest and happiest memories.

When we returned to Sarajevo a few years later, I had my first real “integration shock.” I was six, ready to start school, but because I spoke Spanish better than Bosnian, I was told I wasn’t prepared and sent back to kindergarten. To this day, I joke that I might be the only person who has ever “failed” kindergarten.

Everything changed again in 1992, when Sarajevo came under siege and we were forced to flee. Our escape took us through Belgrade and Montenegro, back to Mexico City, and eventually to Vienna, where I went to high school and university, followed by studies in Texas and, later, a career split between the UK and Austria.

Migration is the core of my life experience. It is woven into everything I do, both personally and professionally.

Annekatrin Hoppe: I moved to the United States when I was seven and returned to Germany at the age of 14. Although this was due to an expatriate assignment of a parent, which is quite distinct from migration, it did give me a sense of what it means when you lose your social and cultural context and need to restart in a foreign environment. In the end, I benefitted immensely from the openness of an international community. Apart from this experience, I observed the challenges associated with adapting to Germany among family members with migration background from Asia. 

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PERSONALquarterly: Was there a particular situation or encounter that has had a lasting impact on your understanding of migration?

Aida Hajro: The war in my country and the siege of the city where I was born fundamentally shaped my understanding of migration. I was there on the very first day of the siege. It was early in the morning. My parents were still asleep when I decided to take our dog for a walk. I was twelve years old. When I stepped outside, the streets were completely empty. I assumed it was simply too early for anyone to be out. A few moments later, while standing alone outside, I heard sniper shots. Back then, it was impossible for me to imagine that anyone would shoot at a little girl. Today, I know that many children in Sarajevo lost their lives to sniper fire. 

That moment marked the beginning of life in an occupied city, followed by our escape and long migration journey and, eventually, the surreal experience of returning home years later to a place changed forever. The Siege of Sarajevo, one of the longest in modern warfare, shaped my understanding of displacement. In 1991, the city had a population of 525,980. By 1994, that number had dropped to about 300,000, as roughly 60% of the residents were forced to flee. More than three decades later, the effects of displacement and collective trauma continue to shape life in the Bosnian capital.

Annekatrin Hoppe: During my dissertation I collected data from migrant workers in a low-paid job. My aim was to compare working conditions between migrant and non-migrant groups. Seeing my questionnaire, the head of logistics informed me that the (migrant) workers would not be able to follow through – thus questioning my endeavor. It turned out to be quite different: Some migrant workers struggled with the survey, but so did native German workers. Among both groups highly en­gaged employees provided me with insights into the overall work process. I learned through this experience (and many others) that what is portrayed on migrant workers does not match up with the actual encounters I have made.

Developments in migration movements

PERSONALquarterly: What developments have you observed in migration movements in recent years? What do the numbers look like? Who stays in Germany or Austria? Who returns to their country of origin?

Aida Hajro: I’ll focus on global numbers here, because they are often more revealing. Judging from the news and the way politicians talk about migration, we might get the impression we’re living through an unprecedented era of mass movement. But when we step back and look at the actual global numbers, the reality is very different.

In 2024, there were about 304 million international migrants in the world. That’s just 3.7% of the global population. So more than 96% of humanity is living in the country where they were born. 

Of those who do move, 176 million were labor migrants, approximately 4.7% of the global labor force.

At the end of 2024, there were 42.7 million refugees worldwide. The 42.7 million refugees world-wide are approximately 0.5% of the total world population. Now, here is something important to remember: 71% of these refugees are hosted in neighboring countries or in low- and middle-income regions, not in the wealthy nations that tend to dominate media debates. Before the war in Ukraine, this number was 83%. 

The fastest-growing flows are among the high-skilled. At the same time, the strongest demand is actually in low-skilled jobs.

Migrants themselves tend to concentrate in cosmopolitan cities, the places that thrive on diversity, innovation, and economic dynamism. And it’s worth remembering something that Europe often seems to have collectively forgotten: not very long ago, Europe was one of the world’s major sending regions. Today, that role is played largely by Asia. And tomorrow? That remains an open question.

Main reasons behind migration movements

PERSONALquarterly: What are the main reasons behind these migration movements? That is, what drives individuals to migrate? What groups can we distinguish?

Annekatrin Hoppe: The statistics from the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) show the following: In 2022, there was a peak in migration to Germany (mainly driven by people fleeing from Ukraine) which dropped substantially in 2023 to approx. 1.7 million immigrants. Of these, approx. 47% immigrated within the EU via EU free mobility, 11% were labor migrants, 18% migrated for family reunification and 24% were humanitarian migrants. 

The categories above defined by BAMF are quite vague, and looking into the reasons for migrations is more complex. In a review published by the Research Centre of the European Commission (Rosinska, 2024), eight categories have been identified that influence the decision to migrate: demographic factors, such as the demographics of the destination country and a resulting shortage of labor; economic factors, such as higher salaries and wages in the destination country as well as unemployment in the country of origin; environmental factors, such as droughts, rainfall, and floods that destroy livelihoods and income sources in the home country; security-related factors, such as persecution or political conflicts in the country of origin; sociocultural aspects, such as social networks in the destination country as well as cultural proximity; development perspectives, such as career opportunities, education, and good healthcare in the destination country; political stability in the destination country; and finally supranational factors, such as colonial histories, bilateral trade agreements, and development cooperation.

From a psychological perspective, I can add that in addition to these factors self-efficacy is a core personal resource that predicts migration decision-making in interaction with other factors mentioned above. For example, in a study I conducted with my colleague Kaori Fujishiro in 2015, we could observe that self-efficacy in combination with social networks in the destination country and anticipated job benefits as well as high unemployment in the home country were associated with preparatory actions for migration and, in turn, actual migration. 

Push and pull factors

Aida Hajro: Most migrants are labor migrants, meaning their decision to move depends not just on push factors – conditions at home that make life difficult or insecure – but also on strong pull factors, such as employment opportunities abroad. 

Multinational enterprises play a particularly important ­role in this context. They recruit, hire, and relocate both high-­skilled and low-skilled individuals across borders. As these firms have expanded globally, their operations have become deep­ly intertwined with shifts in local labor markets and broader socioeconomic transformations. This means that changes in wages, demographics, and development levels in one part of the world now reverberate through their production networks.

To illustrate how these dynamics unfold in practice, consider research I conducted with Milda Zilinskaite and Paul Baldassari. In the 21st century, many of the countries where multinational enterprises once established their factories ­have transitioned into middle- or even high-income economies. Take Hungary as an example: as living standards have risen, people are no longer willing to take on traditional factory jobs. The result is a growing labor shortage, and corporations ­with production facilities in Hungary now have to recruit workers from much more distant countries, such as Mongolia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 

Yet despite this, do we ever really talk about the link between multinationals and migration in public or media discourse? Rarely. Instead, we focus almost entirely on the migrants themselves. Yet to talk migration, we need to know who is actually pulling the strings. We need to understand the corporate system behind the movement of people.

PERSONALquarterly: What expectations do migrants have when coming to Germany?

Annekatrin Hoppe: Answering this question, I would like to focus specifically on expectations that young Spaniards had when migrating to Germany during the financial crisis in 2012/13 – a time when unemployment in Spain was extremely high, especially among young Spaniards, and the economy in Germany was stable. During that time, we collected data in German language schools and could survey over 1000 Span­iards. Along with personal contacts and interviews, we gained a solid understanding regarding the expectations, hopes and motivation to migrate among those young Spaniards. Their motivation to migrate was mainly job-related. They anticipated both finding employment in Germany but also investing in their careers through better job options (for example, engineers hoping to use a job in Germany as a steppingstone for their careers in Germany, Spain or another country). 

Keep in mind the context when interpreting the findings: We are talking about migration of well-educated young Spaniards within the EU, who lived in stable political conditions in their home country but were faced with high unemployment rates and limited professional perspectives in their home country after having completed their higher education. 

PERSONALquarterly: Do we have any insights into whether and to what extent these expectations are fulfilled?

Annekatrin Hoppe: Unfortunately, we could not follow people over longer periods of time as participants dropped out of our study. However, from our interviews, we know that many had the intention to return to Spain once the labor situation improved there. 

Another study that we conducted with Spanish nurses in Germany post migration revealed that most migrant nurses had found employment with permanent and full-time contracts after migration. However, many of them were overqualified. It is common that migrant workers engage in alternative careers, often in jobs below their qualification and, thus, expectations are often not fulfilled. 

PERSONALquarterly: How can unmet expectations be addressed? What could be improved or better supported in such cases?

Annekatrin Hoppe: Jelena Zikic and colleagues conducted an interview study in 2024 with migrant workers in the health care sector in Canada. Their data shows that migrant workers who do not work in their primary career (but in alternative careers) are successful in “starting again” if they manage to disengage from their previous job roles to cope with role transitions when changing jobs and to identify with their new jobs. 

The authors claim that having access to settlement programs (i. e., alternative career programs) provided by the government or labor agencies can have a substantial positive effect on the career success of migrants after resettlement, and, ultimately, on their contributions to the local organizations and society overall.

„... one of the key challenges in the integration process is a widespread lack of understanding about migration, which drives prejudices and misconceptions among the local population, including employers, and, in turn, creates obstacles for migrants to integrate.“ Aida Hajro

PERSONALquarterly: From your perspective, what are the major challenges or delays in the integration process? What could be improved? Is there important knowledge from practical experience, for instance, or from those directly affected, that is often overlooked in the discourse on migration and integration?

Aida Hajro: From my perspective, one of the key challenges in the integration process is a widespread lack of understanding about migration, which drives prejudices and misconceptions among the local population, including employers, and, in turn, creates obstacles for migrants to integrate (e.g., stereotyping, anti-immigration sentiments). Much of this stems from gaps in education, particularly within business education. In a paper co-authored with Milda Zilinskaite and Paul Baldassari, we argue that migration should be at the heart of business studies – because today’s students are tomorrow’s business leaders, responsible for recruiting, selecting, and integrating migrants.

For example, consider Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna), where I hold a visiting appointment. There are 22,000 students on its campus. And the average person will meet around 10,000 people over the course of their lifetime.

Now imagine this: If we educate these 22,000 students to understand how migration truly works – for example, that global migration, when viewed in relative numbers, has remained relatively stable over decades, that economic opportunity and labor demand in destination countries are the main drivers, and that corporations play a key role in this context – each student can carry these insights into their communities and workplaces. And if each of those 22,000 students shares this message with just ten other people, that’s already 220,000 people whose understanding shifts. And if each of those ten goes on to share it with another ten, the message reaches 2.2 million people.

And if that message creates a ripple effect, if it spreads from the WU Vienna campus into other business schools around the world, then what begins there will have the potential to change the course of our future.

Key success factors for a positive workplace integration

PERSONALquarterly: What do you see as key success factors for a positive workplace integration?

Annekatrin Hoppe: The data collected in my work group with migrant workers in diverse blue-collar jobs, across destination countries (e.g., Germany, United States, Israel), and with diverse migrant populations, shows consistent evidence that the supervisor plays an important role for workplace integration. Among migrant workers supervisor support, both instrumental support (i.e., providing hand-on help) and emotional support (i.e., showing care and concern), is a strong job resource that helps migrant workers to cope with problematic working conditions. It also has a strong direct effect on work motivation and migrant workers’ well-being. 

In addition, a review by Guillaume and colleagues from 2011 showed that surface-level factors (i.e., visible factors such as having a migrant background, gender or age) affect the social integration of team members in such a way that more diverse teams (e.g., more ethnic diverse teams) show poorer social integration (social integration is defined as the degree to which team members are psychologically linked to others in the team). However, IF team interdependence is high – that is, if team members must interact with one another to perform their tasks, reach goals or solve problems – then, diverse teams no longer lack social integration.

PERSONALquarterly: What role do companies, HR departments, and managers have in shaping integration outcomes?

Annekatrin Hoppe: The findings above lead us to concrete actions. First, it is crucial that training managers and supervisors provide social support. Not only migrant workers, but the entire workforce benefits from this measure. Second, team interdependence has been identified as one of the key interventions by which organizations can facilitate contact among employees in diverse organizations. This effect builds on well-known psychological processes. For example, the contact hypothesis suggests that once people interact and get to know each other, they begin to replace their stereotypical views with a more idiosyncratic perception of others (see Pettigrew, 1998). Personally, I can confirm this theory with my own experience. Personal contacts have always reduced my own stereotypes towards diverse others. 

PERSONALquarterly: Are there any collaboration models between various stakeholders in order to integrate migrants that have particularly impressed you? What made them stand out or successful in your view?

Aida Hajro: In response to your question about collaboration ­models, I can point to one example: Milda Zilinskaite and I are co-founding Directors of Migration, Business & Society – a global research and policy think-and-do tank that works towards achieving migration-specific targets such as those reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals. We bring together nearly 200 scholars, business leaders, and public-sector experts from 33 countries and almost 120 universities and organizations. Our mission is to reduce misconceptions about migration through cutting-edge business and management research and education that drives better business practice and policymaking.

Recommendations for HR professionals

PERSONALquarterly: What advice would you give to HR professionals working in this area?

Annekatrin Hoppe: My first recommendation is to provide decent working conditions that also facilitate social interactions, and next, to focus on improving social processes in the work setting. As mentioned above, working with managers and leaders and providing them with the time and space they need to be able to take their leadership role seriously would be an important step forward. Also, continuous career counseling for workers in “alternative careers” should be offered to reduce turnover. 

PERSONALquarterly: Where do you see gaps in knowledge when it comes to migration and integration, particularly in the context of work? What questions should research focus on more?

Annekatrin Hoppe: Researchers should focus more on the interplay of individual and contextual factors. Along with demographic factors such as nationality, gender or age and  individual experiences and expectations of migrants (i.e., factors related to the person), the life and work context of migrants needs to be taken into account, that is their occupational, organizational, and community context. In addition, post-migration developments need to be studied over longer periods of time, ideally following migrant workers over se­veral months to years. Doing so, we could learn which measures and conditions help migrant workers in their in­tegration, to remain healthy and to perform over time. 

PERSONALquarterly: What recommendations would you like to give to the various stakeholders involved in migration and integration?

Aida Hajro: My recommendation to stakeholders involved in ­migration and integration is to ground their decisions and actions in facts and state-of-the-art knowledge, ideally drawn from transdisciplinary research that brings together scholars, policymakers, and business leaders. Researchers should actively engage in multidisciplinary dialogue, connecting with colleagues beyond their own fields, and proactively collaborate with business leaders, policymakers, and human rights experts, those who are on the ground with real-time knowledge of practical challenges. Insights generated through these interactions should be disseminated through multiple channels, including business school executive education, to reach the “boardroom,” and from there inform discussions at policy tables. In brief, a multistakeholder approach is essential to achieve meaningful change.

Die Inhaltsübersicht der Ausgabe und die anderen Beiträge des Schwerpunkts finden Sie hier. Der Artikel steht auch als Download bereit.

Aida Hajro is a Professor of International Business at the University of Leeds and a Visiting Professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her research explores the transformative role that organizational actors play in shaping migration and migrant experiences and, conversely, how migrants influence organizations through their interactions and contributions. As a Founding Co-Director of Migration, Business & Society, her work has informed the World Bank Group, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Economic Forum, and several multinational corporations.

Annekatrin Hoppe is a Professor of Occupational Health Psychology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She earned her doctorate at the University of Hamburg focusing on psychosocial working conditions and well-being among migrant workers. After having completed her post-doctoral research at Stanford University followed by an assistant professorship at Universität Koblenz-Landau, she joined Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2011. Her current research focuses on the interplay of job demands, resources and well-being in various work settings and among diverse groups of workers ranging from blue-collar jobs to hybrid work environments. She is also interested in resource-oriented interventions and workplace health promotion.

Weiterführende Literatur:

Hajro, A./Žilinskaitė, M./Baldassari, P. (2022): Addressing the elephant in the room: Global migration and its implications for business school teaching. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 21(1), 101–120.

Hajro, A./Žilinskaitė, M./Gibson, C. B./Baldassari, P./Mayrhofer, W./Brewster, C./Brannen, M. Y. (2023): Movement of people across borders: Transdisciplinary research to meet the challenges in migration, business, and society. Academy of Management Discoveries, 9(2), 125–131.

Žilinskaitė, M./Hajro, A./Baldassari, P./Miska, C. (2025): Migration, Human Supply Chains, and the Multinational Enterprise: Confronting an Overlooked Global Mobility Challenge. Human Resource Management Journal.

Rosinska, A. (2024): Drivers of migration: Dimensions and indicators (Policy-oriented literature review) (JRC Report No. JRC139459). Publications Office of the European Union. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC139459.

Pettigrew, T. F. (1998): Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 65–85. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.65

Guillaume, Y. R./Brodbeck, F. C./Ricetta, M. (2011): Surface- and deep-level dissimilarity effects on social integration and individual effectiveness related outcomes in work groups: A meta-analytic integration. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 85, 80–115. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8325.2010.02005.x

Hoppe, A./Fujishiro, K. (2015): Anticipated job benefits, career aspiration and self-efficacy as predictors for migration decision-making. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 47, 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.03.025

Zikic, J./Mansoori, S./Voloshyna, V. (2025): Alternative career pathways of skilled migrants: Looking for new meanings amid starting again. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 34(4), 423–435. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2024.2376297