Migration, Human Supply Chains, and the Multinational Enterprise: Confronting an Overlooked Global Mobility Challenge

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have significantly increased their reliance on migrant workers in lower-skilled jobs within global supply chains (GSCs)—a phenomenon largely overlooked in global mobility scholarship. In this provocation paper, we aim to broaden the scope of traditional debates in this field by introducing the concept of human supply chains, originally coined by labor-law scholar Jennifer Gordon (2017). We adapt and extend this concept to focus on MNEs as research targets, defining it through the policies and/or practices aimed at transnational labor recruitment, management, and retention applied to migrant workforces in their GSCs. We advocate for the need to engage with this critical topic in global mobility research and outline key pathways for future inquiry.