Introduction
Once recognized for its immense growth in innovation globally, America has lost its competitive edge. For quite some time now, America has faced a big problem of innovation, causing a massive economic concern for the nation. Hence, many experts believe that America has contributed to its lost top position in innovation because of global pressures and structural erosion. This problem has less to do with its key manufacturing environment and countries like China. Although America took the top lead in innovation during the age of the Industrial Revolution, this changed quite a bit in the early 2000s when the country was ousted from its helm of global innovation. According to economic studies, about 36% of America’s innovation is attributed to the immigrant population (Bernstein et al., 2022, p. 2). This is far more than the American-born citizens on issues touching on technological and economic advancements. According to the American Immigration Council (2024), immigrants comprise a significant population of about 13% of the American population, representing about 42 million people. Therefore, the innovation of immigrants has dominated a substantial portion of the American workforce in multiple growth sectors, including but not limited to education, agriculture, forestry, and even fishing. In light of this, evidence suggests that the key contributor of the US workforce is immigrant inventors, particularly through their partnerships with native collaborators and through their direct productivity. However, as it currently exists, America still needs to grasp the true reason for its remarkable growth in prosperity, economic development and innovation, leveraging immigrant talents to foster innovation in corporate America. Despite the increased number of immigrants involved in America, a significant gap needs to be filled regarding innovation in corporate America. The need for more innovation in corporate America is a big problem that requires the input of immigrants’ talents to address. This paper will discuss leveraging immigrants’ talents to foster innovation in corporate America.
Societal Background
Corporate America traces its history back to the 1700s with the development of the first U.S. corporations (Kerr & Kerr, 2020). These institutions became the backbone of the young nation’s economy years after the U.S. Revolution. Corporations used various sources to raise capital during this time with a well-defined mechanism for producers and savers. During the Industrial Revolution, corporations shaped the cultural, political, and economic landscape of the United States by offering access to business and capital development (Berg, 2022). This led to the creation of wealthy industrialists and the growth of the blue-collar working class, primarily dominated by immigrants who had recently arrived in the country. America became the most significant innovator and a top economic giant. According to Berg (2022), big factories took the opportunity of the Industrial Revolution to increase their automation processes, making America take a global lead in innovation. During the golden age of innovation, America took a global lead in innovations as the globe’s preeminent industrial nation, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries (Arora et al., 2021). The key pioneers behind the technological and innovative environment include Elisha Grey, Alexander Graham, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison, alongside other key figures such as DuPont, Ford, Carnegie, and Morgan exercised massive control over many American corporations, owning a more significant percentage of companies’ stock. According to Arora et al. (2021), scientific research significantly shaped this period, prompting companies to invest heavily in research since “inventions increasingly relied on science, but American universities lagged behind both Europe and the scientific frontier.”
Berg’s (2022) research illustrates how thousands of discoveries were invented to change society agriculturally, economically, and technologically from 1880 to 1940. These discoveries were developed in various forms of patented inventions. These discoveries enabled innovators to operate beyond their firms’ boundaries. Thus, the country’s economic growth was significantly impacted locally and regionally. For instance, a state such as Massachusetts attained more innovation than other states during the 1900s based on GDP per capita (Diebolt & Hippe, 2019). In large numbers, many immigrants travelled to the US from Asia and Europe to look for work there. After the end of World War II, many U.S. corporations began to experience unprecedented challenges from foreign companies. This is because the scientific advances were mainly science-based, particularly in synthetic fibres, plastics, medicines, and dyes (Arora et al., 2021). The inventions of this period were grounded in a deeper scientific understanding of the usage of machines and materials. In the 21st century, Diebolt Hippe (2019) argues that the 2008 financial crisis caused inflation rates to rise significantly in the country and affected the confidence levels of many Americans in corporations. The damaging crisis affected global market operations, causing serious concerns about executive behaviour, board oversight, and the financial and economic systems (Bernstein et al., 2022). Worse, the economic news proliferated failures of financial institutions, banks and home losses, national debt, federal deficit, record bank losses, falling house prices and unemployment, and rising inflation (Arora et al., 2020). A decade later, many corporations, including banks and industries, failed to find good answers to the 2008 crisis. They ultimately failed in their roles in implementing essential balances and checks for financial institutions’ regulations (Diebolt & Hippe, 2019).
Common Obstacles
The American technological, social and economic environment suffers from reduced innovation problems. The stiff competition in the American economy has made it difficult for innovation to succeed. According to Akcigit et al. (2017), “The competitiveness of the U.S. economy depends on technological progress, but recent data suggests that innovation is getting harder and the pace of growth is slowing down.” From the 1970s, the American ecosystem experienced a big challenge in its academic and corporate science caused by its innovation ecosystem. Many large corporations, therefore, withdrew their investments in research-based projects up until the 1970s. According to Arora et al. (2021), throughout the 1980s, innovation problems increased because of increased public failures, heightened competition and shareholder pressure. These problems significantly cut back scientific investments, leading many corporations to seek other ideas for improving their innovations via startups and universities. A study of America’s listed firms on research and development determined that numerous firm publications significantly deteriorated at a 20% rate between 1980 and 2006 (Buffett, 2021). The decline in scientific research contributed to a big division of corporations in universities and development research. Though many firms had strong grounds to become successful in their products, the problem of innovative labour division would make it easier for firms to develop solutions to useful products.
The other big challenge contributing to America’s big problem of innovation is the discrimination and bias which is often directed at skilled immigrants. According to Arora et al. (2021), skilled immigrants face a big barrier of underemployment and, in worse cases, unemployment. This is different from non-immigrants in the U.S. For instance, US-born employees often receive higher salaries and wages than immigrants because of their higher level of schooling in the labour market (Bernstein et al., 2022). Hence, the common challenge which immigrants face is discrimination based on their ethnicity, culture, and even language. Many thousands of immigrants journey into America, and many problems make adapting to a new environment impossible. These challenges involve their communities, languages, and cultures (Genkin et al., 2020). This affects the profile listing of immigrants because they get interviewed based on their name, work experience, country of education and even language skills. Hence, skillful immigrants become susceptible to both subconscious and conscious discrimination. Hence, it is true that many resumes with Black profiles will receive fewer callbacks than those of Whites (Nepal & Ramón, 2022). Ultimately, immigrants find it hard to operate in America’s labour market because many corporations value American work experience and education more than foreign skills, eventually increasing America’s innovation problem (Nepal & Ramón, 2022).
Market Saturation
Currently, America’s economic and technological environment is highly saturated with many innovative ideas for life’s problems, making it challenging for newer potential entrants into the innovative space to develop better solutions to the corporate industry’s challenges (Kerr & Kerr, 2020). Market saturation is the idea that a market lacks the demand to meet the needs of specific products. This saturation often causes negativity in business strategies and customers’ consumer behaviour (Kerr & Kerr, 2020). For instance, big tech companies such as Microsoft and Google compete against each other intensely, driving the market to be saturated with existing technologies, designs, and features to attract the same customers (Berg, 2022). This affects consumer behaviour because many people find differentiating their competitor’s products challenging. This overcrowding makes it challenging to develop newer solutions to the problem, which is always time-consuming, risky, and expensive. For instance, Buffett (2021) argues that terrific results in their operations have negatively impacted many American organizations. Although these challenges continue to prevail in society, leveraging immigrant talents is the key to succeeding in the already saturated market in corporate America (Bernstein et al., 2022). Accordingly, the challenge of market saturation is contributed by rapidly stagnant services, the company’s struggle to become uniquely a brand, and the need for growth opportunities for corporates (Nepal & Ramón, 2022). For instance, the market, which is significantly saturated, faces intensity due to increased marketing efforts and aggressive pricing strategies. The advancement of technology diminishes the returns of profit margins, particularly due to corporations struggling to keep up with their market position (Genkin et al., 2020). Thus, the most visible sign of a saturated market is the presence of a diminished profit margin.
Demographic Data
For many years, America’s demographic environment has constantly been on the edge of transformation, focusing on the inclusion and diversity of many cultures. This implies that America is home to many people of different backgrounds and ethnicity. More than ever before, America is more ethnically and racially diverse due to immigration. According to the views of many US citizens, immigration has helped positively impact America’s economy, with many immigrants strengthening the country’s development rather than burdening it (Genkin et al., 2020). Despite many immigrants flocking into the country, their skills and talents have often been underrepresented in many growth sectors. According to Kerr & Kerr (2020), “First-generation immigrants create about 25% of new firms in America, but this share exceeds 40% in some states. Accordingly, least-educated immigrants have a higher rate of employment advantage than educated-born men and comparably second and higher generations (Kerr & Kerr, 2020).
In states such as New York and California, this figure rises to about 40%, subject to market fluctuation (Kerr & Kerr, 2020). The marginality and selectivity of immigrant talents drive high-risk career paths in the US environment and high-tech industries to become increasingly open to innovation. In particular, immigrants are capable of great innovativeness in pastimes, culture and American art culture. According to the American Immigration Council (2024), the immigrants who contribute to the U.S. economy account for 15.2% of nurses, 22.8% of STEM workers, and 22.2% of entrepreneurs. As of 2021, the immigrants in the U.S. workforce surpassed native-born Americans, implying that their activeness in labour is higher and thus possess a higher potential for innovative solutions to America’s corporate problems (American et al., 2024). For instance, Gerig (2018) argues that immigrant-owned businesses dominate three critical sectors of growth: technical and professional services, food services, and accommodation and retail. This has made many immigrants embrace citizenship and American identity (Akcigit et al., 2017). Many immigrants who have received these privileges have proactively influenced the nation’s technological innovation in art, music, and crop harvesting and even shaped America’s military service (Diebolt & Hippe, 2019). In contrast, although immigrants have a high rate of labour force participation, their poverty levels are higher than native-born, especially for the black second+ generations and first-generation Hispanics (American Immigration Council, 2024).
Solution
The solution to the problem of lack of innovation in corporate America can be solved by leveraging immigrant talents. Immigrants play crucial roles in new ideas dissemination beyond America’s local and regional borders (Kerr & Kerr, 2020). The key to immigrants’ success lies in utilizing foreign technologies to promote collaboration with other inventors effectively. Leveraging high-skilled immigrants will be essential to changing the US industries by sparking advancements in healthcare, mathematics, engineering, technology and science (Akcigit et al., 2017). According to boundless research reports, immigrants are more likely to become job creators and entrepreneurs through innovation than the native-born population. The government can focus on this solution by giving immigrants space to solve technical problems and significantly finance their startup projects in the physical sciences (Buffett, 2021). Talented workers foster increased innovation and diversity in their team. This is what future corporate organizations require for promoting workplace culture. At the national level, the federal government can leverage these talents by developing key policies that support the establishment of businesses by immigrants (Nepal & Ramón, 2022). This begins with acknowledging the entrepreneur visa category, considered an impossible dream for America. The entrepreneur visa category is an immigrant visa that regulates an immigrant’s work and living conditions in a foreign country. These visa options range from an E2 visa to an EB-5 visa, in which the latter is an immigrant visa, and the former is a non-immigrant visa (Nepal & Ramón, 2022). The good thing about an EB-5 visa is that it will allow skillful immigrants the privileges to work, live and even start a family in the US because of a green card.
This visa category should be created for immigrants to promote their innovative skills for improving the economy and increasing job creation and entrepreneurship. Locally, these talents can be leveraged by addressing the joint social capital and resource issues plaguing many immigrants (Arora et al., 2021). This can be achieved by implementing entrepreneurship development and growth programs, which attract many immigrants and increase their rates for developing innovative solutions to industries’ problems (Genkin et al., 2020). Expediting these programs and policies would significantly contribute to the growth of the economy of America and equally support leadership and innovation of the economy (Nepal & Ramón, 2022). Next, the challenges of market saturation can be addressed by using the immigrant’s talents to upgrade the companies’ products with newer technological innovations. This will open increased channels to more immigrants facing unemployment challenges.
Conclusion
In conclusion, America faces a big problem of innovation, which causes a massive economic concern for the nation. About 36% of America’s innovation is attributed to the immigrant population. The innovation of immigrants has dominated a significant portion of the American workforce in multiple growth sectors. However, as it currently exists, The American technological, social and economic environment suffers from reduced innovation problems. Since the 1970s, the American ecosystem has experienced a big challenge in its academic and corporate science caused by its innovation ecosystem. The big challenge contributing to America’s big problem of innovation is the discrimination and bias which is often directed at skilled immigrants. These challenges have much to do with their communities, languages, and cultures. Thus, their skills and talents have been underrepresented in many growth sectors. The solution to the problem of lack of innovation in corporate America can be solved by leveraging immigrant talents. One important way of achieving this goal is to create a policy which supports the visa category for living and working in the US for immigrants to promote their innovative skills in STEM fields and increase job creation and entrepreneurship.
References
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American Immigration Council. (2024). Immigrants in the United States of America. American Immigration Council. https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/national/
Arora, A., Belenzon, S., Kosenko, K., Suh, J., & Yafeh, Y. (2021). The rise of scientific research in corporate America. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w29260
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Nepal, S., & Ramón, C. (2022). Immigrant entrepreneurship: Economic potential and obstacles to success. Bipartisan Policy Center. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/immigrant-entrepreneurship-economic-potential-and-obstacles-to-success/
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