A REVIEW OF THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES OF TALENT

MANAGEMENT

Abstract :

Today‘s knowledge-intensive business environment elevates the importance of human

resources to being rare and inimitable resources. A resource-based view (RBV) holds that
organizations can gain competitive advantage by utilizing available rare and inimitable
resources and that motivates practioners and scholars to focus on talent management (TM). In
talent management field, it is mostly stated that there is a lack of clarity on dimensions,
definitions and theoretical framework of talent management. Although RBV is predominantly
underpins the talent management field as a theoretical lens, but also new theoretical
perspectives are proposed to fill the theoretical gap in the field. Thus, this study aims to
contribute to the field by discussing the existing perspectives and approaches. Subsequently,
Talent management practices are provided in its processes; defining, developing and
retaining.

Key words: Resource-based view, Talent management, Theoretical gap, Human resources,
retaining.

1. Introduction

A dynamic competition for knowledge surrounds the business environment and it forces
organizations to obtain knowledge more accurately and faster than the competitors. It
increases the importance of having resources to create knowledge and it triggers the struggle
for having knowledge in a competitive environment that results in advantageous change.

Today, one of the main challenges for the organizations is to pursue current changes by
adapting to the evolving needs of the organizations within a competitive world where earning
is no longer considered only in terms of educational effort before beginning a career. There
has been a change to a learning perspective where people prefer lifelong learning,
employability, and talent management over job security and lifelong employment (Nilsson &
Ellström, 2012).

In a competitive business environment, globalization, technological developments, and

innovation are the short-lived and the imitable ingredients for gaining competitive advantage
(Barney, 1991). In order to sustain competitive advantage, firms should seek resources are
long-lived and cannot be replicated (Heinen & O’neill, 2004; Mattone & Xavier, 2013). This
approach was supported by Mattone and Xavier (2013) who stated the importance of human
capital for gaining market differentiation, positive branding, superior execution, and
operating success. These perspectives sign a paradigm shift in human resources with a
strategic approach (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2005). This paradigm shift is not independent of
the transformation in industrial societies. Industrial societies are transformed from labour-
based economies into knowledge based economies (Burton-Jones, 2001). Drucker (1993)
defines knowledge as the primary resource for today‘s economies and he also states that
knowledge is the source of increasing productivity. Knowledge-intensive growth of economy
is directing the employment relationship in a new way (Adler, 2001) and that results in a shift
in manual labor, from laborers to knowledge workers (Drucker, 1977). Knowledge workers
are the people who are able to create and acquire knowledge for the purposes of their
organizations (Davenport, 2005) and they are the capital asset of the organizations. Hence,
the productivity of the knowledge worker has become one of the main concerns of the
organizations (Drucker, 1999).

The capital asset of the organizations‘ is becoming the central issue of the managers. A report
(2005) “Global Talent Pulse”, published by Deloitte demonstrated that the majority of
organizations are shifting investments to address attracting, and retaining. The report, “The
War for Talent revealed by Chambers, et.al. (1998) underscored that talents will be future’s
unique source for gaining competitive advantage”. In order to gain industry leadership,
organizations strive to invest in human capital by attracting, developing and retaining
employees (Boxall & Steenveld, 1999). After an initial defining of talent by a management-
consulting firm “McKinsey & Company” in 1998 through the publication of “The War for
Talent”, scholars and practitioners began to focus on a talent management approach
(Chambers et al.,1998: 45).

Talent is defined through different approaches, such as individual strength, competency,

giftedness, high potential, and high performers (Meyers et al., 2013). However, it is really
difficult to define talent management, because of confusion surrounding the concept,
stemming from the interchangeable use of the terms talent management, succession planning
and human resources planning. While all three terms focus on directing employees, there are
subtle differences between the concepts. So, the phenomenon of talent is not strongly
supported within the empirical studies, as still there is a lack of clarity in definition and
theoretical embedding (Lewis & Heckman, 2006). This study aims to minimize the
discrepancy between practitioner and academic interest in talent management.

This paper attempts to review the existing theoretical perspectives on talent management
(TM) in order to shed the lights practices of TM and it also provides directions for the future
research in TM field. Pursuit of clarifying the talent management and effort to connect the
practice and academic literature of the talent management directed and underpinned this
study. By combining the all the perspectives, we designed and proposed a talent management
process which includes identifying the high potential and high performer employees,
developing talent pool, providing development practices, and developing retention practices.

2. Theoretical Background of Talent Management

The evolution of management thought has had an impact on the development and direction of
human resources management. Historical developments changed the perspectives of how
people are viewed in the workplace. Scientific management assessed the workers as a cost,
and the human factor was ignored while formal transactions, such as payment and
disciplinary issues were managed by the function of personnel management‘. The first
impressive transformation was experienced through the industrial revolution which changed
the habits of employees in their work life.

Because of the lack of unity in definition and theoretical framework, TM is assessed as

anchor (Sparrow, Scullion, & Tarique, 2014) which gathers the perspectives and practices
from different fields such as human resource management (HRM), supply chain
management, the resource-based view, and capability theory. While some are traditionally
conducted theory-driven studies, the phenomenon-driven studies also differentiate the route
of the TM field (Gallardo-gallardo, Nijs, Dries, & Gallo, 2015). Most of the studies in TM
field underpinned Resource-based view. These studies, which are relevant to the Resource-
Based view (Barney, 1991; Barney & Wright, 1998), provided valuable results for examining
the role of human resources in gaining competitive advantage. Because of its‘ characteristics
such as value, rareness, and inimitability, HR can be an important source of competitive
advantage. Physical and organizational resources of the firm can be characterized as imitable,
replicable, and substitutable. From this viewpoint, it is claimed those human resources that
are valuable, rare, non-substitutable, and inimitable are a source of competitive advantage for
the firm (Barney, 1991; Barney & Wright, 1998). Besides that, resources should be long-
lived and not be replicable to be the source of a sustainable competitive advantage (Heinen &
O’neill, 2004; Mattone & Xavier, 2013). Sustainable competitive advantage can be obtained
from talent-management practices which include the attracting, developing, motivating,
managing, rewarding, and retaining of talent (Heinen & O’neill, 2004). By taking regard of
this point, and in light of the resource-based view, a process (RBV) was designed to identify
the rare and inimitable human resources of an organization.

Another approach was developed to gain competitive advantage by considering the

knowledge as a strategic resource which is knowledge-based view (Grant, 1996). Grant stated
the importance of the creating, transferring and integrating the knowledge within the
organization. This makes the knowledge firms specific and it hinders to imitate the
knowledge. Thereby, the knowledge is assessed as the source of competitive advantage when
it is difficult to mitate and socially complex (Felin and Hesterly, 2007). Although it is
difficult to imitate the firm-specific knowledge, it is not impossible. But, it is not possible to
imitate the people through their capabilities, experiences, skills, and knowledge (Spender,
1996).

The resource-based view asserts that firm specific competencies may enhance to gain
sustained competitive advantage by the adapting of human resource systems (Lado and
Wilson, 1994). Lado and Wilson (1994) defined competencies in terms of the HR:
Competencies are measurable human capabilities that are required for effective work
performance (p.53). The competencies of the workforce should serve to accomplish
organizational objectives. Managing competencies and skills have been connected to the
efforts of companies to improve their workforce in order to increase competitive advantage,
innovation, and effectiveness (Draganidis and Mentzas, 2006). This effort, which includes to
developing competencies in line with the strategic objectives of the organizations, is known
as competency-based view.

Although the Resource-based view (RBV) is the superior perspective in current

understanding of TM, Tatoglu, E., et al. (2015) draw attention to the inadequate capacity of
RBV for determining the motives behind TM and the nature of its practice. Because, the
RBV considers the people as economic asset but also social capital‘ is ignored. By regarding
this point, they proposed to use different perspectives of institutional theory to reveal the
motives for TM and its practice. In this perspective, the motives are evaluated as strategic and
tactical and this facilitates to appropriately understand the nature of TM practice.

3. Talent Management

Before discussing the talent management, it is required to define talent.‘‘ There is no precise
agreement on the definitions of talent and there are several definitions in the world of work‘
(Gallardo et al., 2013; Beechler & Woodward, 2009; Schiemann, 2014). Gallardo et al.
(2013) summarized and revealed the composite form of all talent definitions in the academic
literature and they encompass the conceptualization of talent through two approaches; Object
approach (talent as characteristics of people) and Subject approach (talent as people).
“Object approach includes the ability, capacity, capability, commitment, competency,
contribution, experience, knowledge, performance, and potential, patterns of thought, feeling
or behavior, and skills that are related to the characteristics of people” (P.293). Subject
approach evaluates talent through two perspectives; while first perspective includes all the
people within the organization other perspective evaluates talent as an elite subset of the
organization’s population (Gallardo et al.,2013). Another study was conducted to define the
talent evaluated the concept of talent by five approaches-as giftedness, strength, (Meta-)
competencies, high potential, and high performance (Meyers et al., 2013).

Ulrich (2007:3) proposed Talent equals competence (able to do the job) times commitment
(willing to do the job) times contribution (finding meaning and purpose in their work) .
Tansley et al. (2007:8) reveals Talent consists of those individuals who can make a
difference to organizational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in
the longer-term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential. By combining the different
perspectives of talent, which refers the traits such as ability, capacity, capability,
commitment, competency, contribution, experience, gifts, knowledge, performance, and
potential, patterns of thought, feeling or behavior, and skills of the people results the high
performance and high productivity that facilitate the achievement of the organizational
objectives.

In terms of the world of work‘, there is a close relationship between the potential and
performance (Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Tansley et al.,2007; Gallardo et al.,2013, Collings
& Mellahi, 2009). By combining all these definitions, we prefer to define the talent as a
concept which refers the high potential including the ability, capacity, capability,
commitment, competency, gifts, knowledge and this potential is ready to be brightened and
transformed into high performance.

After the initial discussion of the war for talent by McKinsey in 1997 (Chambers et al.,1998:
45), many scholars and practitioners focused on the talent management (Axelrod et al., 2002;
Collings & Mellahi, 2009). Because of the dynamic competitive environment of
contemporary business world, it is seen a a paradigm shift from traditional human resource
related sources of competitive advantage literature towards the management of talent. Within
the last decade the new paradigm enhanced the importance of the talent management
(Collings & Mellahi, 2009). Although the remarkable number of studies engaged with the
TM, there is still lack of consensus on definition and scope of talent management (Lewis &
Heckman, 2006; Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Aston&Martin,2005; Gallardo et al.,2013;
Beechler & Woodward, 2009; Schiemann, 2014).

Although many studies were conducted related to the concept of talent management, the
amount of the empirical studies are not adequate and it is needed to have studies projects the
different perspectives of talent management (Lewis & Heckman, 2006; Collings & Mellahi,
2009; Thunnissen et al., 2013; Al Ariss, Cascio, & Paauwe, 2014). In order to clarify the
confusion, the talent management definition Lewis and Heckman (2006) identified three
perspectives on talent management. First perspective includes the human resources
department practices such as recruiting, development, succession management, and career
management. Second approach defines the talent management by the talent pools. These
approaches ensure to satisfy the employee needs and managing the development processes of
employees through the positions. A third perspective on talent management focuses on talent
for specific positions within the organization. This perspective is discussed by two general
approaches on talent concept. The first approach defines the talents who are high performers
and high potential talents and these people are considered unlabored resource. Thus, those
resources are suggested to be managened by regarding their performance levels. In this
apparoach, it is important to find, hire and reward highly competent performers.Talent
management can be evaluated as organizational culture or mindset in which people are
appropriately valued and it is source of competitive advantage of the organization and an
opportunity to value the role of human resources practitioners within a strategic planning
process of the organization (Hughes & Rog, 2008).
Talent takes an important role as a part of HR function to manage the all people within the
organization to high performance. In addition to these perspectives Collings and Mellahi
(2009) add an emerging fourth perspective by extending talent with a strategic perspective
which includes the identifying the key positions that are considered as key positions since
they have potential to substantially effect for gaining competitive advantage (Boudreau &
Ramstad, 2005). Since its strategic approach, process starts with identifying the key positions
and pursues with labeling the talented people. For a sustainable competitive advantage,
identification of key positions can make contribution for achievement of organizational
objectives.

According to these definitions, Collings and Mellahi (2009) developed a theoretical model of
strategic talent management which includes integrated and interrelated processes. This model
provides a composite view of the talent management. Talent management is a new concept
beyond to find and develop the employees. Therefore, it requires a systemic view that ensures
to influence of many processes within the organization (Cunningham, 2007). Through a
systematic and holistic approach TM includes attraction, identification, recruitment,
development, motivation, promotion and retention of people who have potential to make
substantial contribution for achievement of organizational success (Collings & Mellahi, 2009;
Berger & Berger, 2004; Schiemann, 2014). However, in order to gain competitive advantage,
organizations my increase their productivity by hiring the right people to the right positions
and developing the relevant competencies based on strategic goals of the organization
(Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Lewis & Heckman, 2006; Tarique & Schuler, 2010; Farley,2005).

As it was mentioned above in discussion of talent management a strategic approach to the

talent management was outlined by Boudreau & Ramstad (2005), and Collings and Mellahi
(2009). Collings and Mellahi (2009) discussed different approaches to the talent management
and they categorized four philosophies; people approach, practices approach, position
approach, and strategic pools approach (Sparrow & Makram, 2015). While first three
approaches were discussed in talent management literature a fourth stream was deployed by
Collings and Mellahi (2009). Strategic pools approach labels talent management as the
identification of strategic pools and management of human capital as a collective.
4. Talent Management Systems

Talent Management Systems generally include the core competency architecture and Human
Resources Information Systems (HRIS) or enterprise software systems (Lewis & Heckman,
2006). In order to develop information systems within the organization several methods can
be used and one of them is learning management systems (LMS). An LMS can be thought as
a key component to an organization‘s overall talent-management program involving the
recruitment, performance management, and compensation management. To measure,
identify, analyze and understand the organization‘s people capability, such programs can be
designed. This approach can merge the organization‘s various talent management systems
(Cairns, 2012).

Once the talent management system is applied to all members of organization regardless of
their performance and potential, it hinders to identify talents appropriately. To avoid such
kind of situations, many talent management systems were proposed by different scholars and
practitioners. For instance Collings and Mellahi (2009) deployed a strategic talent
management system as it was discussed earlier, Berger and Berger (2004) developed
TalentReservoir® approach which aims to build a pool of talent can support the
organization‘s current and future expectations and Schiemann (2014) developed talent
lifecycle which connects organization with its human capital.

Berger and Berger (2004) defined their talent sytem by three components; Designing and
building a TalentReservoir® solution, capturing the TalentReservoir® solution in a software
package and implementing an integrative TalentReservoir® process (p.6). Their model
ensures a guideline for implementing a talent management system.

In Schiemann‘s (2014) talent management lifecycle, there are many activities from attracting
talents to retain. The talent lifecycle covers the stages of interaction and connection between
the organization and its human capital. It has the following stages; attracting, acquiring,
onboarding, and developing, managing, retaining and even recovering talent.

We developed a talent management process in this study by being inspired talent

management lifecycle and Berger and Berger‘s TalentReservoir® approach. We defined the
process in this study by defining, developing and retaining the talent. Defining process
includes the practices of attracting, acquiring and identifying, and developing talent pool.
Development process consists of training, coaching, mentoring, career management, and
leadership development. Retaining process covers the performance management, succession
planning, compensation, and advancement opportunities.

5. Talent Management Practices

In this study we defined all the practices in three main processes. These are defining,
developing and retaining processes. In the following section those will be identified.

Defining Process

Defining talent process can be implemented in three ways. Attracting, acquiring, and
identifying talents and developing talent pool are the implications of this process.

Attracting Talent

In more sophisticated business environment and knowledge-based industries human capital is

gaining more importance and having competitive advantage through the development of the
human resources in the long-run is a challenge for the organizations (Hamel & Prahalad,
1993).

Hence, attracting talents to gain competitive advantage is a challenge for the organizations.
(Trank et al., 2002).

Defining employees based on their performance for the organization is a crucial process and
ensuring different channels to attract them is required. Most of the companies are not
successful at sourcing the highly talented people for their organization, only a few numbers
of them good at having pipelines. But several companies don’t notice who they want
(Chambers et al., 1998). In order to attract the talents there are several key areas such as
organizational culture(Looney & Looney, 2005; Twichell, 2012), employer brand, TM
approach itself (D‘Annunzio-Green, 2008), activities for managerial development of talents
which includes training opportunities, succession planning and a flexible compensation
systems (Looney & Looney, 2005; Lynton & Beechler, 2012; Twichell, 2012) career
opportunities, and vision of the organization (Looney & Looney, 2005).

Acquiring and Identifying Talent

Talent acquisition is a broader concept than recruiting. It does not directly refer to the
recruitment. Elements of the acquisition process includes talent acquisition planning &
strategy, workforce segmentation, employment branding, candidate audiences, candidate
relationship management, metrics and analytics (Cepin, 2013).

Acquisition of talent process focuses on sourcing ways and broadly organizations draw upon
two types of talent sourcing; outsourcing and insourcing (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003).
Outsource of talents is held by the support of consultant firms such as headhunters.
Headhunting is the recruitment outsourcing at executive level including identifying, finding
and selecting the high potential and high performing individuals (Rogers & Smith, 2004).
Headhunting has an important function in acquisition of talents for the organizations.
Particularly filling the executive position in an organization is a more difficult issue for the
organizations and hiring the talents requires a great effort. This is why; organizations may
cooperate with the headhunters. Another recruitment way of outsourcing is the efforts of
Human resources departments within the organizations as a natural function of a human
resources management (Dessler, 2005). HR department itself strives to find the best
candidates for the gap positions or for the future planning of the organizations by transferring
from competitions or via apprenticeship approach (Noe et al., 2012). Besides that,
organizations benefit internal resources to define and select the talents by using the human
resources inventory tools. HR inventories or such kind of tools which ensures the historical
background and performance of the individuals within the organization points out the
potentials as talents (Dessler, 2005).

Mostly all key talents come from the organization and prefer to focus on internal talents
rather than the external talents for recruitment regarding the factors such as managers‘ effort
for keeping the best performers and corporate culture. Therefore, the organizations enhance
internal career mobility by recording employee‘s capacity and career (Schweyer, 2004).
However, the orgizations have the struggle to acqiere the talents from the external sources
through the professional head-hunters, and human resources departments of the organizations
should be able to identify talents in rival organizations (Von Seldeneck, 2004).

Developing Talent Pool

Current trends in talent management indicate that organizations take care of high potential
employees and they assess and develop smaller groups in accordance with their business
strategy (Yarnall, 2008). That results different practices and approaches in talent management
like developing talent pools by choosing and developing specified pools of talent from people
within the organization (Yarnall, 2011). A talent pool is a group of individuals within an
organization who are thought as high potential and high performers and they are candidates
of positions at the next level (Mäkelä et al. 2010; Smilansky, 2006). Even the organizations
are not certainly aware of the outputs of the talent pool strategy for the organization and
employees they are tended to have implications of the talent pool strategy. Since the dynamic
stands of the industries, it is not surprising that the trend towards establishing talent pools is
growing. CIPD (2006) statistically reveals that 67 per cent of companies implementing talent
management in the UK are concerned with developing high potential managers (Yarnall,
2011).

Most organizations strive to group their talent into talent pools. Talent pools can be
developed in different forms. Pools may have different memberships and be managed
through some activities such as project based work, special assignments and internal
recruitment (Tansley, 2011). In another form, different talent pools can be created according
to different competency profiles and that entail different career paths and development
strategies (Stahl et al., 2012). Depending on the needs of the organizations in different level
of the organizations it is possible to diversified the practice of different talent pools.
Organizations may develop pools for their executive-levels, emerging leaders or their rising
stars (Smilansky, 2006; Tansley, 2011). Whilst some of the organizations develop their talent
pools to fill in for the executive positions, some of the organizations may have the talent
pools middle level positions. Boudreau and Ramstad (2005) extend the talent pool approach
by pivotal talent pools . That explains the positions where human capital ensures the highest
contribution to the organizational success. It states not only executive positions but also lower
level positions can be critical for the organization for the sustainable success. Therefore,
initially pivotal positions should be defined and then the pools should be developed and
therefore, alignment with the internal and external environment of the organization is mostly
suggested by the most scholars (Stahl et al., 2007, 2012; e.g., Sparrow et al., 2011).

6. Developing Talent Process

Developing process starts with identifying the people by regarding their potential and
performance (Ross, 2013). After the companies attracted and identified the most valuable
people, a new challenge has born how to develop them to increase their capacity and
performance. Although many companies ensure superior development opportunities, it is
difficult to sustain this commitment over the long term (Younger et al., 2007).
Jack Welch often states their efforts in terms of the time and struggle for identifying and
developing talent within General Electric. In the business, the senior executives spent a very
large proportion of their time devoted to the development of talents. However, most of the
businesses, executive seniors do not spend their time for talent management processes. That
processes are organized and executed by the Human Resource functions (Smilansky, 2007).

On the other hand, developing talent activities should not be concentrate on just skills for
current job performance. Future business needs should be regarded with the developing
necessary skills as well. Organizations plan different activities for development and these
development activities may be ensured like on-the-job activities, training opportunities
(Heinen & O‘Neill, 2004), career management (Heinen & O‘Neill, 2004; Yarnall, 2008),
succession planning (Conger & Fulmer, 2003), coaching, mentoring (Yarnall, 2011),
leadership development (McCauley & Wakefield, 2006).

Regardless of the kind of competencies; individual competence or organizational

competence, organizations should focus on developing talents as a key success factor of the
organization (Berger & Berger, 2004). Once the development of the talents extended in the
strategy of the organizations key people are developed for the key positions which ensures to
gain competitive advantage (Collings et al., 2009) . The strategic development of talent is
cultivated by planned and unplanned development facilities in organizational settings like
learning activities. A comprehensive, unified plan for learning should be developed to
empower talent development program within the organization which is called as
organizational strategy for developing talent (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003).

Training

Training is one of the fundamental process involved in talent management process as well as
recruiting and hiring, career development on-boarding, performance management, succession
management and leadership (Downs, 2012). Training can be defined as a planned effort by a
company facilitate learning of job-related competencies, knowledge, skills, and behaviors by
employees (Noe et al., 2012: 271).

In order to improve talents and their employability it is required to provide training and
development activities (Nilsson & Ellström, 2012). Thus, organizations should design
individual programs of talent management by taking account the future needs of the
organizational positions and desired level of talent within the organization. Moreover,
learning environments should be accessible in an organization and should be promoted
through the supports by policies (Kock & Ellstrodm, 2011; Nilsson & Ellström, 2012).
However, in many organizations procedures and processes make potential high achievers
back up by ignoring the critical success factors. The own approaches of the high potential
individuals can be more successful rather than the training and standardization programs of
corporate practices (Coulson-Thomas, 2012).

Career Management

As a term career is the occupational positions a person holds throughout a person‘s life.
Career management is the process for enabling employees to better understand and develop
their career skills and interests (Dessler; 2005: 350). Developing high-potential individuals
by an approach via frequent movement is used within the organizations. High-potentials want
to have experience in new challenges frequently due to their expectations. If they do not have
that opportunity quickly enough, they are more likely to leave the organization. In order to
keep a balance between the needs of the organization and the individual, organizations are
using and benefiting reward and promoting approach (Heinen & O‘Neill, 2004).

An important contribution of career development is about the retention strategies. The

findings of a study which was performed by Deloitte in 2005 revealed that one of the five
important factors affecting the retention is career growth.

De Vos and Dries (2013) argue that the organizations more focus on continuity depending on
their human capital force which refers proportion of high-value, high-uniqueness employees
more they adhere to traditional models of career management. Even there are many
significant changes in the way careers are seen and espoused by individual employees, many
organizations still benefit traditional models of career management depends on an
organization‘s human capital composition and it is one of the main determinants of an
organization‘s career policies.

In another career development way is learning-related careers in which individuals are

expected to pursue an intelligent career‘ which is based on the knowing and three types of
knowing are defined such as knowing-whom, knowing-how and knowing-why (DeFillippi &
Arthur, 1994; Jokinen, Brewster, & Suutari, 2008). Development of career capital underpins
these three forms of knowing which are pivotal to the resources that an individual has to
progress their career (Cerdin & Brewster, 2014).
Talent Management and Career Planning are thought as complementary of each other. One of
the reasons is that talents are not only sourced inside of the organizations; they might be
acquired outside of the organization as well. In a talent management system, talents have
individual career plan and they expect from the organization to help drawing the career path
(Waheed et al. 2012). Talent management provides opportunity for the development of the
career planning. Most of the individual‘s career planning starts during the university life and
once the organizations able to attract the high potential in early stage of the career they can
have high benefit by integrating talent management and career management (Yarnall, 2008).

Coaching

Learning and performance improvement are the important parts of talent management.
Because, employee training provides an organization has a skilled, motivated, and competent
workforce. To develop the workforce of the organizations also implemented in different
forms: formal educations and projects, coaching and mentoring (Frank & Taylor, 2004;
Huang & Tansley, 2012; Iles, Preece, & Chuai, 2010). Particularly in leadership development
process, training and coaching are considered as a key part of the organizations in terms of
the talent management (Chugh & Bhatnagar, 2006).

Hawkins and Smith (2013) defined the coaching “It is the focused application of skills that
deliver performance improvement to the individual’s work in his or her organization,
through robust support and challenge” (p.29). A coach takes a role to motivate employees
and encourages them for developing skills. The best coaches are supposed to be empathetic,
supportive, practical, and self-confident (Noe, 2012).

Managers are allowed to set high standards and expectations, support development of
employees, and manage performance by coaching. Once the expectations are clearly defined
and employees are hold accountable, it makes the improvement of performance and
interpersonal requirements (Manion, 2004).

In order to have a successful talent management, it requires having effective communication

and this can be ensured by coaching. One of the important activity in coaching is feedback.
To pursue an effective feedback system, managers are supposed to observe and identify
behaviors of the people (Mccauley & Wakefield, 2006; Sparrow & Makram, 2015).
Mentoring

Developing a talent pool is a continuous process and it includes several practices as it was
mentioned above. One of the best practices for the high- potential employees in most
organizations is mentoring (Friday & Friday, 2002; Stahl et al., 2012). Mentorship is an
activity based on the interpersonal relationship includes encouragement and support. A
mentor can be an experienced employee or a manager helps to the less experienced
employees and those who labeled as talents (Noe et al., 2012). Even the feedback is needed,
the mentor should also be capable to encourage and advise on how to develop themselves
through the feedback (Brandt & Brundin, 2007). This type of practices in development
process may improve and simplify the development opportunities. A major issue with
nurturing talent is that organizations must have the right training and mentoring plans in place
(Khatri et al., 2010). Michaels et al. (2001) states the importance of mentoring in their
research, and argue that is valuable for the development of talent. Although mentoring
ensures the benefits for the organizations, the number of the companies is not adequate which
nominates mentors for their talents.

Coaching and mentoring are the closely related terms and important managerial skills.
Dessler (2013:333) clarifies the confusion between these terms by defining Coaching as
educating, instructing, and training subordinates and Mentoring refers advising, counseling,
and guiding . He also states that while coaching focuses on teaching short-term job-related
skills, mentoring concentrates on helping employees discover their long-term career
objectives (Dessler;2013).

Leadership Development

Intensive competition and leadership shortage increases the importance of the leader
development programs. One of the best way is to develop leaders is to integrate talent
management process with the leader development programs (Collings & Mellahi, 2009;
Khatri et al., 2010; Stahl et al., 2012). According to a study, leadership development is one of
the most effective strategies for talent management process. Those practices increase the
importance of talent strategy and encourages organizations to implement and sustain such
programs (Miller & Desmarais, 2007).

Regardless of the industries, organizational talent programs mostly concentrate on leadership

capabilities (Farndale, Scullion, & Sparrow, 2010). In order to evaluate leadership potential
of individuals a performance–potential matrix is most widely used and that helps to grade
potential and performance. In addition to this, performance–potential matrix ensures a basis
for leadership development and succession planning (Stahl et al., 2012).

Depending on the needs of the organizations, Leadership development programs may involve
both experiences and leadership competencies (Hor, Huang, Shih, Lee, & Stanley Lee, 2010).
Leaders have the opportunity to acquire the skills and competences for being effective in
leadership roles through the leadership development practices. (Younger et al.,2004; Groves
2007).

7. Retaining Talents

Deloitte‘ research (2005) revealed that the critical issues of people management within the
organizations are the attracting high caliber employees and retaining them. Although
recruiting caliber people from the competitors was the better for the companies until the mid-
1990s, they recognized that even though they were attracting talents and also losing talents to
the competitors at the same rate (Cappelli, 2008). The companies which have the philosophy
of gaining competitive advantage through the attracting and retaining the most qualified
people, they have capability to develop in recruiting, engaging, and retaining employees. This
approach popularized those companies as talent developers (Younger et al., 2007). Although
attracting talent is the initial process of a talent management process, keeping talent
management in stable depends on the retaining the talents. Attracting was defined and
discussed above. One of the most critical issue of the talent management is retaining which
can be defined as the efforts to keep desirable or high potential and high performer
employees within the organization since they are considered to make outstanding
contribution to the achievement of organizational objectives (Blass, 2009; Frank & Taylor,
2004). Success in acquiring and retaining talent and human capital ensures to eliminate the
cost of employee

In order to obtain desired outputs from the retention strategies, effective execution is
required. In execution of the retention strategies, Schuler et al., (2011) proposed the
following characteristics which should be included: (a) The priority of the talent management
should be strongly supported by the; (b) the quality and effectiveness of the existing
recruiting sources should be assessed; (c) recruiting sources should be expanded; (d) a
globally talent sourcing should be espoused; (e) labor markets should be monitored
continuously; (f) diversity programs should be designed; (g) the goals should be assigned to
the managers for retention; and (h) managers should be rewarded according to their
performance in talent retention.

In retention process, performance management, succession planning, advancement

opportunities and compensation are considered as key practices in this study.

Performance Management

Performance management is thought as a critical process of organizational effectiveness since

performance management process assists employees in improving their performance
(Gruman & Saks, 2011). Performance management also helps organizations to clarify an
employee‘s role and ensures employee development on competencies that affects the
organizational effectiveness. Moreover, engaging reward outcomes to the individual
performance can result more effective performance management (Khatri et al., 2010).

Performance management process is also important for the talent management systems on the
basis of performance, although there is a lack of an exact system or tool to measure and
evaluate an individual‘s potential and future capability (Blass, 2007). Once companies can
implement the performance management process appropriately, it can provide the foundation
of talent management processes (Khatri et al., 2010). According to the several studies even
organizations draw upon assessment centers to have a broader perspective on measuring
potential or talent, only 31 per cent of managers were confident that their appraisal system is
able to identify high potentials (Blass, 2007). Generally, a few employees are involved in
talent pools based on performance appraisals. Therefore, defining talents in a more qualitative
form states the current capabilities and future potential of an employee may underpin the
outstanding performance (Y. Downs & Swailes, 2013; Heinen & O‘Neill, 2004; Smilansky,
2006). Outstanding performers should be identified through the performance management
process and they should be involved through the talent management processes. In each part of
the organization, Divisions and Functions, identification of the outstanding performers should
be outlined (Smilansky, 2006).

Succession Planning

Succession planning has been defined in numerous ways over the years. Rothwell (2010:6)
defines succession planning and management (SP&M) is the process that helps stabilize the
tenure of personnel”. It aims to design an organization to provide continuous performance by
ensuring for the development and replacement of key people (Rothwell; 2010). In traditional
succession planning processes, every executive job has a number of identified successors and
the process of providing candidates for all executive jobs or positions is the main concern
(Smilansky, 2006). However, it is mostly concerned with only critical jobs and positions
within the organization in contemporary process (Cannon & Mcgee, 2011; Hor et al., 2010).

Mostly the terms talent management strategy and succession planning are used
interchangeably by confusing (Al Ariss et al., 2014; Ashton & Morton, 2005; Lewis &
Heckman, 2006). Although there are similarities between the concepts, small differences
exist. In a strategic view of talent management, identification of the key positions (pivotal),
developing a pool including incumbents and retaining them constitutes the components of the
strategic talent management (Collings & Mellahi, 2009). Likewise, succession planning
includes growth and replacement of key people for the key positions (Rothwell, 2010). While
the talent management evaluates all the incumbents for different positions at different level of
the organization, succession planning focuses on executive positions (Smilansky, 2006). In
succession planning, sustainability is closely associated with the success of executive
positions within the organization. Hence, the main focus of the succession planning is to
develop leaders for the future(Cannon & Mcgee, 2011). By contrast, talent management is
concerned with short-term development as well as long-term success. In talent management
the number of the incumbent within the pools are not restricted by the number of key
positions (Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries, & González-Cruz, 2013).

8. Conclusion

While the business and consulting firms are implementing the practices of TM, the academic
field is still lacking theoretical framework ( Lewis & Heckman, 2006; Al Ariss et al., 2014).
The studies (Lewis & Heckman, 2006; Collings & Mellahi, 2009; e.g. Al Ariss et al., 2014;
Schiemann, 2014) contributed to the TM field by compelling review of the approaches in this
avenue. Likewise, this study illuminates certain aspects and perspectives of TM. Resource-
based view (RBV) predominantly explained the motives of Talent management for the
organizations but a crucial critic was provided by Tatoglu, E., et al. (2015) and they urged
Talent management field by shedding lights on social capital‘ which was ignored by RBV.
By regarding those perspectives, we ensured some of the TM practices for the field by
combining them in three processes. These provided processes may connect practitioner and
academic interest in talent management; because this study anchored some of the practices
with the academic literature.

Based on these themes, future research should be conducted on the outputs and effects of
those Talent management practices. That can facilitate to assess the effects of talent
management practices on individual and organizational performance. In order to define
dimensions of Talent management, conducting an empirical study which includes the
implantation of practices may be fruitful. It may also ensure valuable insights to examine the
social capital in Talent management field.

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