Alternatives to the archetypal model of full-time regular employment are now both prevalent and wide-ranging. Over a fifth of U.S. workers, and even more globally, now perform economic work under arrangements that differ from full-time regular employment. Yet most of our management and social science notions about economic work are based on the full-time employment model. We know relatively little about the operation and consequences of alternative arrangements in part because while these arrangements vary considerably, they are commonly grouped together for research purposes using existing classification systems. We outline an inclusive classification system that distinguishes clearly between employment and its alternatives. It also distinguishes among the alternatives themselves by grouping work arrangements into categories that share common properties and that are distinct from each other in ways that matter for practice and for research. The classification system is based on distinctions about the sources and extent of control over the work process, the contractual nature of the work relationship, and the parties involved in the work relationship. Our classification system is both informed by and reflects the legal distinctions among these categories. We explore implications of our system for research and theory development.

The challenges associated with managing talent in modern labor markets are a constant source of discussion among academics and practitioners, but the literature on the subject is sparse and has grown somewhat haphazardly. We provide an overview of the literature on talent management—a body of work that spans multiple disciplines—as well as a clear statement as to what defines talent management. The new themes in contemporary talent management focus on (a) the challenge of open labor markets, including issues of retention as well as the general challenge of managing uncertainty, (b) new models for moving employees across jobs within the same organization, and (c) strategic jobs for which investments in talent likely show the greatest return. We review the conceptual and practical literature on these topics, outline the evolution of talent management over time, and present new topics for future research.

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Recent research highlights the benefits of internal hiring-filling a job by hiring a worker currently employed by the organization-and more than half of jobs are filled that way. Yet we know surprisingly little about the processes that facilitate the movement of workers across jobs within firms. I address this gap by first detailing the portfolio of internal hiring processes employed by large organizations, focusing on posting and slotting. Posting is a predominantly market-based process in which a manager posts an open job and invites interested candidates to apply, whereas slotting is a predominantly relational process in which a manager personally identifies a preferred candidate and ''slots'' him or her into an open job. I then examine how key differences between posting and slotting shape two outcomes of importance to firms and workers: quality of hire and compensation. My analysis of 8,107 internal hires at a large U.S. health-services firm reveals that outcomes for internal candidates depend, in part, on the nature of the process used to facilitate the movement from one job to the next; compared with slotted employees, workers who enter a job through posting have higher performance ratings, earn higher salaries, and are less likely to exit the firm. My findings suggest that the posting process improves the quality of hires by expanding the pool of potential candidates at the recruiting stage and by disciplining the information managers use to evaluate candidates at the selection stage. As well, internal candidates hired through posting are more likely to initiate salary negotiations and negotiate more competitively, resulting in higher initial salaries.