A multidisciplinary review into the definition, operationalization, and measurement of talent

Abstract

Organizations report great difficulty in measuring talent accurately, reflecting the lack of theoretical foundations for talent-identification in the HRM literature. This multidisciplinary review aims to contribute to the establishment of a stronger theoretical basis for talent-management by presenting a conceptual framework of talent in which the definition, operationalization and measurement of talent and its relation to excellent performance is clarified. We systematically introduce 11propositions into the framework, building on fragmented insights from the literature-from the fields of HRM, gifted education, positive psychology, and vocational psychology respectively-that will guide readers in understanding and applying the proposed framework. Starting from the HRM perspective on talent, we systematically incorporate insights from the divergent literature streams, which counteract some of the limitations inherent to the HRM literature and therefore can help establish better conceptual foundations for talent-management. The relationship between talent and excellent performance functions as a general framework within which issues of predictive and construct validity are addressed, across 11 research propositions. With the future research directions, we shed light on how talent-management scholars might further capitalize on the cross-fertilization between insights from different disciplines so as to gradually establish the theoretical foundations needed to transform talent-management into a legitimate field of academic study. By discussing managerial implications in the concluding part, we provide practical guidelines for designing talent-identification practices grounded in sound theory. Search StrategyTo achieve a comprehensive multidisciplinary review of the literature on talentwhich could account for the evolutions within the field-we used 1993 as the starting point of our literature search, thus covering insights developed over the last twenty years. We took four different steps to establish the final body of peer-reviewed, academic articles considered in this review.Step 1: Clarifying the Talent ConstructIn order to find those articles that would be most informative for achieving conceptual clarity about talent, we first developed a general working definition of TALENT: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY REVIEW 3 talent based on the meaning contemporary English dictionaries ascribe to the term (Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries & González-Cruz, 2013). In the English language, talent is commonly understood as corresponding to an above-average ability that makes the individuals who possess, detect, develop, and deploy it, perform excellently in a given performance domain (Gagné, 2004;Tansley, 2011).Step 2: Selecting Search Terms We started our search by tracking articles that had 'talent' in their titles. As we were interested in talent and talent-identification in the context of the business world, specifically, we selected Business Source Premier as the database of departure. The use of talent as a search term resulted ...

Towards an understanding of talent management as a phenomenon-driven field using bibliometric and content analysis

“…While the 'less dominant' frameworks together account for 16.5% (i.e., 23) of the coded articles, the 'other' option was coded as a primary framework for 24.5% of the articles (i.e., 34 articles) in our database. The latter finding indicates the diversity of the theoretical frameworks found in the TM literature-typical of growing phenomena (von Krogh et al, 2012)-as it implies that almost 1 in 4 of the articles we analyzed could not be classified under any of the nine frameworks we identified as potentially relevant based on previous reviews of the TM literature (i.e., Collings & Mellahi, 2009;Dries, 2013a;Lewis & Heckman, 2006;Nijs et al, 2014;Thunnissen et al, 2013a). It seems important, therefore, to at least briefly address the most distinctive 'alternative' frameworks identified in our content analysis of the TM literature.…”

“…Based on earlier reviews of the TM literature (Collings & Mellahi, 2009;Dries, 2013a;Lewis & Heckman, 2006;Nijs, Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries, & Sels, 2014;Thunnissen et al, 2013a), we composed a list of potential theoretical frameworks that we used to code each of the 139 articles in our database-i.e., resource-based view/human capital, international human resource management, employee assessment, institutionalism, knowledge management, strengths-based approach, career management, specific HR practices (i.e., recruitment, selection, development, succession planning, retention management, or reward management), HR practices non-specified, cannot say/not provided, and 'other' (followed by an open text field). Our coding template contained clear definitions for each framework so as to ensure inter-rater reliability.…”

“…In TM articles with an employee assessment framework, the focus tends to lie on identifying leadership talent, while much less research is found mentioning other 'types' of talent employees may possess (Church & Rotolo, 2013). The demonstration of predictive validity requires addressing the following question-do those identified as talented early on exhibit excellent performance at a later point in time, in a more advanced position (Nijs et al, 2014)?…”

“…Dries et al (2012b), in a study examining to which extent assessments of learning agility were able to predict being Studies approaching TM from an employee assessment angle typically aim to identify talent in a valid and reliable manner, advocating the use of standardized tools and methods for evaluating talent (Nijs et al, 2014). The literature on talent identification therefore tends to borrow concepts from industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology, most notably from the literature on personnel selection and assessment centers.…”

Talent management motives and practices in an emerging market: A comparison between MNEs and local firms

“…While scholarly interest in TM is increasing (see for example Meyers & van Woerkom, 2014, Minbaeva & Collings, 2013, Nijs et al, 2014, Schiemann, 2014, Sonnenberg et al, 2014, Tatli et al, 2013, Vaiman & Collings, 2013, Skuza et al, 2013, only one third of scholarly output is empirical in nature (Thunnissen et al, 2013). Further, Dries (2013a:273) suggests that "scholarly peer-reviewed literature is still lagging behind".…”