The practice of talent management: a framework and typology

TLDR

The study addresses conceptual ambiguity and a lack of in‑depth empirical research on how talent management is practiced in organizations. The authors aim to deepen understanding of talent management’s conceptual and empirical boundaries to inform scholars and practitioners. They conducted a comparative qualitative study of 30 Swedish organizations, interviewing 56 representatives and analyzing the transcripts with content analysis. The analysis produced a typology of four talent‑management types—humanistic, competitive, elitist, and entrepreneurial—each with distinct practices, offering practitioners insight and guiding future theory. The design yielded rich insights into TM types but limited systematic conclusions about their outcomes.

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the development of a deeper understanding of the conceptual and empirical boundaries of talent management (TM) so that scholars and practitioners may enhance their knowledge of what TM actually is and how it is carried out. Design/methodology/approach A comparative study was conducted of the TM practices of 30 organizations based in Sweden. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 56 organizational representatives. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings The findings comprise a typology consisting of four distinct TM types that exist in practice: a humanistic type, a competitive type, an elitist type and an entrepreneurial type. Descriptions are provided that probe into how specific practices are differently shaped in the different types. Research limitations/implications The study design enabled the generation of an empirically rich understanding of different TM types; however, it limited the authors’ ability to draw systematic conclusions on the realized outcomes of different types of TM. Practical implications The descriptions of different TM types give practitioners insight into how TM may be practiced in different ways and point to important decisions to be made when designing TM. Originality/value The paper addresses two main shortcomings identified in the academic literature on TM: conceptual ambiguity and the paucity of in-depth empirical research on how TM is carried out in actual organizational settings. The empirically derived typology constitutes an important step for further theory development in TM.