Vlad Vaiman

Talent management decision making

Purpose – The paper sets out to understand the key issues that emerge in the context of decision making.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a literature review.Findings – First, the authors review debates around talent management decision making. Second, they examine some of the main factors currently influencing decision making in talent management. Third, they seek to identify some future research areas that will inform future decision making in talent management.Practical implications – The paper will be of interest to practitioners in designing and developing talent management decision systems.Originality/value – The paper presents a state of the art review of talent management decision marking.

European perspectives on talent management

While talent management has gained a central place in the managerial discourse, academic research in the area has lagged behind. This paper considers talent management with a particular focus on the European context and sets the scene for the special issue which it precedes. Given that much of our understanding of talent management is premised on work by North American colleagues, the paper and special issue are intended to provide a European contribution to the field. We hope that through empirical insights from the European context combined with the theoretical approaches adopted in the various papers, we will at minimum provide a point of departure for the field of talent management in the European context.

How far do cultural differences explain the differences between nations? Implications for HRM

This conceptual paper argues that national differences in human resource management (HRM) matter and can be explained by cultural and institutional theories. We explore briefly the nature of each set of theories and some of the critiques that have been made of them. We argue that in general much of the differences in HRM between countries are determined by institutional factors, and that management has more influence over the effect of national cultural differences than it has over institutional differences and therefore in most cases the appropriate tests will be tests against institutional differences. Where institutions are less constraining, cultural differences may be the appropriate template.

Smart Talent Management: On the Powerful Amalgamation of Talent Management and Knowledge Management

One innovation that forever changed our world was the discovery of the dramatically new strength of materials obtained from the admixture of carbon and iron—resulting in steel. Both elements alone have their limitations in terms of material strength, but their unique characteristics in combination resulted in tremendous power that enabled the construction of our industrialized and post-industrialized worlds. We believe that in much the same way the useful concepts of talent management (TM) and knowledge management (KM) can be combined to form a powerful conceptual amalgamation contributing to an organization’s success in our competitive global marketplace. For want of a more precise and scientific label, we call this combination simply ‘smart talent management.’ We hope that this book will prompt further examination of the benefits of this combined focus on talent and knowledge management, including the development of useful definitions. But in this early stage we define our concept of smart talent management as the combined use of the distinctly different concepts of knowledge management and talent management to resolve human performance problems and to achieve organizational objectives. Our little play on words refers not to the effective management of only the top performers (i.e., the smart employees), but to the effective/smart integration of knowledge management (i.e., the ‘smarts’) into the paradigm. Smart talent management means the smart or effective management of all human resources, who embody an organization’s knowledge capital and capability in generating, acquiring, storing, transferring, and applying knowledge in support of company goals and objectives (competitive advantage). ‘Smart’ also corresponds to our emphasis of the strategic role of knowledge management in today’s organizations, and particularly within the human resource management (HRM) function. Our further

The End of a 'Period': Sustainability and the Questioning Attitude

Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods. From Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner (1969) in Teaching as a Subversive Activity. The aphorism above suggests that students exit secondary school thinking they “know” what needs to be known…period. Higher education may simply serve to replace the period (.) with an exclamation (!). Upon exit from college, students “know what is to be known” even better, are more confident in stating it and think they are prepared for job placement. Can universities help students recapture the thrill of being question marks (?), suggesting a joyful pursuit of continual self-discovery? In addressing this question, we submit that only with enduring questioning, life-long pursuit of new insights and continual adaptive change, are college graduates able to contribute to and partake in the paradigm shift of sustainability. Our essay seeks to connect the mindset of questioning and adaptive change to the current sustainability transformation within universities. In doing so, we set forth a foundation for understanding how universities, particularly schools and colleges of business, can empower students to leave our halls as “?”s and effectively participate in the sustainability transformation.

Self-Initiated Expatriates: A Neglected Source of the Global Talent Flow

Media, consultants, and academics in unison declare that there is a scarcity of qualified people on a global scale (Guthridge, Komm, & Lawson, 2008; Peiperl & Jonsen, 2007; Wooldridge, 2006). In the past, company-assigned expatriates (AEs) moved around to fill the gaps. Apparently this is no longer enough. While not a new phenomenon, a new and diverse breed of internationally mobile talent has caught the attention of researchers. These are academics and teachers going abroad on their own initiative to teach and learn themselves; they are people on time off to explore the world, be it right after school or as a mid-career break; they are professionals and experts independently seeking work in another country; and so on. In short they are self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). SIEs are a distinct group for several reasons: unlike AEs, SIEs initiate their move abroad themselves and do not wait to be asked or even prodded; unlike refugees, they are drawn by the opportunities and challenges of an international move and do not flee political strife, violence, or economic squalor; unlike immigrants, they intend to return home some time in the future and do not arrange to pull up roots for good. SIEs will provide at least a partial answer to the talent shortages bemoaned by experts. They are mobile, self-starting, and generally well educated. They are already an important factor in today’s global workforce (Tharenou & Caulfield, 2010) and, according to some observers, are likely to become evermore so (Peiperl & Jonsen, 2007).

Intent vs. action: talented employees and leadership development

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the responses of employees, who are identified as talents by their multinational enterprises, in regards to leadership development activities. By applying social exchange and expectancy theories, the authors examine the association between talent identification, perceived effectiveness of leadership development activities, willingness to participate in those activities and actual participation in them. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected through a web-based questionnaire entitled “Leadership2020 Talent Survey”. Eight multinational enterprises joined the survey and delivered a sample based on the target group definition. Findings – The analysis shows that perceived effectiveness of leadership development activities is positively associated with willingness of employees to undertake those activities. The results also reveal that there is no significant association between the employees’ willingness to participate in leadership developme...

Challenges and opportunities of internationalization in professional service industries

In most Western, industrialized nations, the service sector accounts for more than twothirds of the gross domestic products with numbers still increasing (Simon & Welsh, 2010) – for instance, 77% in the USA (Javalgi, Griffith, & White, 2003) or 70% in the UK (Freeman & Sandwell, 2008). Within the service industry, it is the sector of professional services that is steadily becoming a much more important component of the economy (Cardone-Riportella & Cazorla-Papis, 2001). As developed markets become more saturated and difficult to compete in, particularly in times of economic downturn as the one the world has seen over the last few years, professional service firms are increasingly being driven from well-established markets into the more diverse international arena (Chetty & Campbell-Hunt, 2004; Javalgi, Martin, & Todd, 2004; McKinsey & Company, 2010; Wymbs, 2000). Be it as a reaction to such market pressures, because of the broadening of multilateral trade agreements, advances in information and communication technologies, the increased presence of global networks (Freeman & Sandwell, 2008; Netland & Alfnes, 2007), or out of more pro-active motifs, internationalizing professional services is a complex endeavor. Tight control regimes of target markets or host countries, the centrality of the client and the need for intensive customer interaction, additional knowledge capital requirements, the difficult acquisition and transfer of know-how across borders, the nature of professional services with simultaneous production and consumption and their short lifecycles – all these make international expansion in the professional services a daunting task (Brock & Alon, 2009; Buckley, Pass, & Prescott, 1992; Kathuria, Joshi, & Dellande, 2008; Malhotra & Hinings, 2010; Netland & Alfnes, 2007). Internal and external barriers to international expansion have been and still remain substantial for firms in the professional services industry. At the same time, what Contractor, Kundu, and Hsu (2003) have claimed nearly 10 years ago – that research on internationalization of services lags behind research on manufacturing – largely still seems to hold true. And yet, surprisingly little research on this growing phenomenon has been published in the fields of international business, international management, or cross-cultural management. A relatively recent literature review (Netland & Alfnes, 2007) has shown that only 31 articles on the topic had been published in the most important service industries journals between 1999 and 2005. Unfortunately, as much as the topic of internationalization remains of minor significance for the most important academic journals focusing on service industries, the topic of services is of minor significance for the most important journals in the areas of international business and international management. We have conducted a brief review of all articles published on the internationalization of services in six journals between 2000 and 2010. Looking at four journals from the area of international business and international management (Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of International Management, International Business Review) and two from the area of services marketing and services management (Service Industries Journal, Journal of

Managing Talent of Non-Traditional Knowledge Workers: Opportunities, Challenges, and Trends

In today’s globalized world, the importance of acquiring and using the latest know-how is steadily growing, helping companies to gain an advantage over competitors. Decreasing geographical and cultural distances allow organizations to do business in the global market and to make their goods and services available to a greater number of consumers: new means of communication and transportation have facilitated rapid growth in international trade (Kotler et al., 1999).

Talent management practice effectiveness: investigating employee perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance the theoretical and empirical understanding of the process through which talent management (TM) practice effectiveness impacts high-potential employees’ commitment to leadership competence development. Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modelling was utilized to analyse survey data representing a sample of 439 high-potential employees from 11 Finnish multinational corporations. Findings First, the authors found that the more high-potential employees perceived TM practices to be effective, the more they were committed towards leadership competence development. Next, the findings revealed that the association between TM practice effectiveness and commitment to leadership competence development operates by means of psychological contract fulfilment. Finally, the authors found that female employees possessed a stronger reaction to the effectiveness of TM practices by demonstrating higher levels of commitment to leadership competence development than male employees. Originality/value This study supports social exchange theory, which postulates that when organizations invest in their employees, the employees are likely to reciprocate these corporate investments in positive ways. The findings indicate that TM practices may help high-potential employees to make sense of their employment relationship and communicate to employees those attitudes and behaviours that organizations value. The authors thus advocate that in order to have the desired effect, such as for instance the increased commitment to leadership competence development, it is crucial for organizations to invest in those TM practices that are perceived as effective by employees.