Talk-about talent: underlying philosophies on talent in Thai SMEs

Abstract

This paper provides insight into talent philosophies, the fundamental assumptions and beliefs about talent that are held by key decision-makers, in three award-winning Thai Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Interviews were conducted with fifteen key decision-makers: the owner-manager of each SME and four managers the owner-manager identified as 'talent'. A discourse perspective informs the research and we draw on community of practice (CoP) theory as a heuristic device, enabling insights into decision-makers talk-about talent and the implications of this talk. We highlight shared fundamental assumptions regarding the exclusivity of talent and beliefs that talent is both stable (natural ability) and developable (mastery). We reveal an emerging dilemma between the 'talent community' and 'wider community'; in particular a tension between decision-makers' beliefs that talent are 'promotable' and expectations in this cultural context. We contribute a conceptual representation of talent philosophies within this Thai context and discuss how this discursive construction of talent enables and constrains participation and learning in these SMEs.

A Decade of Talent Management Practices in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, A Systematic Review of a Developing Field

“…Attracting talents, identifying, and designating persons as talents, training, developing and retaining talented staff featured prominently among SMEs' owners and managers as matters of pressing concern for them (Zamcu, 2014;Lizbetinova, 2015;Stokes et al, 2016;Lawless et al, 2019). The war for talent prompted by McKinsey's study has been one of the seminal works in TM studies (Beechler & Woodward, 2009).…”

A paradox perspective on talent management: a multi-level analysis of paradoxes and their responses in talent management

“…For example, talents experience tensions when they need to operate in an egalitarian context where individual superiority is not embraced by other counterparts (Sumelius et al, 2020). The study by Lawless et al (2019) revealed that in the context of SMEs in Thailand, individuals promoted as talent did not act powerfully because of the expectations of relatives (who worked in the firm). Thus, the talent status was simultaneously perceived as a 'powerful' and 'powerless' position.…”

“…The study of Kirk (2021) in the context of global talent mobility revealed that individuals refused to be labelled as a talent since this required them to be mobilized, causing detachment from their usual social life. The study by Lawless et al (2019) showed that talents declined promotions because of concerns with regard to envious people. These responses are examples of 'suppressing' tensions as one element is prioritized over the other.…”

Learning in SMEs

“…A conclusion to this could be that researching Learning in SMEs is not for the fainthearted and therefore we were delighted to see a significant response to our Call for Papers which has resulted in the six excellent papers herein. These not only cover a variety of topics, use various methodologies and are sited in different industries and geographic areas ranging from China (Mustafa, Elliott, and Zhou 2019) to Thailand (Lawless et al 2019), Hungary (Csillag et al 2019), the Republic of Ireland (Nolan and Garavan 2019) and Scotland (Cunningham and McGuire 2019), but they also consider some little explored aspects of owner-managers (e.g. Coetzer, Wallo, and Kock 2019), as well as the perspectives of employees.…”

“…Finally, Lawless et al (2019) Talk about Talent; Underlying Philosophies on Talent in Thai SMEs investigates the rarely explored area of talent management in SMEs, as well as being one of the few studies to focus on learning in SMEs in Thailand. It achieves this through qualitative interviews with fifteen key decision-makers from three awardwinning SMEs, drawing upon Lave and Wenger (1991) Communities of Practice theory.…”