What's in a name? talent: A review and research agenda

Abstract

There has a significant increase in the volume of research on the management of talent over recent decades; however, the question of what talent is remains under debate. How talent is understood and defined has significant implications for its management within organizations, yet these aspects are often overlooked in the extant literature. Through a review of 192 articles in the sub‐disciplines of talent management (sub‐stream of strategic human resource management), stars (human capital), and high potential (organizational behavior/‐psychology), we offer guidance for research on talent. Our findings suggest that the current research adopts an overly binary conceptualization of talent, as illustrated in five relevant dimensions: inclusive–exclusive, innate–acquired, transferable–context dependent, subject–object, and input–outcomes. We call for a more nuanced approach to the topic and build insights from paradox theory, encouraging a transition from “either/or” perspectives to “both/and” perspectives. Matching theory is identified as a useful lens to guide future research, and we offer suggestions for a more nuanced approach in practice by encouraging organizations and their stakeholders to embrace the paradoxes of talent.

La gestión del conocimiento en estudiantes de ingeniería y magisterio y su relación con los planes de estudio - [Knowledge management in engineering and teaching students and its relationship to the study programs]

“…En este contexto, una de las responsabilidades de las instituciones educativas sería sin duda ser capaces de generar ese talento que después demanda la sociedad. Sin embargo, y a la vista de estos resultados, podríamos decir que para ciertos grados como el de Ingeniería, la Universidad sería una especie de fábrica en serie de titulados con conocimientos y capacidades, pero con carencias en actitudes, lo que merma competitividad (Vardi, S., & Collings, D. G. 2023).…”

Introduction

“…Finally, the fifth tension deals with the discussion of whether a talent is universal and transferable to each context or whether talent is context dependent and that talents in one context are not necessarily relevant in the other context. The academic literature has been criticized for offering a binary conceptualization of talent (Vardi & Collings, 2023). The 'either/or' approach as becomes apparent in the aforementioned tensions is not recognized by organizations in practice, as we see that next to the single inclusive and the inclusive approaches also more hybrid or mixed forms exist within organizations.…”

“…Since the rise of the topic of talent management nearly 25 years ago, there has been an intensive debate on the definition of talent. Even up until now, new academic publications appear with novel insights regarding the conceptualization of talent Skuza et al, 2022;Vardi & Collings, 2023). In 2013, Dries (2013) gave a solid ground to the debate by identifying five tensions in the literature regarding the definition of talent.…”

How talent management execution impacts career experiences: exploring the organization-individual intersect

“…This is predominantly focused on the tension that exist between inclusivity vs. exclusivity of talent, as well as the tension between innate or attained (developable) talent. These tensions are seen to have the biggest impact on how talent management is operationalized in organizations (Meyers et al, 2019;Sparrow, 2019;Vardi and Collings, 2023) and ultimately the experience of talent.…”