Keywords

Introduction

Extensive and ongoing practitioner interest in talent management (TM) is, on the face of it, fuelled by a belief in the importance and contribution of above-average, talented employees to competitive advantage and organisational excellence. Concerns about diversity and equality may also play a part as might a level of mimicking successful and envied competitors who happen to run successful talent programmes. Some firms might do it for fun as chief executives like evaluating and choosing from among the ‘stars’ (DeLong & Vijayaraghavan, 2003). Looking in more detail at the motivations behind it, increasing practitioner attention given to talent and supposed talent shortages is thought to be affected by a range of factors such as the ageing workforce, increasing labour mobility, and globalisation (Basri & Box, 2008; Beechler & Woodward, 2009; Schuler, Jackson, & Tarique, 2011a, 2011b; Tarique & Schuler, 2010). Transformational changes in business environments also affect the quantity, quality, and characteristics of the talent needed (Guthridge, Komm, & Lawson, 2008); Schuler et al., 2011a, 2011b; Vaiman, Scullion, & Collings, 2012).

The so-called war for talent has intensified in the UK due to a combination of factors including relatively high employment; the expansion of a knowledge- and service-based economy where intellectual and relational capital rather than practical or manual skills are crucial; the nation’s continuing failure to build the kind of skills base needed to drive the economy forward, a regular reorganising process by organisations to achieve greater cost efficiencies, faster innovation, and enhanced competitive capability; and an accompanying need for the development of gifted corporate and front-line leaders (Harrison, 2009). On the one hand, the grand narratives giving reasons why organisations run talent programmes are appealing and convincing. They make good sense, and it is easy to see why many senior managers and HR directors particularly in profit-seeking sectors will be attracted to them.

They are, however, very broad reasons, and, despite its extensive academic following, research to date has not yet offered much in the way of explanations of the motivating factors behind why individual organisations implement talent programmes which, of course, are not without their faults and potential adverse side effects (De Boeck, Meyers, & Dries, 2018; Gelens, Dries, Hofmans, & Pepermans, 2013; Swailes & Blackburn, 2016). For instance, a study of German firms (Ewerlin & Suss, 2016) concluded that some firms implemented talent management out of economic necessity but also that some firms implemented it as a facade to show greater legitimacy in their operating environments. Using a single case study, Huang and Tansley (2012) suggested that ‘rhetorical obfuscation’ (plausible but not always entirely accurate language) was used by senior managers to manage stakeholder impressions, to serve particular agendas, and to divert attention from operational problems within the organisation. The HR department played a key role in perpetuating this obfuscation.

The main aim of this chapter, therefore, is to look beneath the standardised rationales for implementing talent management to search for more idiosyncratic practical reasons why organisations run talent programmes. Findings are presented from four cases studies conducted in private sector companies in the UK. Findings suggest that, although developing human capital was the broad reason applying in each case, at ground level each company’s approach to talent management had a different driver (philosophy). The talent drivers were variously; inclusivity, the desire to fill pivotal positions, a desire to classify employees, and succession planning.

Talent Management

There are substantial differences in understanding what talent management is (McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle, & Lavelle, 2010) ranging from seeing it as a reinvention of basic human resource management (HRM) to sophisticated approaches that constitute a distinctive high-performance work system. While many of the key ideas advanced by talent practitioners, such as assessment centres, succession planning, and 360-degree feedback, are not new and stem from the 1950s (Cappelli, 2008, 2010; Iles, Chuai, & Preece, 2010), most commentators agree that talent management is fundamentally different to HRM (CIPD, 2007; Duttagupta, 2005). A key difference is that talent management, as an integral part of an overall people management strategy, focuses on a small subset of employees (the talent) and covers activities such as the attraction and retention of talented employees and their development and deployment for such time as they are deemed talented (Tarique & Schuler, 2010). It is not concerned with broader aspects of HRM such as collective bargaining, labour relations, HR planning, compensation, and benefits (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2013; Festing, Kornau, & Schäfer, 2014).

Defining Talent Management

There is no universal definition of talent or talent management. How talent is defined for talent management purposes is a tricky issue with no consensus in practice as to what talent is (Tansley et al., 2007). Some argue that “companies do not even know how to define ‘talent’, let alone how to manage it” (Economist, 2006). Tansley et al. (2007) suggest that “Talent consists of those individuals who can make a difference to organisational performance, either through their immediate contribution or in the longer term by demonstrating the highest levels of potential.” In general, people who are regarded as talent are assumed to provide organisations with competitive advantage proportionally greater than the majority of ‘average’ employees. Supporting this assumption is some recent and compelling evidence that individual performance does not follow a normal distribution but is highly skewed (O’Boyle & Aguinis, 2012). Despite the variety of definitions, a common denominator is that individuals deemed to have talent possess technical capability and leadership potential to contribute significantly and disproportionately to the effectiveness of their organisations.

Talent management according to Cappelli (2008) is “simply a matter of anticipating the need for human capital and then setting out a plan to meet it”. Blass (2007) suggests that it refers to “additional management processes and opportunities that are made available to people in the organization who are considered to be talent”. Tansley et al. (2007) define talent management as “the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement/retention and deployment of those individuals with high potential and who are of particular value to an organisation”. Similarly, Meyer and van Woerkom (2014) define talent management as the systematic utilisation of HRM activities to attract, identify, develop, and retain individuals who are considered to be ‘talented’. In practice, this often means the high-potential employees, strategically important employees, and employees in key positions.

Approaches to Talent Management

The dominant form of talent management is exclusive/elitist and focuses on a small percentage of a workforce—the A players, stars, high performers, and other strategically important employees (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2005; Collings & Mellahi, 2009). Inclusive approaches, to the extent that they actually exist, are directed at the whole workforce (Buckingham & Vosburgh, 2001; Swailes, Downs, & Orr, 2014; Yost & Chang, 2009). Stahl, Björkman, and Morris (2012b) suggested that in addition to exclusive and inclusive approaches to talent management, a hybrid approach that combines both inclusive and exclusive philosophies is possible. Although recent research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2012) shows that about 40% of companies claimed they had talent programmes covering most or all employees, Swailes (2013a) argues that the majority of organisations running talent programmes adopt exclusive approaches and that, to be taken as a separate and distinctive alternative, inclusive talent management is fundamentally different and calls for very different features to those seen in exclusive strategies. The alternative ‘inclusive’ approach sees all employees as talented somehow or at least potentially so. Inclusive approaches are more humanistic and the job is to manage all employees to deliver high performance (Iles et al., 2010; Swailes et al., 2014). In this regard, it becomes hard to separate genuinely inclusive talent management from what good HRM should be doing.

Theoretical Perspectives

Although some scholars (see Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Gelens et al., 2013; Lewis & Heckman, 2006) are concerned with what is perceived as lack of theoretical foundations in the advancement of knowledge on talent management, Swailes (2013b) argues that “while it is true that the field suffers from the lack of an integrative theory there are plenty of theoretical perspectives that explain why organizations pursue talent management”. Some of these are very briefly summarised below.

Workforce Differentiation

Workforce differentiation or segmentation are fundamental to understanding elitist talent management (Becker, Huselid, & Beatty, 2009) as the underlying presumption is that some of a firm’s employees add more value to the firm than others (Collings, 2017; Huselid, 2011). In workforce differentiation, employees are categorised into A, B, and C players, for example, albeit notionally rather than literally, with ‘A’ players adding most value to the organisation and hence being treated differently. Similarly, workforce differentiation emphasises the categorisation of critical or core positions; ‘A’ players are placed in ‘A’ positions and so on. Putting ‘A’ players into ‘A’ positions is a variation of the harder, elitist forms of talent management but does rely, if it is to be effective, on accurate judgements of people and positions.

Differentiation requires assessing both the performance and potential of employees and investing in the ‘A’ players through promotion, incentives, and development opportunities, sustaining the potential of ‘B’ players and recognising their contributions (DeLong & Vijayaraghavan, 2003) and acting decisively on ‘C’ players by re-engaging them or removing them. This sort of thinking about employees, however, tends to be accompanied by assertive managerial advice on how to deal with the so-called C players (e.g., see Axelrod, Handfield-Jones, & Michaels, 2002) which seems blind to the possibility that the label they are tagged with might not be all their fault.

Pivotal positions can also be classified as follows (Huselid, Beatty, & Becker, 2005):

  • ‘A’ positions are strategic, require autonomous decision-making, have performance-based compensation, and create disproportionate value for the organisation compared to other organisations, and the consequences of mistakes (in job design or in hiring the wrong employee) can have serious financial outcomes.

  • ‘B’ positions are essentially support roles that may be strategic, but the skills required to execute them are common, and there may be little variability in the performance of individuals in these positions.

  • ‘C’ positions may be required for the company to function but are not strategic to its success and may simply be outsourced or even weeded out.

A consequence of differentiation is that talent management is not just about people in senior positions (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2005; Silzer & Dowell, 2010). Pivotal positions can be anywhere within an organisation, and where they are then talent management becomes a company-wide strategy.

Human Capital Theory

In a knowledge-based economy , people should be considered as revenue creators rather than costs (Lawler, 2008). “Human Capital Theory (HCT) provides a framework for understanding the choices that companies make in managing employees with high levels of human capital” (Stahl et al., 2012a: 213) and has much to offer to understanding talent management (McDonnell, 2009; Tarique & Schuler, 2010). The fundamental principle underpinning HCT is the belief that people’s learning capacities are of comparable value to other assets involved in the production of goods and services (Lucas, 1988, 1990). When the resource is effectively utilised, the results are profitable for the individual, organisation, and society at large (Schultz, 1961). Human capital theory seeks to explain the gains of education and training as a form of investment in human resources, and the main proposition is that people are considered a form of capital for development (Aliaga, 2001; Becker, 1993; Benhabib & Spiegel, 1994; Engelbrecht, 2003). From this perspective, education and schooling are seen as deliberate investments that prepare the labour force, and the main outcome from investment in people is the change that is demonstrated at the individual level in the form of enhanced performance, at the organisational level in the form of improved productivity and profitability, or at societal level in the form of returns that benefit the entire society (Nafukho, Hairston, & Brooks, 2004).

In the context of TM, investments or activities related to the attraction, development, and retention of talented individuals can be viewed as an investment in the human capital of the organisation. In addition, HCT can be used to understand the decisions organisations make about how to staff their core positions and jobs. A key decision in the TM process is the choice the organisation has to make about either developing the body of human capital that already exists within the organisation or acquiring capital from external labour market (Stahl et al., 2012a).

Institutional Theory

Institutional theory provides a unique perspective on the adoption and diffusion of management practices. According to Paauwe and Boselie (Paauwe & Boselie, 2003), the idea that organisations are deeply entrenched in wider institutional environments implies that organisational practices are often either direct reflections of or responses to rules and structures built into their larger environment. For example, organisations may implement business practices because doing so enhances their legitimacy (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Björkman, Fey, and Park (2007) argue that “organisations are under pressure to adapt to and be consistent with their institutional environment in order to acquire legitimacy and recognition by adopting structures and practices viewed as appropriate in their environment”.

The focus of institutional theory is on how external pressures influence organisations and their practices. It provides a rich and complex view of organisational behaviour that explains how regularised organisational behaviours are the product of ideas, values, and beliefs that originate in the institutional context (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Meyer, Scott, & Deal, 1983; Zucker, 1983). To remain competitive, organisations must entertain and accommodate the expectations of their business environments even though these expectations may have little to do with organisational performance (D’Aunno, Sutton, & Price, 1991; DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Scott, 1987).

Institutional theory argues that the institutional environment can have a bigger effect on the development of formal structures in an organisation than competitive pressures. Where early adoption of an innovation such as talent management is seen to confer advantages, then the practice starts to become legitimised to the extent that failure to adopt it is seen as irrational. At this point, other organisations will adopt the innovation even if it does not improve efficiency (Stanger, Wilding, Hartmann, Yates, & Cotton, 2013). Rather than seeing managers as rational actors making dispassionate choices about innovations to adopt, managers conform to the expectations of the institutional setting (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). This coming together of organisational practices, institutional isomorphism, is a process through which organisations adopt similar practices in response to similar pressures. Resembling one another helps to legitimise organisations and their standing in their respective fields (Raynard, Johnson, & Greenwood, 2016). This is a very compelling explanation of why organisations in a sector tend to structure in the same way and employ similar management practices.

The isomorphic processes operating in institutional theory easily explain why TM occurs in some sectors much more than others. For example, widely in large profit-seeking firms but uncommonly in the public sector. Mimetic pressures drive companies to look at successful TM practices and then attempt to implement them (Sidani & Al Ariss, 2014). Normative pressures from professional bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) can promote the diffusion of talent management practices through their influence on the HR profession. Coercive pressure could arise, for example, from perceived pressures from the government or the media to decrease the gender pay gap and/or increase women’s or minority representation in senior management.

Research Methods

This study was carried out in four private sector organisations in the UK operating in manufacturing (TechCo), hospitality (HotelCo), healthcare (CareCo), and logistics (ParcelCo). The data are presented in a way that protects the anonymity of participants and case study organisations. Case organisations were selected to provide rich and comprehensive information on the research topic. Adopting a multiple case study strategy gives the advantage of a robust, in-depth understanding of the talent management phenomenon (Yin, 2009) and the exploration of similarities and differences within and between cases (Eisenhardt, 1989). Furthermore, the four case organisations were selected across different sectors in an attempt to obtain good variation in talent practices and to open up as many facets as possible (Merkens, 2004; Patton, 2002).

The case studies are limited to private organisations since established talent programmes are more likely to be found in the private sector given the competitive pressures that exist there. Given the small number of cases, greater comparability would arise from comparing only private companies. Each organisation had been running talent management strategies for at least three years. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 28 participants across the 4 organisations. Participants included HR/talent managers, senior managers, and employees inside and outside the talent pools. To get around problems of confidentiality regarding who was in and not in a talent pool, some interviewees were nominated by the main contact in each case company. Interview questions focused mainly on approach and meaning of talent management, the rationale for adopting TM practices, as well as the evaluation of talent management initiatives evident in the organisations. All interviews were audio recorded with permission of the participants and subsequently transcribed.

Using semi-structured interviews gave the room for flexibility and the opportunity to ask questions that were not in the interview guide as a follow-up to participants’ responses. To achieve rich data, participants were asked a set of open-ended questions within the topic area and “allowed the interviewee the freedom to talk and ascribe meanings” while bearing in mind the wider aims of the project (Noaks & Wincup, 2004: 80). The interview questions were pre-tested informally with three individuals that share similar characteristics of the research target population (a manager, a high-potential employee, and an employee outside a talent pool) lasting between 40 and 50 minutes. The pre-testing checked whether the questions were understood in the manner intended and to ensure that the interview questions and responses adequately covered the research aim and objectives of the study.

Data analysis was conducted in stages as proposed by Creswell (2014). Interview data were complemented by company documents and information from case organisations where possible. Interviews were transcribed verbatim which gave the opportunity to begin a preliminary data analysis. Organising and preparing data provided a general sense of the information and the chance to reflect on the overall meaning of data collected. Data were labelled to enhance the identification of data sources and how they were obtained.

Reading and reviewing the transcripts and notes taken during the interviews revealed the general ideas that were emerging from each case and gave a valuable insight to some significant but unanticipated responses from participants concerning their lived experiences with talent management practices. The data coding process was employed to create a report of talent management initiatives in the study organisations as well as themes (categories) for analysis. Within-case and cross-case analyses (Eisenhardt, 1989) were undertaken by identifying themes within the cases and then grouping or contrasting the cases according to those themes (individual case description was used which formed a base document for further analysis and subsequent comparisons across case study organisations). Tabulation of case data according to the identified themes was used to aid the cross-case analysis.

Case Study Settings and Their Talent Programmes

CareCo

CareCo is a private sector organisation in the healthcare industry with over 1500 employees. It is a leading provider of specialist support for adults with learning disabilities and complex needs. Current services include an independent hospital, residential care homes, and supported living services. The TM initiative is managed by the senior management team including directors, managers, and the HR department. Talent identification at CareCo starts with the immediate line managers identifying talented employees and nominating them for the various award schemes through regular supervisions, performance appraisal, and observations on the ‘shop floor’. The HR department conducts what is known as a ‘health check’ on employees with respect to their suitability for the talent scheme. Although it is possible for employees to put themselves forward for the scheme, it is very unlikely for an employee to be selected if they are not recommended in the first instance by their line manager. Talent identification is very much around the line manager’s judgement.

CareCo utilises various methods to develop talent including internal and external training, learning on the job, secondments, and shadowing. For example, a deputy manager secondment programme ran at two centres initially for six months but possibly longer. On completion of the programme, employees returned to their former position but are added to the talent pool from which they can apply for a deputy manager’s position. Employees in the bronze award scheme, that is, those aspiring to be team leaders, are developed mainly through shadowing and learning on the job activities. Retaining talented employees is seen as a crucial aspect of managing talent. New retention packages were implemented to address employee turnover to competitors including a long service wage scheme and access to medical insurance.

ParcelCo

ParcelCo is a leading consumer delivery specialist handling around 190 million parcels each year. Although it has a talent and resourcing department, the responsibility for talent management is a coordinated activity within the senior management team which cuts across three main departments, namely, talent and resourcing, organisation and learning capability, and the HR department. Line managers are involved in the talent identification process and are assisted by the HR department during appraisals and in managing employee performance.

ParcelCo utilises different approaches to identifying talent for the two schemes (a graduate scheme and a leadership development programme) it operates. For the graduate scheme, talented employees are identified through a series of activities including assessment centres, interviews, and an open day fair. For the leadership development programme, since not all managers are considered for the scheme, the process of selection begins with more senior managers nominating and supporting managers in their departments for the programme. An assessment of the suitability of a manager for the scheme is carried out based on the outcome of the potential-performance matrix assessment (nine-box grid ) before the nomination process. Interested managers also have to put forward an application for them to be considered for the programme.

ParcelCo utilises both internal and external means of developing identified talents. Employees on the talent leadership initiative embark on an 18-month external training course with a partner university, while the graduate scheme involves participants undergoing a 15-month programme with different departments within the organisation. ParcelCo also runs some in-house courses on leadership for managers on team leading, leadership management, and recruitment. The organisation offers benefits and very competitive pay as a means of retaining employees.

HotelCo

HotelCo is a four-star international midscale brand for business and leisure travellers with hotels located in the centre of the main international cities, tourist destinations, and business districts. It has over 30 hotels in the UK. The ‘Professional Development’ programme at HotelCo is an HR tool designed to enhance the development of all employees at every level. The HR department manages the talent scheme with the support of heads of departments (HoDs). While the HR department provides the tools and guidance for the talent initiatives, the managers/HoDs facilitate most of the in-house training as they are seen as being critical to the success of the scheme. They are also responsible for ensuring that learning from the scheme is evident in day-to-day job behaviour.

The organisation offers financial and non-financial incentives to employees who are able to progress their career within the organisation. In respect to talent identification, management believes each employee has their own strengths, and rather than focusing on identifying high-potential employees, they are concerned with identifying and developing areas of competencies in employees that can potentially add value to the organisation. Both formal and informal learning and development activities are undertaken internally although this may involve going to different locations in which HotelCo operates. HotelCo views career advancement, training and development opportunities, and employees’ feeling valued as key to employee retention. The TM initiative is seen as strategically important as it offers employees across all levels the opportunity to acquire competencies, improve knowledge, and advance their careers.

TechCo

TechCo is a diversified global technology company and industrial leader serving the automotive and construction industries in over 150 countries. TechCo operates an internal leadership institute where most employee learning and development takes place, and the institute also sources external training according to the developmental needs of employees. Managers play significant roles in the talent management process; they are given the responsibilities of identifying and managing high-potential employees within their departments through performance appraisals and a yearly strategic talent review (STR) which is carried out in conjunction with HR and the senior management team. The HR department advises on and facilitates the talent management process supporting managers in the development of talented individuals. Individual talents have a responsibility to identify and push for their development, that is, it is expected that employees will identify and put forward their training and development needs for consideration.

The STR takes into consideration a learning evaluation model (LEM) which looks at employee behaviour and the employee’s performance and potential appraisal (nine-box grid). Employees who come out top are believed to have high potential and are then considered as talent ready to be developed. After the STR is completed, successful employees are placed in the talent pool, and areas of development are subsequently identified. High-potential employees go through two development processes, namely, ‘ready now’ and ‘ready next’. The ‘ready now’ initiative is a 12-month process of getting talents prepared for a higher level role that may be required in the short term. The ‘ready next’ initiatives focus on developing talents for future roles, that is, developing for roles in a five-year plan. Other tools for developing talent include secondments of 12–24 months as well as coaching and mentoring. TechCo views employee retention as an important process in the talent management scheme. It operates a retention policy that looks at annual recognition through achievement, merit recognition, and salary adjustment for high performers. It also looks to provide opportunities for internal career progression as a means of stopping employees joining rival firms.

Results and Discussion

Rationales for Talent Management

Across all four cases, evidence indicated that employees are considered as assets and a source of competitive advantage. For these organisations to stay successful in highly competitive business climates, there is much emphasis on investing in people through training and development as well as investment in the attraction and retention of talented employees. Table 9.1 summarises the underlying approaches to managing talent in each organisation on four dimensions: why run talent management programmes, how do they define talent, how do they approach doing talent management, and what was the underpinning talent philosophy?

Table 9.1 Comparison of talent philosophies
Full size table

Developing Human Capital

All four organisations viewed talent management as a means of developing their human capital. While the concept of HCT was originally advanced to explain the levels of investments people make to improve themselves through training and education in order to improve their productivity and earning potential (Becker, 1993; Schultz, 1971), the underlying conviction of HCT is that education creates assets in the form of knowledge and skills, which build the efficiency of educated and highly skilled workers (Becker, 1993).

TechCo has a ten-year growth strategy to remain successful and competitive in a global market. Management believes that one of the key ways of achieving this goal and for the organisation to maintain its current technology edge in the automobile industry is by investing mainly in people, maintaining and growing competence and skills through continuous training and development. Talent management is therefore seen as a means of investing in the organisation’s human capital to remain competitive in over 150 countries.

CareCo as a growing and rapidly expanding organisation sees TM as a means of developing talented employees’ capabilities. CareCo realises the need to develop its human capital and grow talent from within to sustain its growth and remain profitable in the care service industry. Previous experiences of hiring managers externally were deemed to have hindered the ability of the organisation to sustain its expansion and provision of new services in the UK, hence the heavy investment in the identification, training, and development of talented employees who already share the values and culture of the organisation into managerial positions.

ParcelCo, operating in an industry where the organisation’s market share is constantly changing, had come to terms with the fact that for the organisation to remain competitive and increase market share, there is a need to invest in talented employees who are innovative and who can develop new products and services. Through its innovative products, the organisation was able to expand its services and increase profit margins. ParcelCo sees TM as a means of building on and developing the skills and competence of its unique high-value human capital.

Unlike the above case study organisations in manufacturing, care, and logistics that focus a large proportion of training and development efforts on a few selected employees, HotelCo as an organisation operating in the hospitality industry believes that all of its human resources (capital) can contribute to its success and competitiveness by providing excellent customer services, hence the adoption of an undifferentiated approach in the provision of training and development opportunities for all employees across all levels. With so much competition in this sector, it is believed that continuous investment in professional development will produce customer satisfaction and a positive contribution to the brand’s success.

Pressure from Institutional Environment

Although evidence from the case study organisations suggests that the adoption of TM practices is predicated on a rational account, that is, adoption based on the presumed economic benefits that TM brings to the organisation and its employees, further evidence in three out of the four cases (TechCo, ParcelCo, and CareCo) indicated that in addition to the investment in the development and retention of their human capital, institutional factors also play a vital role in the adoption of TM practices.

At TechCo and CareCo, normative pressure appeared to influence the adoption of TM practices. The TM initiative at TechCo is supported by a top management consulting firm working for the organisation. Although the TM strategy is seen as a key factor in influencing the level of employee development and retention, the pressure exerted on the organisation by such an influential management consulting firm played an important part in the design and implementation of the TM programme. Whereas at CareCo, normative pressure was evident in the adoption of the TM strategy in that the talent scheme programme in use was developed and introduced by the operations manager from her experience and networks in a professional association and her position in the organisation appears to influence the adoption as well as the operationalization of the talent scheme.

Normative pressure in this regard is connected to the relationships between the management policies and background of rational actors regarding their networks of professional associations, job experience, and educational levels (Paauwe & Boselie, 2003). The norms and values that professionals develop through professional networks and formal education increase the similarity of the skills and knowledge of the total workforce in a given organisational field (Boon, Paauwe, Boselie, & Den Hartog, 2009). Homogenization in the adoption of management practices by organisations is made possible by agents’ adoption of behaviours because they are deemed superior by influential individuals in the organisations or by professional organisations that the adopting organisation depends upon (Hofer, Hofer, Eroglu, & Waller, 2011).

In ParcelCo, the increasing popularity of TM amongst organisations providing similar products and services in the transport and logistics industry appears to have influenced the adoption of talent management practices, and evidence indicates that mimetic pressure had a significant impact in the restructuring of the talent management programme undertaken. To remain competitive, maintain its market share, and stop talented employees from going to a rival firm, the learning and development manager introduced a standardised form of talent identification and development from his previous organisation in a similar industry, an organisation that was thought to be better at managing talent. Among organisations operating in the same industry, mimetic isomorphism will drive them to look at the best TM practices and attempt to implement them especially from firms which are perceived to be successful and legitimate (Sidani & Al Ariss, 2014).

Underpinning Talent Management Philosophy in the Case Organisations

Evidence from this study shows four distinct approaches to TM. In HotelCo , the inclusive talent management approach has much in common with good, overall HRM practices (Hartmann, Feisel, & Schober, 2010). The focus of talent management is on the totality of employees in the organisation and is viewed as nurturing, training, and developing employees at all levels. Talent management in HotelCo helps to identify and develop areas of strength and competence in all employees and to assist employees in progressing their careers with the organisation. This approach to TM acknowledges that there is a need for a dedicated set of advanced and sophisticated human resource practices directed at attracting talent, identifying and recruiting talent, developing employees, managing talent flows, and delivering performance, that is, managing underperformance and stretching/improving the performance of talented employees. The talent initiative at HotelCo is an HR tool devised for professional development as a large proportion of its employees are in front-line positions, impacting directly upon customer satisfaction and contributing to the brand’s success. The improvement of employee learning and development across all levels is therefore crucial to operational success.

Talent management at CareCo is geared around and viewed from the perspective of succession management. The organisation values having people who have already imbibed its culture and values in senior positions. Talent management is seen as a strategic tool used to develop and promote talented employees from within into managerial positions as the organisation grows and expands its services. It runs a secondment scheme to develop talented employees, via an internal talent pool, who are ready to step into senior management positions whenever such situations arise. The talent pool represents groupings and clusters of talent, and not just positions, where human capital investments make a great difference to strategic success and because improvements in capabilities are brought about by the development and retention of talented employees. CareCo believes that they will have the most significant impact on the growth and competitiveness of the organisation. This view of TM argues that companies draw their energy from employees, their individual strengths, motivation, and interest, and sees talent management as succession planning concentrating on the flow of employees within them (Hartmann et al., 2010).

Talent management in TechCo revolves around pivotal positions fed from the talent pools. Talent management is viewed as a strategic activity that focuses on the development of a pool of high-potential and high-performing employees to fill pivotal positions which have the potential to impact on the growth and competitiveness of the business. Huselid et al. (2005) suggested that while there are ethical issues in relation to the classification of employees into top, middle, and low performers, there might not be the same emotional reactivity to classifying positions or segmenting jobs within an organisation. This perspective emphasises the identification of key positions that have the potential to impact upon on competitive advantage such that talent management should begin with the identification of pivotal/key positions before identifying talent.

In ParcelCo, talent management is geared around the classification of employees into high, middle, and low performers. Among the high performers are two groups of employees. The first group is labelled as ‘exceeded’—the employee’s performance is superior to most others and has a significant impact on the department and/or organisation. High-performance standards are consistently achieved by the individual in this group. The second group is labelled as ‘achieved plus’, and these individuals regularly surpass performance objectives and deliver results; high-performance standards are maintained. Medium performers are employees who are consistently meeting expected performance standards and are able to deliver the anticipated results. Low performers are divided into two groups, namely, (a) ‘achieved minus’—the individual accomplishes some of their performance objectives but fails to meet others and in addition does not constantly meet the necessary standards—and (b) ‘did not achieve’—the individual frequently falls short of meeting the performance objectives with little or no progress visible. This perspective on talent management views talented employees as valuable goods (‘high potentials’) that need to be sought irrespective of the specific needs of an organisation. From a people perspective, talent management starts with identifying these individual ‘star’ performers who are deemed to be a source of competitive advantage. The philosophy then advocates differentiating the management of these high-performance and high-potential employees. The broad divide of these four cases on an inclusive-exclusive continuum observed here has also been observed elsewhere (Stahl et al., 2012a).

Conclusions

This chapter contributes to the conceptual and empirical understanding of the nature of talent management. It provides empirical findings that help to clarify aspects of organisation practice as a stimulus for further academic interest in the field especially concerning why individual organisations adopt talent management practices. All four organisations see their employees as valuable assets in a fast and changing business environment. For these organisations to maintain their competitiveness, investing in the capabilities of their human capital (assets) is essential. This is consistent with classical rationales for talent management that equates talent to human capital (Lepak & Snell, 1999; Tarique & Schuler, 2010). Human capital thinking, therefore, played a key role in the adoption of TM practices in all four cases.

In three of the four case organisations (TechCo, CareCo, and ParcelCo), institutional isomorphism influenced the adoption of talent management initiatives in addition to the rationale based on developing and retaining human capital. Rationalising pressures from a management consulting firm influenced the incorporation of socially constructed beliefs in relation to exclusive talent management at TechCo (manufacturing). Normative pressure in the homogenization of TM practices was evident in CareCo (healthcare) where the operations manager appears to have influenced the nature and direction of TM initiatives following her experience and networks in a professional association. ParcelCo (logistics) introduced a specific TM practice which was assumed to be effective in other organisations providing similar products and services.

The key point of the chapter is to show that, while the conceptualisation of TM varied from one organisation to another, each variation and its associated philosophy can be encapsulated through a unique and particular core talent driver. In healthcare, talent management was principally driven by succession planning and human resource planning. In hospitality, talent management equated to more general HRM given its wider reach across all employees. In manufacturing, talent management revolved around key/pivotal positions with talented employees being identified and developed to fill these positions. In logistics, the conceptualisation of TM was reflected in the classification of employees into top, middle, and low performers. This is not to say that other driving forces were not present in the case companies, but a dominant driver was identifiable.

These findings reveal that while broad-brush narratives around competitiveness and the value of key employees applied to each case company, at the ground level, each company had a distinctive talent driver which, in turn, shaped the overall talent philosophy . These driving forces may change across time as companies evaluate their talent programmes, competitive positions, and priorities. Further qualitative research could usefully expand on the range of talent drivers that occur, the field’s understanding of how the underlying driving forces shape the design and success rates of different forms of talent management, and also the ways in which programmes are received and evaluated by both participants and senior managers.