Talent Management in Practice

Dr. Marian Thunnissen works as a Professor at the School of HRM and Applied Psychology of Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven (The Netherlands). She has over twenty years of experience in research, consulting and teaching. Her current research is focused on the identification, attraction and development of talent, particularly in the public sector. Her recent interests concern a ‘teambased’ TM approach, the role of the line manager in TM, and the dilemmas and tensions organizations in practice experience in developing and implementing TM. She finds it very important to share her research and knowledge with organizations and HR practitioners in order to support them in an evidence-based TM approach. Dr. Eva Gallardo-Gallardo holds a PhD and MSc in Management from the Universitat de Barcelona. She works as Assistant Professor at the Department of Management of the School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech. She possesses more than fourteen years of teaching experience in different national and international universities in the field of management. Her research focuses on talent management, with a particular interest in understanding the formation and evolution of the field, its dynamics, and its conceptual boundaries. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Human Resource Management and of the Journal of Organisational Effectiveness: People and Performance.

Aiming to bridge theory and practice, the authors outline an integrated and contextualized framework that addresses the nature and complexity of talent management in organizations and its dynamics. They provide a talent management model based on lessons from previous academic empirical research and established theoretical frameworks from related fields. They discuss the empirical literature up to 2016, including the dominant topics studied (mainly practices, conceptualization, understanding talent, and global talent management) and the conceptualization of talent and talent management, then present a model that draws on strategic management, organizational theory, and strategic human resources management to characterize the nature and scope of the talent management approach in an organization. They also address the dynamics in managing talent, causes, and how organizations can deal with them, as well as the strengths and limitations of their model.

• 1.Introduction 2.Mapping the field: General description of the nature of empirical TM research 3.Mapping the field II: An overview of main topics studied in TM empirical research 4.Expanding the view towards an integrated approach 5.Understanding the dynamics in TM: from a static to a dynamic view 6.The integrated and dynamic TM model