Employability and talent

management: challenges for HRD

practices
Staffan Nilsson
Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training,
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
Canada, and HELIX VINN Excellence Centre,
Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linko ping University,
Linko ping, Sweden, and
Per-Erik Ellstrom
HELIX VINN Excellence Centre,
Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linko ping University,
Linko ping, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this conceptual paper is to illuminate the problems that are associated
with dening and identifying talent and to discuss the development of talent as a contributor to
employability.
Design/methodology/approach The world of work is characterised by new and rapidly
changing demands. Talent management has recently been the target of increasing interest and is
considered to be a method by which organisations can meet the demands that are associated with
increased complexity. Previous studies have often focused on the management of talent, but the issue
of what exactly should be managed has generally been neglected. In this paper, the authors focus on
discussing the substance of talent and the problems associated with identifying talent by using the
following closely related concepts: employability, knowledge, and competence.
Findings Employability is central to employee performance and organisational success. Individual
employability includes general meta-competence and context-bound competence that is related to a
specic profession and organisation. The concept of employability is wider than that of talent, but the
possession of talent is critical to being employable. In this paper, the authors suggest a model in which
talent includes individual, institutional, and organisational-social dimensions.
Practical implications The illumination of different meanings of talent management and the
substance of talent is crucial to the practical implication of central human resource development
practices, such as training and development.
Originality/value The paper shows that clarication of the conceptual boundaries and the
presentation of a typology that is relevant to the understanding of talent are central to the creation of
valid talent management systems that aim to dene and develop talent.
Keywords Competences, Human resource development, Employability, Employees development,
Talent, Talent management, Training and development
Paper type Conceptual paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/2046-9012.htm
This paper is written within the framework of a research project that was funded by the Swedish
Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS).
EJTD
36,1
26
Received 14 May 2011
Revised 15 August 2011
Accepted 16 September
2011
European Journal of Training and
Development
Vol. 36 No. 1, 2012
pp. 26-45
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
2046-9012
DOI 10.1108/03090591211192610
Introduction
The world of work has undergone changes in both the nature of work and the
emergence of new forms of work, which result from innovation, the development of
new knowledge, increased competition, and other factors (Brown et al., 2003; Sennett,
2006). Today, work life is characterised by complexity, unpredictability, and
insecurity. There has been a shift from a commodity-based economy to a
knowledge-based economy, in which an increasing proportion of organisational
assets are intangible. This knowledge-based economy is generating new structures
and new and continuously changing demands and challenges in the world of work
(Barnett, 2000; Brown et al., 2003; Sennett, 2006).
Today, a principal challenge is to remain current with changes and adapt to the
evolving needs of organisations. Learning is no longer solely associated with education
and is no longer viewed as a pre-career affair. There has been a shift fromjob security and
lifelong employment to lifelong learning, employability, and talent management. The
formalised career structures in the collective paternalistic paradigm of the 1950s and
1960s, in which employees could rely on other individuals for career development matters,
no longer exist. Career paths have become less predictable and more uid. There is an
increased focus on self-reliance and individual agency; ambitious, hardworking, and
fast-tracking knowledge workers seek constant challenges and personal development in
virtually boundary-free careers (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Dellippi and Arthur, 1994).
The labour market is characterised by outsourcing, increasing mobility, and declining
job security and organisational commitment. From an organisational perspective, these
characteristics lead to new challenges in securing the long-term provision of labour.
General organisational success is increasingly associated with identifying, recruiting,
managing, and retaining high performers or talented individuals to meet the present and
future demands of an organisation. The demand and competition for highly skilled
labour is intensifying on a global level (Florida, 2005; Frank and Taylor, 2004).
It has become clear that the most important organisational asset, especially in
knowledge-intensive organisations, is the people; the future competitiveness and
prosperity of an organisation depend on its employees. Therefore, the human resource
department has assumed a central role and is increasingly becoming a strategic business
partner in organisations (Alvesson and Karreman, 2007; Barney and Wright, 1998; Ulrich,
1998). Human resource management (HRM) and human resource development (HRD)
practices, such as the recruitment, training, and development of employees, are considered
to be increasingly important for the success of organisations (Collings and Mellahi, 2009;
Horwitz et al., 2003; Spence and Petrick, 2000). Consequently, HRM/HRDprofessionals are
searching for conceptual frameworks to improve the effectiveness of their practices.
Talent management has recently been the target of increasing interest in the world
of work and has appeared more frequently in the academic literature. For example, the
consulting agency PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) recently published their 14th
Annual Global CEO Survey, which states that a majority of CEOs (66 per cent) are
fearful that a shortage of talent may impede the growth of their companies. Talent
management meets the demands that are associated with increased complexity and
uncertainty. To achieve sustainable success, an organisation should align these
processes with its business strategies. However, talent management is often ill-dened,
and the substance of talent has generally not been identied or discussed signicantly
in previous research (Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Lewis and Heckman, 2006).
In the previous literature, considerable effort has been devoted to discussing the
management of talent, but the topic of what exactly should be managed or what
Employability
and talent
management
27
constitutes talent has generally been neglected (Brown and Tannock, 2009). The
management of talent necessitates the denition and identication of the talent that is
sought. This clarication is crucial in the practical application of central HRD
practices, such as training and development.
Therefore, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to illuminate the problems that
are associated with dening and identifying talent and to discuss the development of
talent as a contributor to employability. Specically, the intention of this paper is to
illuminate the conceptual boundaries of talent management and to develop a typology
that can assist practitioners in creating practices that aim to dene, identify, recruit,
and develop talent. This paper explores the central concepts of talent management,
employability, knowledge, competence, and talent.
The concept on talent management
Talent management has become a central component of corporate human resource
strategies and has recently gained increasing interest in the area of HRM/HRD
research (Berger and Berger, 2003; Burbach and Royle, 2010; Capelli, 2008).
Talent management is not a new concept (see, e.g. Patton, 1967), but talent
management research is scarce (Burbach and Royle, 2010, Collings and Mellahi, 2009).
The increasing focus on talent has spread from knowledge-intensive organisations to
wider segments in the labour market. Since 1997, when the consultancy rm McKinsey
suggested that the global war for talent is becoming a critical driving force in corporate
competitiveness and performance, the notion of talent management has become
increasingly popular (Axelrod et al., 2002; Michaels et al., 2001). However, there is no
consensus regarding the denition of talent, and there are no clear conceptual
boundaries of talent management (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). In the literature, the
concept of talent management is generally ill-dened or is dened inconsistently in
terms of outcomes, processes, or decision alternatives. The concept of talent
management appears to vary widely in the world of work, but this concept is still not a
well-dened area of practice that is constructed on the basis of a set of core principles
(Lewis and Heckman, 2006).
Generally, the notion of talent management appears to be closely related to concepts
that include human resource planning, strategic human resource management, and
employability (Brown and Hesketh, 2004; Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Lewis and
Heckman, 2006).
Perspectives on talent management
In a review of the practitioner-oriented literature pertaining to talent management,
Lewis and Heckman (2006) identied three types of conceptualisations of talent
management:
(1) a collection of typical human resource department practices or functions;
(2) talent pools or ows of employees into jobs in an organisation; or
(3) a generic perspective on talent that focuses on either high-performing and
high-potential employees or talent in general.
According to the rst perspective, talent management is associated with a set of typical
HRM/HRD practices or functions, such as recruitment, training, and development
(Heinen and ONeill, 2004). For instance, Creelman (2004) has dened talent management
as the process of attracting, recruiting, and retaining talented employees. This
EJTD
36,1
28
understanding of talent management is closely related to traditional denitions of
HRM/HRD. For example, Cascio (1998) has dened HRM as attracting, selecting,
retaining, developing, and using human resources to achieve individual and
organisational objectives. However, talent management continues to be perceived as
substantially different from traditional HRM and does not merely consist of assigning
new labels to old ideas. Talent management is associated with activities that include
incorporating newknowledge and doing things more quickly and efciently (Chuai et al.,
2008). From this perspective, talent management has also been associated with a shift
from the department-specic focus of HRM activities to an organisation-wide
engagement at all levels in terms of recruiting, retaining, and developing talent. The
HR department, line managers, and senior management team of an organisation are all
engaged in talent management processes. Talent management is also considered to be a
way by which HR professionals can achieve credibility and recognition or enhance their
legitimacy and status both within and outside of an organisation. Talent management is
considered to be an important way of ensuring that HRM becomes a central component
of a businesss strategy and is integrated into the everyday processes throughout an
organisation, from the practices of the HR department and line managers to those of
senior management (Chuai et al., 2008; Lewis and Heckman, 2006).
The second perspective on talent management, which Lewis and Heckman (2006)
derived from the previous literature, is associated with a focus on talent pools and
processes that are designed to secure the supply of employees in different parts of an
organisation in relation to specic jobs and tasks. This perspective is related to human
resource planning or workforce planning and development ( Jackson and Schuler, 1990;
Rothwell, 2010). The focus of this notion of talent management is on the anticipation of
future organisational employee or stafng needs, career advancement, and internal
workforce matters (Schweyer, 2004). From this perspective, it is important to identify
the specic needs in an organisation by, for example, constructing needs assessments
and conducting detailed job and talent gap analyses as foundations for training and
development.
According to the third perspective, talent management is regarded generically and is
not associated with specic positions or organisations (e.g. Becker and Huselid, 2006;
Tarique and Schuler, 2010). Two different views of talent management are encompassed
by this perspective. First, talent is primarily associated with individuals who
demonstrate high potential or high performance and are sought, recruited, and
differentially rewarded without regard to their specic roles in an organisation. From
this perspective, talent management is associated with differentiation and a focus on
elitism rather than egalitarianism. The process of securing, developing, and managing
the most talented employees is generally associated with gaining a competitive
advantage (Brown and Tannock, 2009). Organisational success is increasingly attributed
to the outstanding performance of a few select employees, and the differential value
created by the most talented employees is considered to be signicant (Axelrod et al.,
2002; Cheese et al., 2008; Heinen and ONeill, 2004; Michaels et al., 2001). Talent is
regarded as being contextually independent and as a resource, and employees are
classied and rewarded according to their general performance levels rather than
according to specic jobs. Second, generic talent can be viewed as an undifferentiated
good and can be regarded as the potential of all employees, who are to be managed and
guided to achieve high performance levels by the human resource function in an
organisation. Talent management is regarded as a mind-set or a way of thinking that is
Employability
and talent
management
29
associated with ensuring that all employees perform to the best of their potential
(Buckingham and Vosburgh, 2001; Walker and Larocco, 2002).
Some authors have attempted to take a broader approach, which incorporates
various aspects of the perspectives described above. Collings and Mellahi (2009) have
suggested a fourth perspective, in which talent management is associated with
identifying key positions in an organisation rather than the notion in which individuals
are central to an organisations sustainable competitive advantage (Boudreau and
Ramstad, 2005; Huselid et al., 2005). It is not considered to be desirable but rather is
considered to be an over-investment if all of the positions in an organisation are held by
high performers. Even if this perspective entails a shift in focus, the key positions that
have been identied should be lled from a talent pool of individuals with high
potential and high performing potential. Nevertheless, it is not clear what constitutes
the potential for high performance or how this characteristic should be recognised. The
question of how to dene, identify, develop, and manage talent remains unanswered
(Brown and Tannock, 2009).
Problems in developing a denition of talent management
Neither of these perspectives on talent management yields much new insight into what
talent is or how it should be strategically and effectively managed; thus, the practical
usefulness of talent management is limited. The previous literature on talent
management has done little to advance such theories or practices in the eld of
HRM/HRD (Lewis and Heckman, 2006). In fact, it is difcult to nd an agreed-upon
denition or delimitation of talent management.
Nevertheless, the concept of talent management is often used to emphasise the
strategic importance of strong human resource practices in organisations. Most of the
literature on talent management contains the central notion that talent management is
associated with different human resource department practices, such as the strategic
recruitment, retention, development, and training of talented high-performing or
high-potential employees. The allocation of the appropriately selected person to the
appropriate position and the development and training of the relevant competence
based on strategic business objectives is associated with higher productivity and a
competitive advantage and is regarded as crucial to an organisations success (Collings
and Mellahi, 2009; Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Tarique and Schuler, 2010).
Human resource practices have been linked to organisational performance (Becker
and Huselid, 2006; Guthrie, 2001; Huselid, 1995). However, it is not clear whether the
value of strong HR practices is outcome-related or related to process issues or whether
these practices are primarily symbolic in nature (Wright et al., 2005). For example, the
outcomes of many HRD processes are seldom formally evaluated as a result of
problems related to measurement and evaluation. Previous research has primarily
utilised cross-sectional designs, and causal relationships have not been satisfactorily
illuminated. It is unclear whether HRM/HRD practices contribute to organisational
outcomes or whether organisational success leads to increased investments in
strengthening HRM/HRD practices (Gerhart, 2005).
The meaning of talent is generally assumed but not explicitly dened. Frequently,
talent is used synonymously with people (Lewis and Heckman, 2006) or assets, such as
individual knowledge, skills, attitudes, or competence. However, to discuss the concept
of talent in greater detail, researchers must establish a typology that can assist in
explicating the concept of talent with substantive content.
EJTD
36,1
30
To determine the focal point of talent management, it is important to discuss the
meaning of talent. For example, it is unclear whether and to what extent talent should
be considered to be linked to individuals, the requirements of specic jobs and
organisations, or processes that are related to the relationship between these
components. Talent can be associated with varying degrees of value and difculty in
terms of replacement in a specic organisation (Stewart, 1997). Talent may be
associated with inherited predispositions, or talent may be acquired and developed
through learning and educational activities. Talent may be specic and context-bound
(i.e. linked to the specic context of an organisation or a job). Talent may be relative,
and what is considered talent in one context, job or organisation may not be considered
to be talent in another setting. Strategies, practices, and methods that add value in one
organisation may not contribute value in other organisations (Heinen and ONeill,
2004). Talent may also be generic or universal; that is, it may be relevant in a wide
array of situations and contexts (Lewis and Heckman, 2006). Although talent is
increasingly being addressed in the literature, further research must be based on a
solid foundation to advance the discussion on talent management. It is important to
attempt to nalise the basic concepts to establish an accepted denition of talent and
its conceptual boundaries (Lewis and Heckman, 2006).
Organisations seek talented and employable workers. In training and development
activities, the individual talent of employees is enhanced, and their employability is
increased. Talent and employability are overlapping concepts. Talented individuals
are generally employable individuals. However, employability does not merely involve
talent. Being talented may be necessary for being employable, but talent is not
sufcient. Employability is associated with other aspects in addition to talent; thus,
this factor complicates an organisations search for and development and training of
talented employees.
On the meaning of employability
Closely related to the notion of talent, employability is a concept that has become
increasingly prominent in both national and international policy debates and has
appeared more frequently in various disciplines in the scientic literature during the
last 20 years (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). The notion of employability has become a
foundation of labour market policies and higher education and employment strategies
in Europe and North America (e.g. see the European Commission, 2010; ILO, 2000;
OECD, 1998). Governments and companies are pursuing and supporting the
development of employability in the workforce in several countries, including Sweden
(SNAHE, 2004) and Canada (CBOC, 2000). The concept of employability has largely
been framed by the perspective of policy makers and employers, who focus on the
supply aspect of competence in the labour market (McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005).
The earliest denitions of employability tended to be dichotomous. People were
considered to be either employable or unemployable. Therefore, a person who was able
and willing to work in a regular manner was considered to be employable. From these
early days of the twentieth century, different denitions of employability can be traced
to the present and reect changes in the market and the demands of the workforce
(Knight and Yorke, 2004; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005).
From the initially narrow understandings of employability, the denitions of this
concept have expanded over time. Employability has often been regarded as a set of
competences and characteristics that are identied as important for meeting shifting
Employability
and talent
management
31
demands in a rapidly changing and dynamic competitive market (Forrier and Sels, 2003;
Knight and Yorke, 2004). This conceptualisation is also closely associated with the ways
in which talent is often portrayed (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). Today, employability is
commonly considered to incorporate both factors that relate to an individuals preparation
for work and his or her ability to successfully manage a job and factors that relate to the
potential for mobility between different social practices and an individuals capability of
transitioning from education or unemployment to a job or from one job to another
(McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005). It is possible to distinguish between factors that relate to
preparation for work and the capability of successfully managing a job and factors that
are relevant to becoming employed and re-employed and to advancing within a career.
First, employability includes an individuals assets in terms of, for example, competence
(including knowledge, skills, attitudes and personal characteristics), which can be
associated with human capital and talent. Second, employability also entails social capital
and formal qualications and the way in which an individuals resources are marketed to
employers and may not necessarily be associated with talent (Hillage and Pollard, 1998;
Knight and Yorke, 2004; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005).
A central aspect of being employable is the ability to obtain a job. One aspect of this
ability is an individuals formal and actual capabilities of successfully performing the
tasks of a job. However, another central aspect of employability, especially in areas
with erce competition for jobs, is an individuals formal credentials and ability to
negotiate, to market oneself, and to accentuate the appropriate forms of competence to
a recruiter. An employee essentially sells himself or herself to an employer. In this
situation, the employer becomes the customer, and an employees potential to complete
the necessary work is the product (Knight and Yorke, 2004).
The notion of employability entails more than an individuals ability and does not
simply involve the process of matching an individuals assets to the demands of an
employer. Employability is a complex, relational, and multidimensional concept
(Clarke, 2008; Clarke and Patrickson, 2008; Moreau and Leathwood, 2006).
Employability depends on context and is likely to vary between different
professions and organisations. Employability cannot be understood only in terms of
the competence or talent of individuals. Employability is also related to occupational
structures and the demand and supply of skilled workers in the labour market (Brown
and Hesketh, 2004). However, formal credentials and degrees are generally considered
to be central to individual employability. In addition, an individuals social networks,
references and previous work experience have been shown to be increasingly
important for the hiring decisions of employers and labour market outcomes (Marsden
and Gorman, 2001; Mencken and Wineld, 1998).
Employability and formal learning
The principal means of developing or rening talent to secure a supply of highly skilled
labour in a knowledge-driven economy has often been considered to be through formal
learning and education. There is commonly assumed to be a linear relationship between
education and productivity or between learning and earning. The dominant discourse is
characterised by a relatively narrow and market-based concept of education,
competence, employability, and talent (Brown and Tannock, 2009; Moreau and
Leathwood, 2006; Tannock, 2009). Organisational HRM/HRD practices and labour
market and education policies are characterised by a functionalistic perspective based on
the concept of human capital (Becker, 1964; Schultz, 1961). From this instrumental,
EJTD
36,1
32
technical, and rational view, education is primarily regarded as an investment in
individual employability that is assumed to proportionally increase the productive
capacity and income of individuals. However, based on this perspective, little emphasis
is given to the substance of learning. A formal degree is often regarded as a proxy for an
individuals knowledge and skills or for his or her productive capability. In the literature,
there have been numerous studies critiquing human capital theory over the last half
century, and some studies have shown that the assumed benets of investments in
education are limited or questionable from a productivity perspective and that such
benets rather lead to the reproduction of inequalities in society. More recently,
advocates for the market-based view have also increasingly questioned the human
capital hypothesis (Arrow, 1973; Collins, 1979; Harvey, 2005; Meyer and Rowan, 1977;
Tannock, 2009; Gaskell and Rubenson, 2004; Hesketh, 2000; Murphy, 1993). The demand
for talent appears to be related to the supply of talent. The educational level of
individuals is constantly increasing, but this trend is not considered to be sufcient to
alleviate the scarcity of top talent. As the competence of higher education graduates
increases, the demands for talent increase proportionally (Heidrick & Struggles, 2007).
The relationship between the content that is learned in formal education and the
demands of the world of work is complex. Investments in formal learning increase the
employability of graduates, but it is unclear as to whether such investments actually
increase the productive capabilities and competence of graduates. Formal learning
may not always be capable of directly preparing students for work ( Jrgensen, 2004;
Nilsson, 2010a). Talent is closely related to an individuals actual capabilities of
performing a job (i.e. an individuals competence). Therefore, to further discuss the
substance of talent, it is important to consider the meaning of the concepts of learning,
knowledge, skills, and competence.
On the meaning of learning and knowledge
Different aspects of knowledge and competence are at least implicitly central to most
conceptualisations of employability and talent and are fundamental for central HRD
activities, such as training and development. Discussions pertaining to the substance
of talent may be aided by the development of a typology of knowledge and competence.
The ways in which these concepts are dened and used are closely related to the ways
in which learning is understood.
Principally, learning is often understood from either a cognitive perspective or a
contextual perspective (Anderson et al., 2000; Illeris, 2007). From a cognitive perspective
of learning, knowledge is internalised by an individual and can thereafter be transferred
and applied in another context. Consequently, learning is primarily associated with
formal education and instruction. From a contextual perspective, learning is associated
with the social and cultural context in which the knowledge is embedded. Learning is an
informal social process that is experience-based and associated with active engagement
in a community. However, both of these perspectives are limited and should not
necessarily be viewed as mutually exclusive; rather, these perspectives should be viewed
as complementary. Theoretical knowledge is not always easily transferred into practice,
and situated experiential learning may be context-bound and may have limited relevance
in other contexts (Anderson et al., 2000; Illeris, 2007).
The substantive content of knowledge, the what aspect, is often neglected. In many
studies, knowledge has become an empty, positively normative concept that is devoid of
substance or a voice (Young, 2009), especially in discussions of talent management and
Employability
and talent
management
33
in the technical rational perspective that dominates the employability debate and labour
market and educational policies in Europe and North America. There is often a call for
increased learning and formal education and training, but less emphasis is generally
placed on howand what knowledge is actually learned in different contexts and howthis
knowledge is related to the demands of the labour market.
Knowledge has a theoretical component and a practical component. The theoretical
component can also be referred to as declarative, propositional or codied knowledge
(i.e. explicit book knowledge that can be taught in an educational program) (Eraut,
2004). This involves knowledge about an object that is separate from the subject and is
referred to as knowing that. In contrast, practical knowledge or know-how is
associated with experience, is implicit or expressed only in practice, and is thus
inseparable from actions (Ryle, 1963). This type of knowledge cannot be codied,
explicitly formalised, managed, communicated or taught in a traditional formal
education setting (Eraut, 2004). The development and management of knowledge in an
organisation involves more than the simple storage and transfer of information. Some
knowledge, including factual information and explicit knowledge, can be transferred
relatively easily to other people through, for example, formal education or by codifying
and recording the information into databases or knowledge repositories that are
accessible to other employees in an organisation (Haesli and Boxall, 2005). However,
some of the critical knowledge in an organisation can be implicit and personal.
Turnover becomes costly if knowledge is linked with certain employees or is embedded
in an organisational culture through routines and ways of doing things.
A denition of competence
In this paper, competence is regarded as a central aspect of employability and talent
and is used as a wide concept that transcends practical and theoretical knowledge.
Competence entails both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects, including knowledge,
functional competence, values, motivational factors, personality traits, and behavioural
competence and includes an affective component (Cheetham and Chivers, 1996; 1998;
Ellstrom, 1997). Some forms of competence are easily mastered, whereas other types of
competence are more complex or tacit. Competence can be general and transferable, or
it can be specic and context-bound (e.g. related to a specic workplace). The
competence concept includes both conceptual competence, such as knowledge,
understanding, and transcending meta-competence (e.g. learning to learn), and
operational competence, such as functional applied skills and social competence
(e.g. behaviours and attitudes) (Delamare Le Deist and Winterton, 2005). In this paper,
competence is dened as an individuals actual capacity that is used in practice in
relation to a certain task, whereas formal competence (i.e. credentials or qualications)
is regarded as an inexact proxy of an individuals actual competence (Ellstrom, 1997).
We propose that competence has three separate but related analytical dimensions:
the individual, institutional, and organisational-social dimensions. The individual
dimension is related to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that an individual can be
considered to possess. However, the degree to which an individual is considered to be
competent in relation to a certain task (or class of tasks) is contextually dened.
Specically, this degree of competence is dened in terms of different demands,
expectations or rules (criteria) that dictate what should be considered to be acceptable,
skilled, or excellent ways of handling an assignment or a task. These criteria are
rooted at the institutional level and/or at the organisational-social level. The
EJTD
36,1
34
organisational-social dimension includes demands related to organisational and
technical requirements and social norms within communities of practice. An individual
is assumed to acquire these criteria (with varying degrees of success) through
processes of learning, such as formal schooling, informal processes of socialisation in
the workplace and processes in society (e.g. through media or other people).
On the meaning of talent
Talent is generally used as a euphemism for people and is often narrowly dened in
economic terms, such as human capital, assets, or market value, which are related to
formal credentials (Brown and Tannock, 2009). Researchers and practitioners of talent
management sometimes refer to talent in a wider sense. Nevertheless, although there is
no consensus on the meaning of talent, the term generally refers to people who
contribute to organisational performance or may refer to the performance of such
individuals (Tansley et al., 2007; Lewis and Heckman, 2006). However, the substance of
talent is generally absent in the models that describe talent management. Nevertheless,
the management of people involves managing individual competences, and recruiting
talented people involves recruiting people with a certain degree or type of competence.
It is important to consider the substance of talent to provide tools that are useful for the
construction of methods that are central to the practical implementation of talent
management strategies.
Talent can be associated with high performers in a general sense or linked to an
individual or how well an individual can potentially perform or actually performs in
general or in relation to a specic job. Talent can be regarded as being exclusive to a
few high-performing individuals or can be viewed as a quality that all employees
possess to some extent and that can be developed and managed through general
strategies (Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Lewis and Heckman, 2006).
Some talent may be dynamic or related to generic meta-competence, such as
managerial or interpersonal competence. Other talent may be related to hard technical
or operational competence that is associated with a specic job, organisation, or type of
industry or associated with the nature of the work (Tansley et al., 2007). An individual
may be regarded as being talented or as a high performer in relation to one task but not
in relation to another task.
There are those who argue that some aspects of talent elude description (Michaels
et al., 2001). However, for HRD and talent management, it is necessary to create an
operational denition to be able to identify what should be sought. In the absence of
such a denition, HRD practices become ad hoc, and decisions may be based on a weak
foundation and may not benet the strategic interest of an organisation. The
establishment of a delimitation of the conceptual boundaries of talent is also relevant to
reforms in labour market and education policies (Brown and Tannock, 2009).
However, specifying and dening talent is not sufcient. It is important to ensure
that the systems and practices that are constructed to attract and develop talent are
valid in reaching their aims. Identifying, developing, and training high-performing,
competent, employable, and talented employees are complex processes, in which the
HRD practices in an organisation are central.
Demands of the labour market
Numerous studies have examined the demands of the market and the types of talent
that are needed in the workplace according to both employers and employees (de la
Employability
and talent
management
35
Harpe et al., 2000; Hesketh, 2000; Knight and Yorke, 2004; Pool and Sewell, 2007;
Williams, 2005). Employer demands vary across different sectors, branches and types
of business and for different types of positions or jobs within an organisation (Harvey,
2005). Although there is no xed, universal common set of competences or talent, some
employer demands have been repeatedly noted in previous studies (see, e.g. de la Harpe
et al., 2000).
Many organisations have downsized and outsourced functions. Organisational
structures have attened with the adaptation of process-oriented project and network
management. Work life has become more complex and dynamic and less secure as
careers are increasingly viewed as a series of projects. Developments in the workplace
that are driven by, for example, technological change have led to changes in the nature
of the demands of work and changes in what is regarded as talent. Today, workers
must develop and be ready to deploy a wider range of competence than was required in
the past (Tomlinson, 2008).
The changing work environment has also led to changing organisational demands.
There has been a shift from a focus on strong technical commercial skills towards a
focus on generic meta-competence or a shift from know-how to learn-how (Eraut, 2004).
In general, highly specialised technical competence often becomes outdated rapidly
and is therefore deemed to be less relevant. Rather, jobs are learned in the workplace,
and employees must continuously invest in learning and development activities
( Jrgensen, 2004; Nilsson, 2010b). Today, specialised skills are not sufcient, and being
employable is often associated with being a generally knowledgeable or educated
person who can easily learn the specics that are needed when they are needed. With
increasing demands of productivity and protability, the margins for error have
decreased. Risk taking is discouraged, and mistakes are not tolerated.
Employers seek self-reliant, exible, adaptable and mobile entrepreneurs who are
also creative and innovative. However, employees are increasingly required to rely on
other people as they work, and it is important that employees are capable of
collaborating and working in teams and that they possess leadership and negotiating
skills (de la Harpe et al., 2000; Harvey, 2005). Moreover, employers expect their
employees to be hard-working, dedicated and loyal. Good performance entails
handling the tasks of a job and is associated with a moral dimension, which includes
adherence to regulations and norms that are necessary to t into an organisation,
including culture and values and the ability to decode different contexts. Increased
access to information and the rapid development of new knowledge have led to the
increased importance of information-handling competence (i.e. the ability to learn,
collect, and sort information) (Nilsson, 2010a; 2010b). There are repeated transitions
from novice to expert and from expert to novice as professionals launch into new
projects and must become oriented with new areas and learn new skills. It is also
important to possess vision and planning skills and to be able to establish overviews,
and knowledge workers must possess a basic understanding of a wider array of
functions and tasks in an organisation and be able to engage in multi-disciplinary
approaches. Therefore, the focus on sought-after talent seems to have shifted from
specialist competence to general competence (Hesketh, 2000; Hiltrop, 1998; Nilsson,
2010a; b).
Employers seek self-reliant, independent, creative, and innovative entrepreneurs
with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work with others. In addition,
employees are expected to be exible and capable of rapidly orienting themselves to
new contexts and to learn what is needed when it is needed (de la Harpe et al., 2000;
EJTD
36,1
36
Harvey, 2005). However, such highly skilled and talented employees are also highly
mobile free agents. Therefore, their sense of identity may become more closely linked
to a profession or function rather than to specic organisations; thus, such employees
frequently change jobs (Hiltrop, 1998; Nilsson, 2010a). Increased organisational
investments in individual employability and in rening talent have been considered to
be tools with which an organisation can increase its competitive advantage; however,
these investments are associated with a decrease in organisational commitment and an
increased risk of turnover. This situation has been referred to as the management
paradox (De Cuyper and De Witte, 2011; Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden, 2006).
Challenges for HRD
Constantly new and changing demands in the world of work create problems for HRD
professionals attempting to identify and develop relevant talent. In a
knowledge-intensive labour market, it is increasingly difcult to assess the
competence of individuals in relation to the requirements of specic jobs. The process
of developing and training individuals to secure a long-term competence supply in an
organisation is complex. The identication and development of talent are generally
based on a technical rational perspective that is derived from labour economics, which
commonly include concepts such as predictive accuracy, validity, and reliability. HRD
practices are developed and applied with the aim of objectively identifying
organisational needs by detailing taxonomies of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes
that are necessary for each job (Lockyer and Scholarios, 2007; Soderquist et al., 2010).
However, individuals are not static bearers of competence as proposed in the
traditional task-based human capital approach (Soderquist et al., 2010). Moreover, the
competence that is actually required by a job is often difcult to identify, dene, and
match to the competence of the appropriate individual. Jobs are constructed for,
adapted to, and shaped by employees (Baker, 2009).
Two main perspectives that are represented in the literature describe how HRD
practices should be congured and implemented (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). The
best-practice approach is associated with a set of universal HR practices that, if
employed correctly, will ensure organisational competitiveness regardless of the
organisational context (Pfeffer, 1998). In the best-t approach, the internal and external
contexts of an organisation in which the HR practices operate are considered.
Organisations are encouraged to align their HR processes with their overall strategies
and consider contextual factors when designing and implementing their HRD practices
(Boxall and Purcell, 2008; Wood, 1999).
Traditionally, HRD has focused on dening organisations on the basis of job
structures and identifying and securing the competence that is required for successful
performance in each specic position. Consequently, human resource departments
organise their work around the tasks of identifying, assessing, and analysing sets of
job-related tasks and the demands that are required to perform these tasks. However,
competitive advantages are increasingly associated with exibility and change rather
than predened task-related sets of competences, as was common in traditional HRD
approaches (Soderquist et al., 2010). Therefore, there has been a transition from a
task-based approach to HRD to a competence-based approach, which is described as a
shift from a focus on jobs to a focus on individuals and their competence. Central
components of the new HRD models include a focus on a long-term dynamic
organisational t rather than a short-term task-based match and a focus on personal
Employability
and talent
management
37
characteristics and behavioural traits rather than technical skills alone (Clardy, 2007).
When attempting to achieve a long-term organisational t, HRD departments must
consider contextual factors in addition to individual factors.
The effectiveness of organisational HRD practices in nding, training, and
managing talent is unclear. In general, the process of developing and training relevant
talent is becoming more complicated. Generic competences, personal characteristics,
and individual attributes are more difcult to objectively dene, assess, and improve in
the context of organisational demands than hard technical competences, which are
usually measured through formal credentials that are assumed to predict future job
performance (Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden, 2006).
HRD processes also constitute ways to organise, change, and control structures and
roles within an organisation (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Scott, 1992). A workforce is
constructed and shaped through the processes that create and distribute shared
meanings of an organisational culture and its identity, needs, and values. What
employees are supposed to know, how they are expected to act, and how others in the
organisation are expected to act towards them are dened and strengthened through
HRD processes (Alvesson and Karreman, 2007). HRD practices occur within an
organisational context of intra- and inter-departmental conicts regarding resources
and power within the corporate hierarchy. Previous research has also found that HRD
processes can be unsystematic, ad hoc, and used as symbolic way to legitimise
recruitment, career management, training, and development decisions (Alvesson and
Karreman, 2007). From an institutional or symbolic perspective, HRD processes are
used as a method for creating an image of rationality as a foundation for legitimacy
and status (Alvesson and Karreman, 2007; Iles et al., 2010).
Organisations encounter considerable challenges in identifying and developing the
actual talent of an individual relevant to the actual demands of the work. The ofcially
demanded requirements of a job are often linked to the formal credentials of an
individual or their qualications. However, the actual requirements and needs of an
organisation may be loosely linked to formal requirements and to the competence and
qualications of the employees. In other words, there may be a discrepancy between
theory and practice (Nilsson, 2010a). It is inconsequential if a model or practice is
formally outlined, described, and validated if it is not fully adopted and implemented in
the process of identifying and developing talent (Lockyer and Scholarios, 2007).
Individual, institutional, and organisational-social dimensions of talent
There has been a shift in focus in the central components of successful employee
performance, from formal technical vocational competence towards dening
employability in terms of the potential of individuals to deploy broader behavioural
and performative competence, personality, personal characteristics, and soft
competence (Brown and Hesketh, 2004, Nilsson, 2010b; Tomlinson, 2008). The
concept of employability is wider than that of talent, but talent is a central component
of employability. Today, talent is associated with general and contextually relevant
competence as a foundation for successful employee performance and organisational
competitiveness (Brown and Tannock, 2009). Talent includes knowledge, skills, and
attitudes. Talent can refer to generic meta-competence, such as the ability to learn and
the potential for development, or context-bound specialist competence, which is related
to a specic profession or organisation (Tansley et al., 2007). Hence, an employee can be
more talented or less talented in relation to a task. Moreover, an employee may be
EJTD
36,1
38
considered to be talented in relation to one task but not necessarily in relation to
another task.
We suggest that talent essentially includes the competence that is central to
individual employability. Consistent with our denition of competence as presented
above, we propose a denition of talent that has three distinctly different dimensions: an
individual dimension, an institutional dimension, and an organisational-social dimension
(Figure 1). An individual can possess talent. However, the extent to which an individual
is considered to be talented in a certain context or in relation to a specic task or
organisation is contextually dened. Talent is related to factors that include the different
demands, expectations, rules, or standards in an organisation that determine the
appropriate ways of handling a task or solving a problem. The criteria that dene what
is considered central to talent in an organisation are dened at the institutional level
and/or at the organisational-social level, which is related to organisational and technical
requirements and social norms within different communities of practice. In addition, a
central requirement of being talented is the ability to learn and adapt to these criteria
through formal schooling, professional training and development, informal learning at
work, or socialisation processes in the workplace and in society at large.
However, contradictions or inconsistencies between different criteria may exist, for
example, between institutional and organisational criteria or between organisational
and more informal social criteria. In general terms, institutional criteria are likely to
emerge as a result of long-term processes of professionalisation in a certain eld or
interaction with the formal educational system, whereas organisational and social
criteria are more closely linked to changing conditions and demands in the production
system or in the social relations, culture, or climate of a workplace. Although these
three dimensions are closely related both conceptually and empirically, it is important
to separate themin research on competence and human resource development and with
respect to practical implications for HRD practices, such as training and development.
Conclusions and practical implications
The process of identifying, securing, developing, and managing relevant talent is
important in meeting the long-term strategic needs of an organisation and for
short-term productivity. An increased understanding of how to adapt and develop
valid training and development practices is highly relevant in creating a foundation for
organisational success, as inappropriate decisions may have severe consequences and
Figure 1.
Three dimensions of
talent: an individual
dimension, an
organisational-social
dimension, and an
institutional dimension
Employability
and talent
management
39
may be associated with considerable strategic and nancial costs. Hence, organisations
should design individual HRD strategy programmes of talent management with
regard to the talent of their employees and the specic prognosticated future demands
of the jobs and their organisations. Training and developing talent includes career
management practices in which individual and organisational needs are strategically
aligned, including dening performance targets, supporting learning initiatives, and
ensuring feedback from line management. Moreover, an organisation must promote
enabling learning environments that are supported by policies and the ways in which
work is organised (Kock and Ellstrom, 2011).
Organisations must develop systems and practices that promote the type of talent
that is increasingly demanded. This development requires analyses of the existing
supply and demand of talent in an organisation. The three dimensions of talent that are
proposed in this paper could provide some direction regarding such analyses of
training and development needs. Human resource departments have an important task
as strategic partners in nding, managing, and developing talent and in ensuring that
individual and organisational objectives are aligned.
Talent seems to be associated with employability competence, such as generic
behavioural meta-competence and personal characteristics that are more difcult to
identify than hard technical qualications. This conceptualisation has contributed to a
shifting focus in HRD practices towards, for example, behavioural questions in
recruitment and performance interviews (rather than hypothetical questions), internship
programmes, trainee positions, and the establishment of appropriate communication with
professionals and line managers. Moreover, the increased individualisation of
responsibility for career planning and self-reliance in terms of development and
employability investments seems to have led HRDsystems to focus on on-the-job training
and development programs and promoting workplace learning and individual graduate
development (e.g. career planning, coaching, mentoring, and job-related learning).
References
Alvesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2007), Unraveling HRM: identity, ceremony, and control in a
management consulting rm, Organization Science, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 711-23.
Anderson, J.R., Greeno, J.G., Reder, L.M. and Simon, H.A. (2000), Perspectives on learning,
thinking, and activity, Educational Researcher, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 11-13.
Arrow, K.J. (1973), Higher education as a lter, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 2 No. 3,
pp. 193-216.
Axelrod, B., Handeld-Jones, H. and Michaels, E. (2002), A new game plan for C players,
Harvard Business Review, Vol. 80 No. 1, pp. 80-8.
Baker, D.P. (2009), The educational transformation of work: towards a new synthesis, Journal
of Education and Work, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 163-91.
Barnett, R. (2000), Supercomplexity and the curriculum, Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 25
No. 3, pp. 255-65.
Barney, J.B. and Wright, P.M. (1998), On becoming a strategic partner: the role of human
resources in gaining competitive advantage, Human Resource Management, Vol. 37 No. 1,
pp. 31-46.
Becker, B.E. and Huselid, M.A. (2006), Strategic human resource management: where do we go
from here?, Journal of Management, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 898-925.
EJTD
36,1
40
Becker, G.S. (1964), Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis with Special Reference to Education,
Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Berger, L.A. and Berger, D.R. (2003), The Talent Management Handbook: Creating
Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing and Promoting Your Best People,
McGraw-Hill Professional, New York, NY.
Boudreau, J.W. and Ramstad, P.M. (2005), Talentship, talent segmentation, and sustainability:
a new HR decision science paradigm for a new strategy denition, Human Resource
Management, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 129-36.
Boxall, P. and Purcell, J. (2008), Strategy and Human Resource Management, Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Brown, P. and Hesketh, A. (2004), The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the
Knowledge Economy, Oxford University Press, Kings Lynn.
Brown, P. and Tannock, S. (2009), Education, meritocracy and the global war for talent, Journal
of Education Policy, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 377-92.
Brown, P., Hesketh, A. and Williams, S. (2003), Employability in a knowledge-driven economy,
Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 107-26.
Buckingham, M. and Vosburgh, R.M. (2001), The 21st century human resources function: its the
talent, stupid!, Human Resource Planning, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 17-23.
Burbach, R. and Royle, T. (2010), Talent on demand? Talent management in the German and
Irish subsidiaries of a US multinational corporation, Personnel Review, Vol. 39 No. 4,
pp. 414-31.
Capelli, P. (2008), Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, Harvard
Business Press, Boston, MA.
Cascio, W. (1998), Applied Psychology in Human Resource Management, Prentice Hall, New York,
NY.
CBOC (Conference Board of Canada) (2000), Employability Skills 2000, Conference Board of
Canada, Ottawa.
Cheese, P., Thomas, R.J. and Craig, E. (2008), The Talent Power Organization: Strategies for
Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance, Kogan Page, Philadelphia, PA.
Cheetham, G. and Chivers, G. (1996), Towards a holistic model of professional competence,
Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 20 No. 5, pp. 20-30.
Cheetham, G. and Chivers, G. (1998), The reective (and competent) practitioner: a model of
professional competence which seeks to harmonise the reective practitioner and
competence-based approaches, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 22 No. 7,
pp. 267-76.
Chuai, X., Preece, D. and Iles, P. (2008), Is talent management just old wine in new bottles?
The case of multinational companies in Beijing, Management Research News, Vol. 31
No. 12, pp. 901-11.
Clardy, A. (2007), Strategy, core competencies and human resource development, Human
Resource Development International, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 339-49.
Clarke, M. (2008), Understanding and managing employability in changing career contexts,
Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 258-84.
Clarke, M.A. and Patrickson, M.G. (2008), The new covenant of employability, Employee
Relations, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 121-41.
Collins, R. (1979), The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratication,
Academic Press, New York, NY.
Employability
and talent
management
41
Collings, D.G. and Mellahi, K. (2009), Strategic talent management: a review and research
agenda, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 304-13.
Creelman, D. (2004), Return on Investment in Talent Management: Measures You Can Put to
Work Right Now, Human Capital Institute, Washington, DC.
De Cuyper, N. and De Witte, H. (2011), The management paradox: self-rated employability and
organizational commitment and performance, Personnel Review, Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 152-72.
de la Harpe, B., Radloff, A. and Wyber, J. (2000), Quality and generic (professional) skills,
Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 231-43.
Dellippi, R.J. and Arthur, M.B. (1994), The boundaryless career: a competency-based
perspective, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 307-24.
Delamare Le Deist, F. and Winterton, J. (2005), What is competence?, Human Resource
Development International, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 27-46.
Ellstrom, P.E. (1997), The many meanings of occupational competence and qualication,
Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 21 Nos 6/7, pp. 266-73.
Eraut, M. (2004), Transfer of knowledge between education and workplace settings,
in Rainbird, H., Fuller, A. and Munro, A. (Eds), Workplace Learning in Context, Routledge,
London, pp. 201-21.
European Commission (2010), Employment in Europe 2010, Publications Ofce of the European
Union, Luxembourg.
Florida, R. (2005), The Flight of the Creative Class, Harper Business, New York, NY.
Forrier, A. and Sels, L. (2003), The concept of employability: a complex mosaic, International
Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 102-24.
Frank, F.D. and Taylor, C.R. (2004), Talent management: trends that will shape the future,
Human Resource Planning, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 33-41.
Gaskell, J. and Rubenson, K. (2004), Educational Outcomes for the Canadian Workplace:
New Frameworks for Policy and Research, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Gerhart, B. (2005), Human resources and business performance: ndings, unanswered
questions, and an alternative approach, Management Revue, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 174-85.
Guthrie, J. (2001), High-involvement work practices, turnover and productivity: evidence from
New Zealand, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 180-92.
Haesli, A. and Boxall, P. (2005), When knowledge management meets HR strategy:
an exploration of personalization-retention and codication-recruitment congurations,
International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 16 No. 11, pp. 1955-75.
Harvey, L. (2005), Embedding and integrating employability, New Directions for Institutional
Research, Vol. 2005 No. 128, pp. 13-28.
Heidrick & Struggles (2007), Mapping Global Talent, Heidrick & Struggles, Chicago, IL.
Heinen, J.S. and ONeill, C. (2004), Managing talent to maximize performance, Employment
Relations Today, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 67-82.
Hesketh, A. (2000), Recruiting an elite? Employers perceptions of graduate employment and
training, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 245-71.
Hillage, J. and Pollard, E. (1998), Employability: Developing a Framework for Policy Analysis,
Department for Education and Employment, London.
Hiltrop, J.M. (1998), Preparing people for the future: the next agenda for HRM, European
Management Journal, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 70-8.
EJTD
36,1
42
Horwitz, F., Heng, C.T. and Quazi, H.A. (2003), Finders, keepers? Attracting, motivating and
retaining knowledge workers, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 13 No. 4,
pp. 23-44.
Huselid, M.A. (1995), The impact of human resource management practices on turnover,
productivity and corporate nancial performance, Academic Management Journal, Vol. 38
No. 3, pp. 635-72.
Huselid, M.A., Beatty, R.W. and Becker, B.E. (2005), A players or A positions? The strategic
logic of workforce management, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82 No. 12, pp. 110-7.
Iles, P., Preece, D. and Chuai, X. (2010), Talent management as a management fashion in HRD:
towards a research agenda, Human Resource Development International, Vol. 13 No. 2,
pp. 125-45.
Illeris, K. (2007), How We Learn: Learning and Non-learning in School and Beyond, Routledge,
London.
ILO (2000), Training for Employment: Social Inclusion, Productivity and Youth Employment,
Report V, International Labour Organization, Geneva.
Jackson, S.E. and Schuler, R.S. (1990), Human resource planning: challenges for
industrial/organizational psychologists, American Psychologist, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 223-39.
Jrgensen, C.H. (2004), Connecting work and education: should learning be useful, correct or
meaningful?, The Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 16 No. 8, pp. 455-65.
Kock, H. and Ellstrom, P.E. (2011), Formal and integrated strategies for competence
development in SMEs, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 71-88.
Knight, P.T. and Yorke, M. (2004), Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education,
Routledge, London.
Lewis, R.E. and Heckman, R.J. (2006), Talent management: a critical review, Human Resource
Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 139-54.
Lockyer, C. and Scholarios, D. (2007), The rain dance of selection in construction: rationality as
ritual and the logic of informality, Personnel Review, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 528-48.
McQuaid, R.W. and Lindsay, C. (2005), The concept of employability, Urban Studies, Vol. 42
No. 2, pp. 197-219.
Marsden, P.V. and Gorman, E.H. (2001), Social networks, job changes and recruitment, in Berg, I.
and Kalleberg, A.L. (Eds), Sourcebook on Labor Markets: Evolving Structures and Processes,
Kulwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, NY, pp. 467-502.
Mencken, F.C. and Wineld, I. (1998), In search of the right stuff: the advantages and
disadvantages of informal and formal recruitment practices in external labor markets,
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 57 No. 2, pp. 135-54.
Meyer, J.W. and Rowan, B. (1977), Institutionalised organisations: formal structure as myth and
ceremony, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83 No. 2, pp. 340-63.
Michaels, E., Handeld-Jones, H. and Axelrod, B. (2001), The War for Talent, Harvard Business
School Press, Boston, MA.
Moreau, M.P. and Leathwood, C. (2006), Graduates employment and the discourse of
employability: a critical analysis, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 305-24.
Murphy, J. (1993), A degree of waste: the economic benets of educational expansion, Oxford
Review of Education, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 9-31.
Nilsson, S. (2010a), On the meaning of higher education in professional practice: the case of
physicians and engineers, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 255-74.
Employability
and talent
management
43
Nilsson, S. (2010b), Enhancing individual employability: the perspective of engineering
graduates, Education & Training, Vol. 52 Nos 6/7, pp. 540-51.
OECD (1998), Human Capital Investment: An International Comparison, Centre for Educational
Research and Innovation, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Paris.
Patton, A. (1967), The coming scramble for executive talent, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 45
No. 3, pp. 155-71.
Pool, L.D. and Sewell, P. (2007), The key to employability: developing a practical model of
graduate employability, Education & Training, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 277-89.
Pfeffer, J. (1998), The Human Equation: Building Prots by Putting People First, Harvard
Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Rothwell, W.J. (2010), Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity and
Building Talent from Within, 4th ed., AMACOM, New York, NY.
Ryle, G. (1963), The Concept of Mind, Penguin Books, Aylesbury.
Schultz, T.W. (1961), Investment in human capital, American Economic Review, Vol. 51 No. 1,
pp. 1-17.
Schweyer, A. (2004), Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for
RecruitmentRecruitment, Retention, and Workforce Planning, Wiley, Toronto.
Scott, W.R. (1992), Introduction: from technology to environment, in Meyer, J.W. and Scott, W.R.
(Eds), Organisational Environments: Ritual and Rationality, Sage Publications, Newbury
Park, CA.
Sennett, R. (2006), The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
SNAHE (2004), Arbetsmarknad och ho gskoleutbildning (Labour market and Higher Education),
Swedish National Agency for Higher Education (Hogskoleverket), Stockholm.
Soderquist, K.E., Papalexandris, A., Ioannou, G. and Prastacos, G. (2010), From task-based to
competency-based: a typology and process supporting a critical HRM transition,
Personnel Review, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 325-46.
Spence, L.J. and Petrick, J.A. (2000), Multinational interview decisions: integrity capacity and
competing values, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 49-67.
Stewart, T.A. (1997), Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organisations, Doubleday/Currency,
New York, NY.
Tannock, S. (2009), Global meritocracy, nationalism and the question of whom we must treat
equally for educational opportunity to be equal, Critical Studies in Education, Vol. 50
No. 2, pp. 201-11.
Tarique, I. and Schuler, R.S. (2010), Global talent management: literature review, integrative
framework, and suggestions for further research, Journal of World Business, Vol. 45 No. 2,
pp. 122-33.
Tansley, C., Turner, P. and Foster, C. (2007), Talent: Strategy, Management and Measurement,
CIPD, London.
Tomlinson, M. (2008), The degree is not enough: students perceptions of the role of higher
education credentials for graduate work and employability, British Journal of Sociology of
Education, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 49-61.
Ulrich, D. (1998), A new mandate for human resources, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76 No. 1,
pp. 124-34.
Van der Heijde, C. and Van der Heijden, B. (2006), A competence-based and multidimensional
operationalization and measurement of employability, Human Resource Management,
Vol. 45 No. 3, pp. 449-76.
EJTD
36,1
44
Walker, J.W. and Larocco, J.M. (2002), Talent pools: the best and the rest, Human Resource
Planning, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 12-14.
Williams, C. (2005), The discursive construction of the competent learner-worker: from key
competencies to employability skills, Studies in Continuing Education, Vol. 27 No. 1,
pp. 33-49.
Wood, S.J. (1999), Human resource management and performance, International Journal of
Management Reviews, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 367-413.
Wright, P.M., Gardner, P.M., Moynihan, L.M. and Allen, M.R. (2005), The relationship between
HR practices and rmperformance: examining causal order, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 58
No. 2, pp. 409-46.
Young, M. (2009), Education, globalisation and the voice of knowledge, Journal of Education
and Work, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 193-204.
Further reading
Celani, A. and Singh, P. (2011), Signaling theory and applicant attraction outcomes, Personnel
Review, Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 222-38.
About the authors
Staffan Nilsson is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and
Training (CHET) and the Department of Educational Studies (EDST) at the University of British
Columbia and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning
and the HELIX VINN Excellence Centre at Linkoping University. His research interests include
the relationship between higher education and work, graduate employability, employee
recruitment, and HRM/HRD. Staffan Nilsson is the corresponding author and can be contacted
at: staffan.nilsson@liu.se
Per-Erik Ellstrom is a Professor of Education at Linkoping University and the Director of the
HELIX VINN Excellence Centre at Linkoping University a multidisciplinary research and
innovation centre in the eld of HRM/HRD research (www.liu.se/helix). His research interests
include learning and innovation processes in organisations, the interplay between formal and
informal learning in the workplace, interactive research, and leadership.
Employability
and talent
management
45
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
Reproducedwith permission of thecopyright owner. Further reproductionprohibited without permission.