Global Talent Management

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Chapter 15: GLOBAL TALENT MANAGEMENT
Vlad Vaiman and David G Collings
Introduction
One of the most important developments in international human resource management
over the past fifteen years has been the increased focus on the effective management of those
individuals with high levels of human capital who are central to organizational success, both at
home and abroad (Tarique and Schuler, 2010). Ever since the second half of the 1990s, the field
of talent management has become a key area of focus for both practitioners and academics.
Talent management (TM) can be thought of as a subset of strategic human resource management
(SHRM), which concentrates on meaningful techniques aimed at attracting or identifying,
motivating, developing, and retaining organization’s most valuable employees and ensuring their
deployment in those roles that add the greatest value in the organization. There are quite a few
factors that differentiate TM from HRM. These factors include; the larger amount of
stakeholders that talent management includes;- it moves the human resource (HR) agenda beyond
the HR function and into the boardroom; it generally has a narrower focus than HR and is
generally targeted at employees with high levels of human capital and; a greater differentiation
of HR practices to support employees’ needs (Tarique and Schuler, 2012). We will touch upon
more precise definitions of and approaches to talent management a little later in this chapter.
From the practitioners’ viewpoint, taking care of all the issues currently associated with
talent management – attracting/identifying, developing, mobilizing, and retaining key employees
– represents a significant demand on their time and resources and of corporate executives more
generally (remember the proverbial “War for Talent”?). Thus, the field of talent management has
gained significant attention across industries, geographic locations, and corporate executives.
Indeed, while a recent report by Ernst & Young (2010, p. 4) has claimed that “superior talent
management correlates strongly with enhanced business performance”, we have as yet little solid
academic research on the outcomes of effective talent management on individual and
organizational outcomes.

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At an individual level, highly talented employees, when managed effectively, have the
potential to generate value for the organisation significantly in excess of average organisational
performers. For example, for jobs that require repetitive, non-creative work, top performers are
2-3 times more productive than others, while for jobs in more creative and specialized work, the
difference can be as much 6 times. On average – across all jobs, trades, and world regions – the
best employees are about 4 times more productive than their other colleagues (Mankins, Bird, &
Root, 2013). A key challenge for talent management is to maximise the contribution of these
employees to the sustainable success of the organization.
From an academic perspective, the debate on talent management can be traced to the mid-
1980s, with the dawn of the discourse on the strategic role of human resources in organization
success. However, the academic community has, initially at least, been rather sceptical of the
concept of talent management. Most criticism has been related to the lack of conceptual and
intellectual foundation, as well as the apparent absence of definition and academic precision of
the underlying constructs (Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Scullion,
Collings & Caligiuri, 2010).
The empirical evidence on talent management remains scarce. The limited evidence that
is available, however, points to widespread disparities between the rhetoric of formal policies and
the reality of organisational practice (Vaiman and Holden, 2013). While the majority of
organizations do recognize the paramount importance of talent management, most of them fail to
manage talent effectively (Schuler et al, 2011; Collings, Scullion and Vaiman, 2011; Hewlett and
Rashid, 2011). The recent global financial crisis has prompted questions on the continued
significance of talent management, but evidence suggests that it remains a major issue for senior
managers in most economies with skills gaps lingering in many sectors. For some companies,
identifying, attracting and retaining talented, high value employees in key roles and positions has
actually increased in importance in recent years (Beechler and Woodward, 2009; Farndale,
Scullion and Sparrow, 2010; McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle and Lavelle, 2010; Scullion,
Sparrow and Farndale, 2011). This is supported by the most recent PWC Global CEO Survey,
which reports that talent management remains the number one priority for 78 per cent of
companies worldwide (PWC, 2012).
This chapter has four main aims. First, it seeks to review debates around the conceptual
and intellectual boundaries of talent management. Second, it examines the global context of talent

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management by analysing the four key external forces affecting GTM and looking into their
potential impact on TM policies and strategies. Third, it reviews various issues related to TM in
MNEs and the role of HR function in managing talent. Finally, the chapter seeks to identify some
research areas, which may serve as a foundation for future studies in talent management.
Defining GTM and Establishing its Boundaries
As noted above, there are still extensive discussions among academics with regard to their
understanding of the meaning of talent management, as well as its conceptual and intellectual
foundation and boundaries. While some scholars perceive TM from a mainly human capital
perspective (Cappelli, 2008), others emphasise talent as the source of organizational success
(Mellahi and Collings, 2010). Still other researchers see the linking of TM closely to the
business strategy and emphasise the role of corporate culture in effective TM (Farndale, Scullion,
and Sparrow, 2010). The field of talent management, or our interpretation of it, remains foggy, as
both academics and practitioners struggle to agree on precise definitions of what constitutes talent
and talent management (Collings and Scullion, 2009; Dries, 2013; Vaiman and Holden, 2013).
Recent publications have concluded that this lack of precise definitions of talent management
may have contributed to our somewhat inadequate understanding of the area from the very
beginning (Collings and Scullion, 2009). Similar arguments have been made around the
development of the field of employee engagement, which also emerged in the practitioner
community.
There are nevertheless, a growing number of publications (see Becker, Huselid and
Beatty, 2009; Boudreau and Ramstad, 2007; Cappelli, 2008; Collings and Mellahi, 2009;
Groysberg, 2010; Lengnick-Hall and Andrade, 2008; Tarique and Schuler, 2010; Vance and
Vaiman, 2008; Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Scullion, Collings & Caligiuri, 2010) that contributed
significantly to the emergence of the field by providing some theoretical framing to the concept
of talent management, which in turn offered some optimism for the potential of the field to add to
the study of organizational management (Collings, Scullion, and Vaiman, 2011).
Even though there are at least 4-5 working definitions of talent management, there is a
common theme to all of them, which tends to concentrate on two salient dimensions (Tarique and
Schuler, 2012). The first dimension includes key individuals with high level of talent or human

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capital (measured by their knowledge, skills, and abilities) that are employed in key roles and add
value to the organization. The second dimension involves focused deployment of HRM policies,
procedures, and techniques that are effectively used to manage those individuals with high levels
of talent. With the view on this common theme, we propose a combination of Tarique and
Schuler’s (2010) and Vance and Vaiman’s (2008) definitions of both talent and TM, which refer
to talent as key people in critical job roles, as well as employees who possess or are pursuing
specialized and in-demand knowledge and skills. Talent management may therefore be identified
as a set of organizational processes designed to attract, develop, mobilize, and retain individuals
with high levels of human capital and ensure their deployment in role which are pivotal to
organization success.
In more general terms, Lewis and Heckman (2006) distinguish three major directions that
literature on TM normally follows. The researchers pursuing the first direction tend to use TM as
a substitute definition for more efficient and aligned strategic HR processes. The second stream
ascribes talent management to specific HR practices such as recruitment, staffing, succession
planning and the like. The third direction concentrates on managing employee performance or
effective leadership development. More recently, Vance and Vaiman (2008) and Collings and
Mellahi (2009) identified a fourth direction that focuses on the identification of key positions and
people (in terms of their skills, knowledge, expertise, etc.) in these positions which have the
potential to positively impact the competitive advantage of the organization. A fifth stream of
thinking focuses on the use of data analytics to make more informed decisions around talent and
its deployment in the organizational context.
Most of the works on the topic, however, remains rather prescriptive and normative in
nature and is often based on limited empirical evidence (e.g., Guthridge et al, 2008; Hewlett and
Rashid, 2011). The concept of talent, therefore, is still quite open to critique in terms of
imprecise definitions, theoretical development, and practical evidence – and especially so in the
global context (Lewis and Heckman, 2006; Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Scullion, Collings and
Caligiuri, 2010), to which we will return in the latter section of this chapter.
It has been argued that the emergence of greater consensuses in regards to the delineation
of TM and its intellectual boundaries will provide evidence of the maturing of the field of TM
(Collings, Scullion and Vaiman, 2011). We should not, however, overlook evident differences in
the ways talent management is defined and conducted around the world. These differences,

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attributed to variations in national contexts, should help to effectively counteract an excessively
Western conceptualization of talent management, which is not necessarily reflective of practice in
many national contexts (Luthans, Zhu and Avolio, 2006; Scullion and Collings, 2011; Tymon et
al, 2010; Vance and Vaiman, 2008; Mellahi and Collings, 2010; Vaiman and Holden, 2103).
However, from an academic perspective, at a minimum it is important that scholars define how
they conceptualize and operationalize talent management in the context of individual research
studies. We now turn to considering the global context of talent management.
The global context of talent management
As indicated above, much of the theoretical and empirical base that talent management is
premised upon has evolved from a North American paradigm and research tradition. Indeed, the
seminal work of the McKinsey consultants (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, 2001) who
coined the term “the war for talent” was based on the issues that US organizations confronted in
regards to both the aging workforce and shrinking labour markets in the American context. This
work has undoubtedly initiated the debate on talent management and provided some important
insights into the understanding of the concept. However, as the field is moving towards its
adolescence, it is becoming increasingly important that perspectives from different national
contexts enter the debate and influence the definitions and boundaries of talent management as
we know it (Vaiman and Collings, 2012). For example, one of the most important discussions in
global talent management nowadays is on the question of convergence versus divergence of TM
practices across cultures, regions, and countries (Tarique and Schuler, 2012). There is still no
consensus among scholars at this point, but more recently, researchers have identified evidence of
convergence at least in some areas of TM. Stahl et al. (2012) indicate that there are emerging
indications of global convergence in talent management practices in the multinational sector.
The authors argue that there are a few reasons that compel organizations to move towards
convergence. Perhaps the most relevant are: firms compete for the same pool of talented
employees and want to standardize the way in which they select and develop their talent (Stahl et
al., 2012). At the same time, the authors note that while striving for consistency in their TM
efforts, organizations are still trying to adapt to local contexts and standards, given national
differences.

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Scholars have to be cautious in unpacking and exploring these differences to understand
their origin and influence. As Vaiman and Brewster (2013) recently noted, researchers need to be
mindful about the assumptions that they make about explanations for national differences (or
similarities) in HRM practices and how they influence organizations operating internationally.
The authors argue that it would be erroneous to look only at cultural differences among nations;
rather a balanced view should be adopted in order to analyse the HRM environment. We argue
that these insights are equally relevant for considerations of talent management.
Insights from the wider HRM literature are instructive in this regard. There has been a
recent burst of activity, where scholars recorded the importance of institutional factors and
proved that they matter more in such HRM activities as recruitment and selection (Wood,
Brewster, Demirbag and Brookes, forthcoming), training (Goergen et al., 2012), flexible working
practices (Richbell, Brookes, Brewster and Wood, 2011), turnover (Croucher, Wood, Brewster
and Brookes, 2012) and downsizing (Wood, Goergen and Brewster, forthcoming). It is also
noteworthy that differences in how these practices are implemented across nations are quite
stable and may last for decades (Mayrhofer, Brewster, Morley and Ledolter, 2011). The
connection between these practices and societal cultural differences is not that clear. However,
in areas where the institutional factors are not that pronounced, cultural differences may be more
significant (Vaiman and Brewster, 2013). Some examples of HRM processes where cultural
differences play perhaps a decisive role include the use of appraisal systems (Hempel, 2001;
Bailey, Chen, and Dou, 1997), communication (Papalexandris and Chalikias, 2002), performance
management systems (Woods, 2003), personnel selection (Huo, Huang, and Napier, 2002), and
development (Vaiman and Holden, 2013), among many others. So, once again, a more balanced
approach to explaining the cross-national differences in TM activities is needed.
With some notable exceptions (Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Dries, 2013; Makela,
Bjorkman and Ehrnrooth, 2010; McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle and Lavelle, 2010; Farndale,
Scullion and Sparrow, 2010; Vance and Vaiman, 2008; Holden and Vaiman, 2010; Vaiman and
Holden, 2013), more international perspectives on talent management remained in the minority.
Recently, however, there have been a good number of papers and special issues dedicated
specifically to talent management in different national contexts and world regions (see Collings et
al, 2011; McDonnell et al, 2012). While building on early North American scholarship, more

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recent contributions (Tymon et al, 2010; Dries, 2013; Hartmann et al, 2010; Iles et al, 2010)
clearly move beyond the US context by providing both academic and practical insights from
different nations and regions and broadening our understanding of talent management in the
global context.
Talent management is bound to remain a major issue for organizations in all the major
economies around the world, with latest research indicating that talent management challenges
may even be more pronounced in the emerging markets (Yeung, Warner and Rowley, 2008;
Vaiman and Holden, 2011; Tymon et al, 2010). The unprecedented growth in these markets in
particular has offered valuable insights and provided important implications for talent
management strategies. Recent studies demonstrate that even after the much-discussed global
financial crisis, talent challenges remain a top priority for many organizations in China and India
(Teagarden, Meyer and Jones, 2008; Stumpf et al, 2010; Illes, Chuai and Preece, 2010; Doh et al,
2011; Shi and Handfield, 2012). Equally, despite the general lack of research on talent
management in Central and Eastern Europe, most recent works in this area highlighted the
significance of the TM issues for both private and public organizations there. Moreover, the
complex history and cultural peculiarities in post-communist countries provide an additional
context for talent management efforts, which in turn makes it more difficult to understand and
practise (Skuza et al, 2013; Vaiman and Holden, 2011;2013).
In order to encompass all these different international, national, and regional
perspectives, include the ever-present influence of rapidly globalizing business world, and
underscore the importance of talent management in the global context, Tarique and Schuler
(2010) proposed the following definition of global talent management (GTM):
A subset of IHRM activities (systematically linked IHRM policies and practices) to attract,
develop, retain, and mobilize individuals with high levels of current and potential human capital
consistent for the strategic directions of the multinational enterprise to serve the objectives of
multiple stakeholders.
For them a central idea underscoring GTM as a concept, which can serve as an
“umbrella” for both domestic and international talent management, is that organizations face
increasing competition for talent on a global scale and encounter major problems in attracting,
developing, and retaining their key employees. Indeed, Cascio and Aguinis (2007) argue that the

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successful MNC of the future will be required to source human and intellectual resources
regardless of their global location owing to the increasing competition. To better understand the
main challenges of GTM, it is necessary to look at some of the main external forces that impact
every organization’s TM efforts (Tarique and Schuler, 2012; Schuler, Jackson, Tarique, 2011).
Among these main forces are globalization (which we are not going to address explicitly in this
chapter, but which transcends all of the issues we are discussing here), the shortage of talented
employees, changes in demographics, changes in the attitudes of employees towards work, and
national cultural differences. The first two the shortage of talent and demographic developments
– are perhaps the most significant ones, since they affect the entire balance of talent supply and
demand.
On the demand side, there is substantial evidence suggesting that organizations around the
world have considerable difficulties finding and retaining talented employees. For instance, in
2012, 49% of US employers reported difficulties in filling key positions, which is a slight
easement from the 2011 figure of 52%, but still very high compared to 14% in 2010 (Manpower
Group, 2012). Out of these 49%, around 55% cite unavailability of talent as the main reason for
not being able to fill the critical positions. Organizations worldwide face quite similar problems.
Employers in emerging economies like Brazil (71%) and India (48%) are having problems filling
key positions. These figures are even more staggering in the developed world – 42% of German
and 81% of Japanese employers report similar problems (Manpower Group, 2012). Overall,
about 43% of organizations across the nations and industries find it more difficult to fill vacant
positions compared to previous years (PWC, 2012). Among strategies most commonly used to
combat talent shortages, companies focus more efforts on talent retention and aggressive
recruiting, appointing people with high potential to take over critical job roles, as well as
providing additional training and development to existing employees, thereby enabling them to
fill vacancies (Tarique and Schuler, 2010).
On the supply side, changing demographics also emerge as a significant concern. A key
trend in this regard is the ageing population across developed nations. For example, among
OECD members the number of workers aged 40 and above will soon exceed the number of those
below 40 for the first time ever. In the USA, within the next few years the number of workers
aged 55 and above will be about 20% of the entire labour market, compared to just 13% in 2006.

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Likewise, more than 40% of Canadian working population is projected to be between the ages of
45 and 64 by 2021 (Avery, McKay, and Wilson, 2007). A rather similar picture can be observed
in Europe. The EU’s working-age population has already peaked in 2012 at approximately 308
million and will begin decreasing over the next 50 years to about 265 million in 2060. At the
same time, the proportion of older people will keep on increasing as years go by. On the
contrary, much of the developing and emerging world is expanding and becoming younger,
which does not, however, offer much help to organizations looking for talent (The Economist,
2013). That is because, most of these young people do not possess enough knowledge, skills, and
abilities to fulfil requirements of the modern, sophisticated, fast-paced, and increasingly
globalized business environment.
There seems to be no easy solution when it comes to reconciling the differences between
supply of and demand for talented people, even in spite of high unemployment. Indeed, in
exploring the number of companies reporting difficulties finding talented people through the lens
of unemployment figures, some interesting trends emerge. For example, US unemployment is
hovering around 8%, while among youth it is around 16%. Amid 34 OECD member-countries,
the unemployment among young population was 17.1% in 2012, which pales in comparison with
around 51% in Greece and 52% in Spain (Towers Watson, 2012). The same study predicts that
as the skills required by employers are becoming more complex, labour shortages – and therefore
talent shortages – are going to affect many markets, including the USA, Canada, Germany, and
Italy, among others. According to the latest Manpower Group Talent Shortage Survey, 42% of
organizations worldwide perceive talent shortages as making either high or medium impact on
their key stakeholders (Manpower Group, 2012). It is therefore possible to conclude that
although the (im-)balance between supply and demand of talent may vary significantly from
market to market, it will continue impacting the global workplace in the foreseeable future. The
biggest problem for many organizations now is the mismatch between the skills needed for
available jobs and the skills workers currently possess. Among other important reasons for being
unable to fill key positions organisations cite the lack of technical and so-called soft skills, as
well as the lack of experience (Manpower Group, 2012).
Dealing with these challenges requires a rethinking of global talent strategies. Indeed, the
findings of the Global Talent 2021 study propose the following possible solutions (Towers

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Watson, 2012b), although these represent important areas where academic research could
facilitate a more informed discussion:
• Since talent shortages in the developed world are bound to continue, organizations must
be able to think more explicitly about how to strike a proper balance between retention,
outsourcing work, and offshoring staff (see chapter by Cooke in the current volume).
• Since digital knowledge, critical thinking, and excellent interpersonal communication
skills will remain in high demand, it is necessary for organizations to reposition
employees’ skill sets in a way that would be aligned with (constant) changes in
organizational strategy, business models and approaches.
• In order to be successful in the long run, it is important to keep boosting employee
engagement. To accomplish that, the adaptation of an evidence-based approach to HRM
(that includes logic-driven analytics, segmentation, optimization, risk leverage, and
integration and synergy) is vital. However from an academic perspective, we raise two
important questions around engagement. Firstly it is important that engagement is
measured appropriately. For too long, questionable practitioner measures have dominated.
However, we call for greater use of measures underscored by more reliable and valid
theorising. Additionally, we question whether more engagement is always better or
whether finding optimum levels of engagement would be more appropriate (cf. Albrecht,
2010).
• The sources, attitudes, and expectations of talent are continuously developing, so it is
important for organizations to remember that there will be an increased focus on
employee global mobility, which may also involve varying work schedules, work
locations, and work modes (e.g., virtual vs. on-site) (see section three of the current
volume).
We now turn our attention to the remaining two forces that drive talent management efforts in
organizations – namely, changes in the attitudes of employees towards work and national cultural
differences.
Evidence shows that the attitudes towards work are changing in many parts of the world
(Tarique and Schuler, 2012). The traditional psychological contract, which implicitly stipulates

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the feeling of mutual loyalty and commitment between an employee and his/her organization,
seems to be fading away fast. In other words, an employee has always been expected to give the
employing company his/her knowledge, skills, ability, expertise, and loyalty in exchange for
good salary, job security, and developmental opportunities. Nowadays, though, the situation is
quite different – employees expect to change jobs frequently, use their employability (that
comprises a winning combination of technical and social skills) to look for better opportunities
elsewhere, and use global mobility as a self-development tool in order to increase their
attractiveness to other potential employers. This suggests that top talent will be willing and able
to work for multiple employers, have excellent social and professional connections, and move
from one job to another, despite geographic distances (Tarique and Schuler, 2012). To deal with
these changing attitudes, organizations have to put extra efforts into their talent management
activities, and particularly, into attracting/identifying and retaining top talent.
Along with the changing attitudes, national cultures and institutional differences also play a
significant role in the ways people are managed in organizations (Tarique and Schuler, 2012).
More specifically, culture has both direct and indirect impact on how HR policies, procedures,
and techniques are designed and implemented, and how employees’ behaviours are influenced.
For example, in some cultures such as in Scandinavian cultures, many managers are
uncomfortable and/or unwilling to acknowledge performance differences among employees – an
important step that is required to improve performance, etc. – due to the prevalence of
egalitarianism in these cultures. In high power-distance and rather hierarchical Russia, the
developmental efforts are severely restricted by a limited tradition of empowerment in Russian
organizations (Vaiman and Holden, 2013). These and similar culture-bound factors present
major challenges for global talent management, especially for those multinational companies that
are trying to converge their TM practices. Equally, institutional factors such as legislative context
and national infrastructural supports for business have significant potential to impact on the
nature of talent management practices in different regions.
To summarize, all four aforementioned external forces – talent shortage, demographics,
changing attitudes towards work, and national cultural differences – do strongly impact global
organizational efforts to attract, develop, mobilize, and retain key employees. This impact is first
and foremost affects how global TM procedures, policies, and strategies are designed,
configured, used, and evaluated (Tarique and Schuler, 2012).

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Managing Talent Globally: The Role of the HR Function
As noted above, a key area of focus in research on global talent management has been on the
HR practices that support effective GTM. However, how these practices and global talent flows
more generally are managed and co-ordinated at a global level has received far less attention (c.f.
Farndale et al, 2010; Scullion and Starkey, 2000; Sparrow, 2013). We argue that this is a key
limitation as the organisation structures that support and organise GTM will have a significant
impact on global talent flows within the MNE and ultimately potentially correlate with
organisation performance. In this regard, a key antecedent to the global orientation that many
MNEs strive for is the effective management of staffing flows throughout the MNE network. As
Taylor et al. (1996) argue ‘in order to provide value to the business, the (strategic international)
HRM system of global firms should be constructed around specific organizational competences
that are critical for securing competitive advantage in a global environment’ (1996: 960). In this
regard, Gong (2003) explicitly calls for a heterogeneous staffing composition (i.e. an appropriate
mix of PCNs, HCNs, and TCNs) to facilitate innovation and organizational learning in the MNE.
Focusing on the subsidiary level, he argues that a heterogeneous staffing composition facilitates
access to and recognition of diverse sources of innovation and organizational learning, improves
performance with regard to both the interpretation of information and to integrative learning.
More generally, the effective positioning of the corporate HR or global talent function is central
in terms of managing the tensions between global integration and local responsiveness of key
talent issues and the management of the MNE more generally (Scullion and Starkey, 2000).
However, managing global talent is challenging, and there is evidence that ethnocentric
tendencies prevail (if only subconsciously) in many MNEs with parent country nationals
dominating key leadership positions in the headquarters operation (Carpenter et al, 2001; Makela
et al, 2010; Melllahi and Collings, 2010). However, Scullion and Starkey’s (2001) study pointed
to an optimistic emerging agenda for corporate HR in international companies with a focus on
senior management development, succession planning, and the development of a cadre of
internationally capable managers. We argue the development of an effective talent management
function, or responsibility for such within the corporate HR function, is central to maximizing the
contribution of the MNE’s global talent pool and tapping into local talent markets that reflect the

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MNE’s global footprint. For example, Collings et al’s (2010) empirical study of foreign owned
subsidiaries in Ireland, points to the significance of corporate structures and systems in
facilitating staffing flows from subsidiary operations to the corporate headquarters as inpatriate
employees. Sparrow et al (2011) note that in addition to this top-down (management controlled)
approach to managing talent flows, a bottom-up (self-initiated culture-driven) approach also
impacts on the corporate HR role. This highlights the potential for tapping into local talent pools
or self-initiated expatriates in the local market to fill key talent gaps in the MNE.
Farndale et al (2010) identify four important corporate HR (CHR) roles which significantly
impact on corporate efforts in managing talent globally. CHR’s role as ‘Champion of Process’ is
premised upon the requirement for improved horizontal coordination of processes and practices
of talent management internally. This is achieved through effective management of what
Farndale and colleagues term ‘global expertise networks’, and a designated champion of process
role aimed at monitoring the global implementation of the GTM strategy and related objectives.
Second, as ‘Guardian of Culture’ CHR is focused upon the implementation of global values and
culture and the management of employer brand globally. Thirdly, CHR can play a key role in
‘Network Leadership and Intelligence’. This involves a developed awareness of leading trends
and developments in the MNE’s internal and external labour markets, the capacity to deploy
human capital appropriately, and a sensitivity to the contexts in which the MNE operates. The
role of networking (both by the HR function itself and the facilitation of same more generally in
the organization) emerges as key. Finally, as ‘Managers of Internal Receptivity’ CHR’s role in
the management of the careers of international employees is emphasized. Clearly, this role is
targeted at senior management and high potential development and career management. These
four roles are not mutually exclusive and Farndale et al’s (2010) research points to overlaps
between them, which lead to additional value generation owing to the associated
complementarities.
The key role of the corporate HR function in terms of managing talent flows, both top-down
and bottom-up to utilize Sparrow et al’s terminology, represents an important element of global
talent management, which with the notable exceptions identified above remains largely
underdeveloped. This argument aligns with Boxall’s (1996) distinction between human capital
advantage and organization process advantage. While the former relates to the knowledge, skills
and abilities of the organization’s employees, the latter refers to the systems and processes that

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facilitate their effective deployment and management. However, worryingly there is little
evidence that strategic oversight of global talent is widely evident in many corporate HR or
global mobility functions, with a transactional and compliance focus far more common (Collings,
2013). Thus a key focus of research moving forward should be on assisting MNEs to better
understand the importance of the corporate HR role in effectively managing talent flows and
coordinating talent on a global scale.
One example of the global talent function’s role in practice relates to facilitating knowledge
creation and knowledge sharing in the MNE. Knowledge is increasingly seen as a critical source
of competitive advantage in the MNE (see Doz, Santos and Williamson, 2001; Kogut and Zander,
1993). Thus a key question for the global HR function is how to maximize the contributions of
those individuals who span geographic and cultural boundaries and who are high value added
contributors to both the coordination process and to the knowledge creation and sharing process.
This group can be classified as high value boundary spanners (HVBSs) (see Kostova and Roth,
2003; Taylor, 2007). These individuals can be located anywhere in the multinational network and
the challenge is to identify them and ensure their effective deployment in the multinational
network. However it is important to recognize that knowledge transfer does not occur without a
number of conditions being met and there are significant latent barriers to knowledge sharing
(Michailova and Husted, 2003). Firstly in terms of the HBVSs, the importance of their motivation
and ability to share knowledge emerges as important. This has been terms disseminative capicity
(Minbaeva, 2005). For the receiver, the ability and motivation of subsidiary employees
(absorptive capacity) also emerge as important (Minbaeva et al, 2003). Of particular import to
the consideration of talent practices that can facilitate this critical organization routing
(knowledge sharing) is the underlying HR practices that maximize knowledge sharing.
Broader insights form the HR literature provide insights on how HR practices can assist in
knowledge sharing and more broadly the role of HR in knowledge creation and dissemination.
Much of this research is theoretically positioned in the social capital literature. While a thorough
discussion of the construct is beyond the scope of the current chapter, social capital is broadly
defined as ‘the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through and
derived from the network of relationships possessed an individual or social unit. Social capital
comprises the network and the assets that may be mobilized though that network’ (Nahapiet and
Ghoshal, 1998: 243). Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) further elucidate three types of social capital.

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Structural social capital focuses on the patterns of interactions between individuals in a network.
In the multinational context it contributes to the flow of knowledge and coordination by spanning
sub-units or networks in the MNEs global operations (Kostova and Roth, 2003). Relational social
capital focuses on the nature of personal relationships developed over time and brings trust to the
fore. Finally, cognitive social capital focuses on the shared goals, norms and values that are built
though relationships over time (Inkpen and Tsang, 2005).
Theoretical and empirical insights point to some important perspectives on how HR practice
can facilitate knowledge sharing and these provide important insights for the global talent
management function (see Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005; Foss, Minbaeva, Pedersen and Reinholt,
2009; Minbaeva, Makela and Rabbiosi, 2012). For example, relational social capital points to the
importance of norms and identifications within the group while cognitive social capital points to
the importance of shared goals, norms and values. Considering their role in knowledge creation
and sharing this brings to the fore the importance of identifying prospective employees who will
have a higher probability of sharing the same norms and identifying with each other, pointing to
the importance of shared values (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005). This is in line with posited best
practice in talent management which points to the importance of a focus on values in recruitment
and selection (Stahl et al, 2012). Theoretically, person-organization fit is a useful lens to further
unpack this relationship.
Work design has also been identified as significant in facilitating knowledge creation and
sharing. Cabrera and Cabrera (2005) argue that work design is strongly tied to structural social
capital by establishing interdependencies, more frequent interactions and information flow
amongst employees. While stable jobs with concrete tasks might constrain knowledge flows,
more fluid work arrangements where work is organized as sequence of assignment with
employees working with diverse employees on a project basis might facilitate knowledge flows
(Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005). Empirically, Foss et al (2009) found that job characteristics such as
autonomy, task identity, and feedback determine individual’s motivations to share knowledge
which in turn predict employees’ knowledge sharing behavior.
Organizational culture also emerges as key. It can play a role in developing social norms
around knowledge sharing (DeLong and Fahey, 2000) and in terms of creating a climate of trust
which is central to the emergence of relational social capital (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005). Indeed
Minbaeva et al (2012) empirically demonstrated that employee’s perception of the organizations

16
commitment to knowledge sharing combined with extrinsic motivation directly influence the
extent to which employees engage in firm-internal knowledge exchange. Additionally
individual’s intrinsic motivation combined with engagement in social interaction mediated the
relationship. Given Minbaeva and colleagues’ conclusion that HR can influence these conditions
through the signaling effect of HR practices combined with the practices themselves, this
reinforces the key role of the global HR function in driving knowledge creation and sharing in the
MNE.
Clearly, the above examples are illustrative, and there are a number of other important HR
practices that can facilitate knowledge creation and sharing. They are presented as illustrative of
how careful alignment of HR practices can support a strategic talent objective (in this example
knowledge creation and sharing). In line with recent advancements in the HR literature and
models of talent management (see Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Lepak and Snell, 1999) we
advocate a differentiated HR architecture, where such HR practices are directly targeted at the
employee group for whom they are developed.
Conclusions and Future Research Opportunities
This chapter set out to provide a relatively broad-brush overview of the emerging field of
global talent management. There is little doubt that global talent management has gained
significant traction as a key global HR process to leverage the competitive advantage of the
MNE. However, the extant literature suggests that organizations continue to struggle with the
challenges of managing global talent, and indeed a key challenge for the academic community is
the continued development of a body of research to better inform managerial practice in this
regard.
Our review touches upon both the macro and meso and organizational context of GTM. Our
understanding of the macro context is one that has been seriously underdeveloped in extant work
(c.f. Schuler et al, 2010; Tarique and Schuler, 2012; section 3 of Scullion and Collings, 2010).
We contend that a better understanding of the macro context of GTM will provide a base for a
comparative understanding of the nature of talent management on a global basis. We define
comparative talent management in this sense as variations in talent management practice between
different nations or regions that can largely be traced to differences in the macro institutional,

17
legislative and cultural context in which business unfolds in the nation state. In a similar fashion
to which comparative HR has established itself as a key field of study, building a comparative
understanding of talent management in different nation states that reflects the particular macro
context in which talent management unfolds will provide a useful stream of research in the global
TM space. Understanding the differences in how talent is managed in different nation states and
regions will be valuable in understanding the global local tension which MNEs must balance in
developing and implementing effective global TM systems.
Additionally research needs to continue to develop our understanding of the role of effective
GTM in organization performance. In a similar vein to the importance of the work of Mark
Huselid and others in illustrating the linkage between investments in human resources and
organizational performance, well designed empirical studies that could elucidate the relationship
between effective GTM and organizational performance would significantly advance the standing
of the field of study. However the effective design of such studies is not without challenge.
Indeed, such studies would benefit from imaginative outcome variables, more sophisticated
methods, more attention to context and tighter conceptual clarity (see also Arnold and Cohen for
a similar call in the context of careers research). Research in this vein will provide an evidence-
based logic for discussions around best practice GTM. While this terminology is utilized
presently, as yet we have no research to identify what is best practice and how such practices
translate into organizational outcomes such as sustainable performance.
A further avenue which merits empirical consideration is deepening our understanding of the
interaction between employee mobility and global talent management. There are two key
elements to this debate. Firstly, we require a better understanding of how organizations can tap
into global talent in local labor markets. For example, emerging research on self-initiated
expatriation brings a focus on individuals who relocate internationally of their own accord
without organizational support (Haslberger and Vaiman, 2013; Al Ariss and Crowley-Henry,
2013; Cohen, Arnold and O’Neill, 2011). This research indicated that these individuals are often
under-employed in host economies and that organizations are failing to capture the potential
value of these employees (Al Ariss, Vassilopoulu, Ozbilgin and Game, 2013; Fang, Samnani,
Novicevic and Bing, 2013). Understanding the potential value of these talent pools and how best
to realize it in the context of global talent management represents an important stream of
research. Secondly, although global employee mobility in often considered central to global

18
talent management, the reality is that they often sit in different functions in practice and we have
little theoretical and empirical guidance for global mobility professionals in developing effective
practice in this regard (Collings, 2014). Better understanding how global mobility and global
talent interact and work together to ensure that employees with high levels of human capital
globally are aligned with talent needs across the multinational network.
Finally it would be useful better understand the institutional and cultural factors which
emerge as significant in managing the balance between global standardization versus local
adaptation of GTM policies and practices in the MNE. This would move the debate on best
practices in GTM forward in a significant way by providing an understanding of the types of
practices which are more globally acceptable and effective versus those which requite a greater
degree of adaptation to local cultural and institutional norms. More broadly it would provide a
better understanding of differences in talent practices between different national contexts.
In conclusion we find ourselves at an exciting juncture in the evolution of the field of GTM.
While there clearly is some work remaining to firmly establish the boundaries of the field, we do
not feel that a single agreed definition of GTM is necessarily required. However at a minimum
there is a requirement for scholars and practitioners alike to be clear on defining how they utilize
the terminology in their own work. What is clear is that there is a significant appetite for
academic research to inform practice and better understand the nature of talent and its
deployment in the contemporary MNE.

19
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