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1
1. Smart talent management: the
productive fusion of talent and
knowledge management
Vlad Vaiman, Charles M. Vance and Ling Ju
INTRODUCTION
Nearly 15 years ago saw the release of the first edition of this book—one of
the first beginning to examine talent management as distinct from traditional
human resource management. And particularly unique in the growing discus-
sion of talent management was our assertion, which we still hold today, of the
value of combining talent management (TM) and knowledge management
(KM) to form a powerful conceptual and practical amalgamation contributing
to an organization’s success in our competitive global marketplace. For want
of a more precise and scientific label, we call this combination simply ‘smart
talent management.’ Among other major outcomes of the recent COVID-19
pandemic, where employees have been physically absent due to remote work
requirements and forcing the focus upon knowledge contribution, an organi-
zation’s human talent is seen more clearly as possessing key knowledge that
requires effective management.
Following our first edition there have been several important publications
that examine the KM/TM combination paradigm related to knowledge man-
agement and strategic HRM, leadership support and managerial involvement,
organizational learning, human capital, and KM integration with individual
HR functions (e.g., see Khaligh & Ranjbarian, 2022; Rezaei, Khalilzadeh, &
Soleimani, 2021; Antunes & Pinheiro, 2020; Pellegrini et al., 2020; Sumarsi,
2020; Muhammed & Zaim, 2020; Nisar, Prabhakarb, & Strakovaa, 2019;
Shujahat et al., 2019; Milton & Lambe, 2019; Whelan & Carcary, 2011).
We hope that this second edition of our book will continue to prompt further
examination of the benefits of this combined attention to talent and knowledge
management, focusing not only on the establishment of useful definitions, but
also on the development and empirical exploration of the smart talent manage-
ment paradigm. Just like in our first edition, therefore, we define our concept
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2Smart talent management
of smart talent management as the combined use of the distinctly different
concepts of knowledge management and talent management to resolve human
performance problems and to achieve organizational objectives.
There is one important distinction between our previous conceptualizations
and current thinking on talent management, however, that somewhat augments
our understanding of smart talent management. This change is prompted by an
explosive development of the field of talent management in the past decade. In
the previous edition of the book, smart talent management (STM) referred to
the effective (i.e., ‘smart’) integration of knowledge management into the TM
paradigm, where STM meant the smart or effective management of all human
resources, who embody an organization’s knowledge capital and capability in
generating, acquiring, storing, transferring, and applying knowledge in support
of company goals and objectives (competitive advantage). The more recent
developments in the area of TM demonstrated that this approach is just ‘one
color’ on a full spectrum of different approaches to TM.
TM is currently a rapidly growing discipline with an increasing consensus on
TM definitions, theoretical frameworks, and levels of analysis. Among several
important themes in the TM literature, the debate on exclusive versus inclusive
TM approaches has received a significant amount of attention. This discussion
revolves around the question of whether TM efforts in an organization should
concentrate on all employees or only on those select few identified as talent,
i.e., individuals who possess unique skills or show the highest potential for
superior performance and organizational contribution. In more detail, the
exclusive approach is aimed at key employees in key positions (organizational
elite, so to speak), and it helps to (1) better differentiate TM from HRM, (2)
support workforce differentiation and disproportionate investment (given the
reality of limited resources) in individuals with high levels of human capital,
(3) and ensure competitive advantage.
On the other hand, the inclusive approach is focused on all employees,
where management believes that everyone in the organization has potential
to create added value; it promotes increased diversity and heterogeneity of
talent pools and requires a different understanding of the meaning of ‘talent.’
While this debate in both academia and practice still presses on, most experts
(e.g., Daubner-Siva et al., 2018; Thunnissen and Gallardo-Gallardo, 2017;
Gallardo-Gallardo & Thunnissen, 2016) agree that the exclusive approach is
prevailing in contemporary TM studies. However, we submit that one should
not look at this exclusive vs. inclusive dichotomy as an irreconcilable divide
but rather as a continuum, where some organizations undoubtedly use an
‘exclusive extreme’ that is characterized by a disproportionate investment
in highly talented individuals, with a greater focus on talent attraction and
acquisition, while others utilize an ‘inclusive extreme’ embodied by an equal
resource allocation and investment in low performers to balance up perfor-
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Smart talent management
mance, with a greater concentration on talent development and retention. Most
companies, however, operate somewhere in between these two extremes and
do their best to invest in all levels of human capital development (Morris, Snell,
& Bjorkman, 2016). So, as opposed to accepting a fully inclusive approach in
this book, we will treat TM as a more complex phenomenon.
Despite changes in our understanding of TM, ‘Smart’ in STM still corre-
sponds to our emphasis of the strategic role of knowledge management in
today’s organizations, and particularly within TM, which is part of strategic
human resource management (SHRM) efforts of an organization. Our contin-
ued use of ‘knowledge assets’ in our book’s title provides an explicit reference
to the essential role of knowledge management tied to the human factor,
building upon the past use of ‘human capital’ as a strategic tool for competitive
advantage.
Thus, the overarching purpose of our book is to present a valuable fusion
of two important areas of emphasis for current research and practice in man-
agement: talent management and knowledge management. The significance of
knowledge management to competitive advantage and organizational success
in our rapidly changing global knowledge-based economy is immense (Islam
et al., 2022; Rialti et al., 2020; Paoloni et al., 2020). The generation/acquisition
of ideas and knowledge, their internal transfer and application throughout
the organization and across its various operations, cross-border transfer of
knowledge, and so on, have all become an integral and important part of
contemporary management, both domestic and international. But what many
knowledge management scholars have missed in their predominantly theoret-
ical perspective is the fact that effective knowledge management in practice is
largely dependent upon the management of human talent, and especially upon
such practical components as recruitment of talent, training, facilitated knowl-
edge sharing, coaching and mentoring, performance management, succession
planning, development of global leadership competencies, global alignment,
and retention management, among others.
Talent management is quite different in the world of practice, especially
when it comes to multinational enterprises (MNEs). As Vaiman and Collings
(2015) have noted, one of the most important roles of the global talent function
in practice relates to facilitating knowledge creation and knowledge sharing in
the MNE, which is increasingly seen as a critical source of competitive advan-
tage on the global stage. On the other hand, despite a tremendous increase in
existing scholarly publications on talent management, most fail to adequately
recognize human talent as repositories of potentially valuable knowledge—
both tacit and explicit. This shortcoming of current academic perspectives in
talent management is evident in a recent remark by a TM executive of a large
US defense contractor, who indicated that their organization emphasizes reten-
tion efforts within the overall TM strategy, since a lot of valuable knowledge
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is unfortunately leaving the company due to inadequate attention to effective
knowledge management.
TALENT MANAGEMENT: STRENGTHS AND
LIMITATIONS
With our conceptual admixture in ‘smart talent management,’ this second
edition updates our novel look at human talent in organizations, with employ-
ees at all levels representing potentially key agents of knowledge management
in acquiring, transferring, and applying important knowledge for competitive
advantage. Like ‘human capital’ and the more broad, generic term ‘human
resource management,’ talent management is grounded predominantly in
resource-based theory of organizations (Collins, 2021; Barney, 1991), where
organizations can gain competitive advantage to the extent that their assets
and resources with which they compete and pursue organizational objectives
are valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate. Organizations that are able to attract
human talent consistently and effectively, as well as develop and update,
deploy where needed, obtain commitment to organization goals, build social
capital, elicit ideas for ongoing improvement, and retain this talent will fare
well in the long term in the global marketplace compared with other organiza-
tions that neglect such attention to human talent. As mentioned above, in the
past 15 years since the release of the first edition of this book, there have been
quite a few developments in the area of talent management, both in academia
and practice. However, many of the same challenges that were identified early
on have either persisted or reemerged after the 2007–2009 global recession,
including tight labor markets, more complex talent demands in terms of
incumbents’ knowledge, skills, and ability, more complex technology and
organizational structures, and increasing job mobility (Vaiman, Collings, &
Cascio, 2021). Another major challenge that has surfaced rather recently is TM
in times of crisis. This has been brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic,
which caused not only human suffering on a massive global scale, but also
major disruptions that resulted in profound changes in the way individuals
and organizations live, work, and function. From a talent perspective, there
is definitely a silver lining, as this challenge created multiple opportunities
in terms of more flexible working arrangements, which are associated with
increased employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention (Wang & Heyes,
2020; Baeza, Gonzalez, & Wang, 2018), and the potential to access more
geographically diverse talent pools.
Another trend emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic is that many people
have experienced remote work and have been quite successful after the initial
set-up period. Consequently, organizations are talking about keeping many
of their normally office-bound employees working from their homes or in
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a hybrid format (i.e., letting them work sometimes from home and the rest
on-site). This is not only happening in the domestic setting but globally—for
example, McKinsey (2021) estimates that up to 25% of the workforce in the
developed world and about 10% in developing countries will continue working
from home even after the pandemic. The increase in online and hybrid work
has facilitated employee connections globally, reducing the need for physical
global mobility in the ‘new normal’ following the pandemic. As the pandemic
subsides, many employers are getting ready to welcome their employees back
to in-person presence. Most understand, however, that there is no going back to
‘business as usual,’ and that the ‘new normal’ will be hybrid, requiring greater
remote work arrangement flexibility. The question for organizations is how
to manage and prosper from these developments. As work becomes increas-
ingly remote and hybrid, talent management strategies need to adjust in line
with this approach, creating dispersed rather than concentrated talent pools,
shifting the best talent into most critical roles, moving away from a traditional
performance management system, and creating the best employee experience
possible, among other actions.
Importantly, many remote and hybrid employees are experiencing burnout,
which they also attribute to a lack of open and sometimes unambiguous com-
munication on the part of their management. Both anxiety and burnout usually
lead to voluntary turnover, which may immediately affect both organization’s
availability of talent and TM strategy. To effectively address these serious
issues, organizational leadership should develop clear policies that deal with
communication technology, working hours, expectations for collaboration,
available support, among many other factors. These guidelines, approaches,
and expectations should be communicated clearly and frequently, and HR
experts need to help managers to facilitate and reinforce these messages. There
is still much work to do on this front, as apparently, most organizations are
only starting to develop the specifics of hybrid working arrangements. As
mentioned above, with the post-pandemic trend of increasing remote work
flexibility, there is growing awareness of the need to focus less upon physi-
cally present employee performance management and more upon employee
knowledge management—the knowledge assets that employees hold or should
acquire.
In the world of academia, five key conceptualizations of TM have been
revealed in the past 15 years. The first three have been identified by Lewis
and Heckman (2006). First was about simply replacing the label HRM with
TM, which did not go well with fellow academics who started looking at TM
as just a new moniker for the existing function. The second conceptualization
helped to shift the succession planning discussion from a somewhat static
organizational chart-based approach to a more dynamic one based on predict-
ing staffing needs and developing corresponding talent pools to meet these
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needs in the future (Cappelli and Keller, 2014). The third theme focused on
the management of so-called ‘A’ players, i.e., employees who consistently
demonstrated higher performance in comparison to ‘B’ (average performers)
and ‘C’ (poor performers) players. The chief idea behind this was to reward
A-players, while forcing C-players ‘up or out.’ Even though this approach had
its own proponents (not least of whom was Jack Welch of GE), the idea of
forced distribution upon which this approach was based garnered quite a lot
of criticism, due to its negative effect on employees involved, cooperation and
teamwork, organizational culture, etc. (Collings, Vaiman, & Scullion, 2022).
The fourth theme has been brought up in 2009 by Collings and Mellahi, who
identified an important direction in TM literature premised on the differen-
tiation of key (or critical, pivotal) job roles in organizations. These roles are
differentiated by their ability to generate a disproportional value—expressed
in both quantity and quality of output—that contributes to the strategic intent
(i.e., mission, vision, strategy, etc.) of the organization. Collings (2017) noted
that this literature stream helped to shift the debate on differentiation in TM
from employee inputs to outputs, which was a significant change in TM
theorization. A later, fifth theme that emerged in the conceptualization of TM
focused on the role of big data and people analytics in making more informed
decisions on investments in talent (see Vaiman, Collings, & Scullion, 2012).
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the academic literature has evolved
mainly along two paths in terms of TM’s conceptual foundations. The first,
most prevailing focus is undoubtedly on exclusive TM which underscores the
disproportionate contribution of high performing and high potential individ-
uals often employed in critical roles. In line with this approach, Collings and
Mellahi (2009) define talent management as ‘activities and processes that
involve the systematic identification of key positions which differentially
contribute to the organisation’s sustainable competitive advantage, the devel-
opment of a talent pool of high potential and high performing incumbents to
fill these roles, and the development of a differentiated human resource archi-
tecture to facilitate filling these positions with competent incumbents and to
ensure their continued commitment to the organisation’ (Collings & Mellahi,
2009: 305). Even though the above is not the only acceptable definition of TM
in the literature, it is by far the most cited and used, emphasizing the tendency
of academics to prefer a more exclusive approach to TM.
The second focus is on a more inclusive approach to TM, which accentu-
ates the strengths (in terms of knowledge, skills, ability, expertise, etc.) that
individual employees bring to the workplace and how organizations can build
upon those strengths (Swailes, 2013, 2020). Inclusive TM is conceptualized
as the understanding and acceptance that all employees in an organization
should be viewed as talent, that everyone is capable of contributing something
important to their organization, and that each and every employee should
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be provided with the opportunity to develop and be deployed in positions
in which they may benefit their organization the most. Unlike the exclusive
approach, this focus does not over-emphasize individual performance, which
may be beneficial to collaboration and team-based contributions. Although
this approach has its definite benefits and supporters among TM scholars, it
remains somewhat more aspirational, both in academia and practice.
There is no doubt that TM as a discipline is as important and relevant now
as it was when it first surfaced from the world of management consulting in
early 2000s (see Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001) in response
to persistent challenges which companies around the world were facing in
attracting and retaining key employees. Despite some critical issues—some
of which were discussed above—talent shortages remain a critical issue for
organizations globally, and global leaders continue to cite talent challenges as
the most important issue that impacts their ability to deliver on both short- and
long-term organizational objectives (Collings, Vaiman, & Scullion, 2022).
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: STRENGTHS AND
LIMITATIONS
Besides the distinctly different emphases that we place on the term ‘talent,’
our addition of the conceptual discipline of knowledge management to the
picture takes talent management to a more strategic level, where the human
talent at all levels represents potentially important sources, transmitters, and
implementers of knowledge essential to competitive advantage. Consistent
with the maxim ‘knowledge is power,’ the competitive advantages of organi-
zations are derived from core competencies, capabilities, and ‘know-how’ that
are developed within them over time (Rehman, Mohamed, & Ayoup, 2019;
Prahalad & Hamel, 1990). This collective knowledge is held explicitly within
the set of documented policies, practices, directions, instructions, and so on,
and implicitly or tacitly within developed routines of organizational life, as
well as the conscious and unconscious experience base of employees at all
levels (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
To a significant extent, employees embody the knowledge in use within the
organization. According to the knowledge-based view of the firm (Grant &
Phene, 2022; Grant, 1996), this employee know-how that greatly contributes
to a firm’s human core competencies potentially provides a strategic resource
to assist the firm in adapting and competing in its market environments (Haesli
& Boxall, 2005). Clearly, when all employee talent (including both regular and
contingent employees) are seen as current and potential sources and purveyors
of knowledge and know-how for beneficial application and utilization within
the firm, the perceived role of human resource management policies and prac-
tices to attract, develop, motivate, facilitate knowledge exchange interactions
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within the organization, and retain this talent grows dramatically in importance
(Zaim, Muhammed & Tarim, 2019). Besides increasing the perceived impor-
tance of HR policies and practices to the organization, knowledge management
also provides a common, unifying purpose and link to integrate and coordinate
these policies and practices more effectively within the various HR functions.
Despite the valuable potential contributions of knowledge management,
there are potential shortcomings that limit its value and utility in improving
organizational performance. Many efforts in knowledge management have
focused on hardware and software database applications (e.g., expert systems)
with apparently little regard for human dimensions affecting both the entry
and retrieval of experience-based knowledge and information, which can
become even more problematic due to cultural differences within our global
organizations (Paik & Choi, 2005). Much work that does focus on human
organizational issues in knowledge management remains at a rather abstract,
theoretical, and fairly macro level, with little reference to specific HR policies,
practices, and procedures for guiding and bringing knowledge management to
the micro level of local firm operations (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Gupta &
Govindarajan, 2000; Bhagat et al., 2002).
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) presented the concept of the ‘knowledge
spiral,’ which examines four modes of knowledge transformations, involving
knowledge creation and transfer between tacit knowledge (i.e., know-how
or experience-based knowledge that is difficult to document) and explicit
knowledge (i.e., more easily communicated or shared) at different levels
within the firm. Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney (1999) provide a simpler way of
envisioning links between knowledge management and the human dimension
by distinguishing major approaches of knowledge management: the ‘personal-
ization’ and ‘codification’ of knowledge. In the personalization approach, tacit
or experience-based knowledge remains closely tied to the individuals who
create or discover it from external sources and transmit this knowledge pri-
marily through person-to-person contact. In contrast, the codification approach
attempts to make knowledge more explicit and facilitate its transfer through
entry onto databases and into operations manuals and employee training plans
for wider company dissemination. The application of the personalization
knowledge management approach appears to work most favorably in unique,
novel situations, while the codification approach works best in situations
involving fairly predictable conditions and routine organizational practices.
However, despite their contributions to theory development, these approaches
to knowledge management still fail to make a close link to specific HR func-
tional practices for guiding local operations—such as in specific staffing,
training and development, and various communications efforts and activities
for creating and moving both explicit and tacit knowledge through the organ-
ization. There is still a relatively limited understanding of specific ways in
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which knowledge management and human resource practices may interact to
support competitive advantage (Jyoti & Rani, 2017; Donate & Guadamillas,
2011). More details and recommendations promoting this productive interac-
tion are a major contribution of this book.
Another limitation of knowledge management and related management
of knowledge workers is the predominant focus on cerebral and cognitive,
intellectual processes, and more impersonal big data and technical systems
(Shujahat et al., 2019). There continues to be relatively little attention directed
at individual learning and skill development in areas critical for individual,
group, and organizational performance within the affective (e.g., feelings,
emotions) and psychomotor (e.g., skills) domains (Malik, 2021; Rashid,
Tout, & Yakan, 2021; Yang, Zheng, & Viere, 2009). Although discussions
about implicit or tacit knowledge can relate to the largely unconscious and
internalized knowledge aspects of the psychomotor domain, again they tend
to lack sufficient detail about how this form of knowledge can be effectively
developed.
Considerable work in emotional intelligence, creativity, and nonlinear
thinking also points to the need to look beyond strictly cognitive dimensions
of rational data-gathering and logical analysis of knowledge and informa-
tion for achieving and maintaining high levels of performance (Groves &
Vance, 2015; Kahneman, 2013). In a departure from the nearly complete
focus on the cognitive domain, past work analyzing individual learning
benefits of knowledge-sharing groups (both within and across organizations)
has identified important forms of learning in the affective domain, such as
increased confidence in problem solving, reduced anxiety caused by feelings
of isolation, or an increased awareness of and accompanying sense of urgency
in addressing a potential future problem (Vance et al., 1991).
VALUE OF THE TALENT/KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT HYBRID
A combined conceptualization of talent management and knowledge manage-
ment in smart talent management considers that which employees can bring
of value to the organization (i.e., their personal talent attributes) as extending
far beyond only the cognitive domain. The power of the concept of talent
includes its relevance to other essential domains of human development and
performance besides an individual’s store of rational information and cerebral
knowledge. The concept of valued skills and competencies held by an expe-
rienced employee provides a more vivid picture, and strengthens the meaning
of deep, hard to articulate, tacit knowledge, thereby directing it closer to the
influence of specific HR practices for identifying, surfacing and capturing, and
spreading this tacit knowledge within the organization. The valued personal
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attribute of talent also reaches into the affective domain, such as with emo-
tional intelligence and the ability to read and manage one’s own feelings in
a constructive fashion, and to influence others in doing the same (Goleman,
1995, 1998).
We can see very successful global organizations today operating with the
TM/KM hybrid model. One such organization is igus, GmbH of Germany,
a leading manufacturer of energy chain systems that support industrial auto-
mation and robotics. The active involvement of all managers at all levels
in HR practices in combining TM and KM is quickly apparent in a visit to
the headquarters manufacturing facility in Cologne. As symbolized by the
lower-case letters in its name, igus promotes a strong culture of humility, con-
tinuous learning, empowerment, and equality. With operations in 35 countries,
the company heavily invests in training and talent development worldwide.
Its open office space and furniture design supports an egalitarian atmosphere
and facilitates the sharing of information. Everyone can contact anyone else in
the company directly. A good example of this combined TM/KM smart talent
management model in action, which here merges an empowerment approach
with knowledge management, is the igus common maxim: ‘First decide, then
inform.’
As another good example, the multinational giant Procter & Gamble has
been extremely successful in attracting, developing, and retaining its manage-
rial talent worldwide. P&G’s combined TM/KM effectiveness in disseminat-
ing key knowledge, skills, and abilities throughout its worldwide operations
has resulted in the distinct competitive advantage of decision-makers who
share a common mindset and alignment that supports an integrated and
coordinated global business strategy. This TM/KM merger affecting specific
HR practice is evident in the work of P&G’s one East Asia regional senior
HR executive called ‘knowledge-based leadership.’ The purpose of P&G’s
knowledge-based leadership approach is to enable all employees to perform
at their peak by ultimately providing opportunities to make decisions in their
area of responsibilities. In implementing knowledge-based leadership, P&G
employees participate in various forms of training and development to master
their three critical areas of knowledge/understanding: (1) the specific technical
expertise involved in their work, (2) successful P&G business strategies and
approaches, and (3) the Procter & Gamble PVP model that makes up the core
fabric of their culture: purposes (e.g., company mission), values (e.g., core per-
sonal and interpersonal values held by each employee such as integrity, trust,
passion for success, ownership), and principles of business practice linked to
company success (e.g., ‘mutual interdependency is a way of life,’ ‘innovation
is the cornerstone of our success’). Once employees demonstrate that they
have gained sufficient knowledge and clear understanding (including inter-
nalized commitment—learning in the affective domain) in these three primary
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areas, they are fully empowered to make decisions on their own to accomplish
their work performance objectives.
The TM/KM hybrid merges the strengths of each individual approach, yet in
combination is also able to surmount the limitations of each. From the above
discussion we can summarize the distinct strengths of the combined TM/KM
model in smart talent management as follows:
1. With its merger with knowledge management, talent management
becomes much more than just a catchy euphemism to replace ‘human
resource management,’ and is clearly raised to a strategic level of vital
consideration, where employees are seen as holders of critical knowledge
for the organization. The care and retention of such human talent are of
great importance, for employee loss through turnover also can involve
the loss of priceless tacit and transferable knowledge and social capital,
including loss of future knowledge acquisition through terminated exter-
nal professional networks.
2. Knowledge management provides a common purpose and focus to help
unify and integrate HR functional efforts and activities and broaden the
link with HR and organizational strategy.
3. The term ‘talent’ has a potent meaning that may convey the current or
potential value of each employee within the organization—including
contingent employees. Thus, the acquisition, development, deployment,
and retention of such talent gains a greater investment imperative for the
organization.
4. Following a more inclusive path, the TM/KM model has sound theoretical
grounding, yet is positioned within the realm of specific HR functional
practices, where all managers and supervisors perceive they have an
important, central role.
5. The broad view of talent extends knowledge management beyond primar-
ily a conscious, cognitive dimension to include deeper tacit and affective
dimensions.
The intent of this book is to present the TM/KM conceptual hybrid, smart
talent management, as a valuable multi-faceted direction for managerial
action leading to organizational improvement and enhanced competitiveness.
However, the idea of building a stronger connection between knowledge man-
agement and key HR practices is still in its infancy. We hope that our selection
of papers will serve to enhance our understanding of this potentially powerful
union and spur further theoretical and applied developments.
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OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK
Following this first (introductory) chapter, this book comprises nine exemplary
contributions from top international scholars working in the areas of talent and
knowledge management. In the second chapter, titled ‘Conceptualizing and
Operationalizing “Inclusive” Talent Management: Four Different Approaches,’
the authors Françoise Cadigan, Nicky Dries, and Anand van Zelderen identify
four different approaches to inclusive TM—a concept that is advocated more
and more for by both academics and practitioners, and which has thus far
lacked conceptual clarity and practical actionability. The four approaches are
(1) focusing on potential and strengths rather than talent, (2) increasing the
size of the talent pool, (3) defining a broader range of talent domains, and (4)
top-grading the entire organization. The authors propose that exclusive and
inclusive TM (co)exist on a continuum rather than as dichotomies and develop
a decision tree for organizations and researchers to determine which custom
approach might best fit their talent philosophy.
The third chapter, authored by Thomas Garavan, Clíodhna MacKenzie,
and Colette Darcy and called ‘In the War for Talent: Just Who is Worthy of
Development? Talent Development in Organizations,’ explores talent devel-
opment as a critical pillar of the firm’s overall talent management strategy.
The authors position talent development as an inclusive process of developing
all organizational talent that works synergistically with talent acquisition and
retention to enhance employee and organizational outcomes. They specifically
explore current debates within talent development including its contribu-
tion to knowledge management, the types of development strategies that
organizations can use, the significance of generational differences for talent
development, the role of cross-cultural factors, and the use of high potential
development programs.
In the following chapter, ‘Accelerated Development of Organizational
Talent and Executive Coaching: A Knowledge Management Perspective,’
Konstantin Korotov explores the practice of executive coaching as an instru-
ment of accelerated talent development in organizations. Executive coaching,
following a more exclusive TM perspective, has become a popular stand-alone
developmental intervention or an enhancer in other efforts to develop employ-
ees. This chapter considers coaching as an intervention guiding an individual
executive’s efforts in obtaining tacit knowledge, turning implicit organizational
knowledge into explicit for the executive concerned, and developing insights
into reasons for various events happening in the organization. The chapter
provides an opportunity to look at a particular coaching intervention example
by exploring coaching notes from an accelerated development intervention.
It further elaborates on how coaching helps an executive develop knowledge
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about job expectations, stakeholder landscape, organizational culture, self and
identity, and group functioning.
The fifth chapter of our book is titled ‘Employee Learning and Development
from the Perspective of Strategic HRM,’ and its authors Saba Colakoglu,
Yunhyung Chung, and Ying Hong develop conceptual arguments suggest-
ing that HR systems targeted at enhancing employees’ ability, motivation,
and opportunities for learning and knowledge creation (that are part of TM
systems) are critical for effective knowledge management. Based on the
assumption that the knowledge base of an organization lies within the minds
of its talent pool, the authors argue that effective talent and HR management
processes facilitating employee learning and development can create social
climates for knowledge management, which in turn impact individual-level
learning, organizational-level knowledge depositories, and consequently crit-
ical firm outcomes such as innovation and performance. This chapter offers
practical talent management recommendations such as the need to identify
learning-related skills and attributes among talent and ensuring talent manage-
ment processes target those qualities, as well as assessing the social climate
regularly to ensure it is conducive for effective knowledge management.
In the subsequent chapter ‘Talent Staffing Systems for Effective Knowledge
Management,’ Mark L. Lengnick-Hall and Andrea R. Neely discuss the role
of knowledge management and its impact on talent management. The authors
provide their conceptualization of talent, include a discussion of knowledge
management and how it applies, discuss talent staffing systems and how they
impact both processes. Then, Lengnick-Hall and Neely describe the role of
talent staffing systems and how they relate specifically to knowledge man-
agement systems, followed by the conversation about artificial intelligence as
an emerging trend in talent and knowledge management. Finally, they use the
Mayo Clinic as an example of talent and knowledge management integration.
Although there are significant challenges given the dynamic environment,
the authors contend that knowledge management should be incorporated with
talent management for the well-being of all stakeholders.
Chapter 7 is titled ‘Leveraging Firms’ Absorptive Capacity by Talent
Development.’ The authors, Marina Latukha and Maria Laura MacLennan,
discuss the interplay between talent development and a firm’s absorptive
capacity in different country-specific settings by focusing on the largest
emerging markets: Russia (pre-Ukraine invasion), Brazil, and China. They
elaborate on how talent development may increase the overall level of absorp-
tive capacity (AC), namely knowledge acquisition, assimilation, transforma-
tion and exploitation, and how the context may impact the intensity and scale
of this effect. The authors show how emerging market contexts shape a diverse
organizational environment, whereas talent development acts as a booster for
AC. They suggest the necessary conditions for talent management, specifically
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14 Smart talent management
for talent development, to leverage acquisition, assimilation, transformation
and exploitation of knowledge.
The eighth chapter of our book ‘Employee Knowledge Hiding: The Roles
of Protean Career Orientation, HR System and Relational Climate’ by Anne
Roefs, Saša Batistič, and Rob F. Poell is dedicated to an overlooked but critical
human dysfunction of knowledge hiding. The authors contend that despite
various efforts to encourage knowledge sharing among talented employees
in organizations, hiding knowledge from peers still occurs. Therefore, to
ensure success of their talent management efforts, organizations need to
understand why and when their workers hide knowledge. Roefs, Batistič, and
Poell identify three categories of reasons why knowledge hiding happens:
(1) organization-related reasons; (2) job-related reasons; and (3) inter- and
intra-personal reasons. The consequences of knowledge hiding can be sub-
stantial, as besides financial implications, it also brings risks of damaging
relationships and causing distrust among employees. The chapter addresses
specifically how personal characteristics as well as organizational practices
(e.g., talent system and relational climate) can affect the incidence of knowl-
edge hiding.
In the ninth chapter called ‘The Unrealized Value of Global Workers: The
Need for Global Talent Management,’ Anthony McDonnell, Stefan Jooss, and
Kieran M. Conroy highlight the pivotal positions that many global workers
play. Specifically, they unpack the role of global workers as key boundary
spanners, navigating relational, knowledge, and cultural boundaries across
the organization. The chapter also argues that the full value of global workers
remains unrealized given the lack of planning and integration of these workers
in terms of knowledge management processes, talent management strategies,
and global mobility functions. Specifically, the authors point to the lack of
strategic and practical oversights from corporate HR functions and how this
may be impacting upon both global workers’ experiences and organizational
efforts to maximize value.
The final chapter of the book entitled ‘Upward Global Knowledge
Management: A Review and Preliminary Field Validation of the Host Country
National Local Liaison Role Model’ and authored by Charles M. Vance,
Marian van Bakel, Torben Andersen, and Vlad Vaiman examines five key
role components and talent management practices of a proposed host-country
national liaison (HCNL) model affecting foreign subsidiary knowledge man-
agement namely, (1) cultural interpreter, (2) communication manager, (3)
information resource broker, (4) talent manager, and (5) internal change agent.
The authors then present their preliminary field research to begin to validate
this model before making recommendations for further research in understand-
ing and employing appropriate talent management practices involving HCNLs
for improved KM and organizational performance.
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We hope you will enjoy this new edition of Smart Talent Management!
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