When TM strategy is not self-evident: Action research with a mid-sized French company on organizational issues affecting TM strategy

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the talent management (TM) and talentship literature by exploring the key organizational conditions required to design a sustainable TM strategy.

Design/methodology/approach

The author carried out a one-year action research with the management board of a mid-sized French company that sought to implement a TM strategy. Immersion in the phenomenon studied allowed inductive exploration of a TM strategy design from the outset of its formulation and conceptualization. Data were collected from observations, interviews and focus groups with different stakeholders (management board, managers and employees) involved in TM strategy project, and were analyzed from a congruence model to interpret a posteriori the key organizational issues affecting TM strategy.

Findings

The findings highlight the need to go beyond simple TM alignment to business strategy, as talentship asserts. They offer an overview of key organizational issues influencing TM strategy: organizational inputs such as environment, history and identity, along with organizational components such as critical tasks, people, structure, management and culture and their mutual influences and dynamics. The lack of congruence among these key organizational factors hinders the ability to conceptualize, formulate and design TM strategy successfully.

Research limitations/implications

Due to its exploratory nature and the fact that it consists of a single case, this study encourages further contributions to the TM and talentship literature on organizational issues affecting TM strategy in other contexts. It also suggests a complementary approach with the decision-making literature to explore the conceptualization stage and the influences of managers involved in TM strategy more deeply.

Practical implications

The paper suggests an organizational diagnosis on organizational conditions and capabilities for designing TM strategy based on congruence analysis used in this case. It also proposes in addition to the talentship approach and congruence analysis, when key organizational conditions are met, a five-step process for guiding managers in making sounder decisions during TM strategy conceptualization.

Originality/value

The paper sheds light on key organizational conditions required to design TM strategy that have been overlooked in the TM and talentship literature. It thus questions the apparent practicability of TM strategy in any organizational context.

Citation

Naulleau, M. (2019), "When TM strategy is not self-evident: Action research with a mid-sized French company on organizational issues affecting TM strategy", Management Decision, Vol. 57 No. 5, pp. 1204-1222. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2017-0615