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Talent management (TM) is widely seen as a key organizational challenge necessary to sustain competitive advantage. While academia has mostly focused on HRM practices associated with exclusive TM targeting organizational high performers at higher managerial levels, there are reasons why organizations should consider a more inclusive talent management (ITM) approach. They include the growing diversification of organizations and the global workforce caused by demographic changes and mobility across borders, overall talent scarcity and hard to predict market dynamics which all make future talent needs hard to anticipate. Issues such as employee perceptions of organizational justice and fairness are also important. Moreover, existing HRM orthodoxy concerned with investing in the company’s human resource and the wellbeing of employees pushes companies to invest in ITM as a path to a better working environment characterized by openness, trust and overall well-being. Few TM researchers, however, pay sufficient attention to the problems of organizational inequality and social segregation that exclusive TM might occasion and thus disregard how social exclusion and economic inequality continue to characterize many organizations. The ambition of this chapter therefore is to contribute to the development of an inclusive approach to TM. We add to the notion of ITM by bringing in literature on inclusive organizations which is absent from current theoretical development. Building on current conceptualizations in particular by Swailes et al. (2014) and Meyers and Woerkom (2014), we ask: How can literature on organizational inclusion contribute to developing more fair and equal organizations through inclusive TM practices?

The purpose of this paper is to focus on three Egyptian public business schools in an attempt to explore the effect of inclusive/exclusive talent management on the organizational downsizing of academics and the mediating role of responsible leadership.

A total of 330 academics were contacted and given a set of questionnaires. After three follow-ups, a total of 240 responses were collected with a response rate of 72.73 percent. Multiple regressions were employed to show how much variation in organizational downsizing can be explained by inclusive/exclusive talent management and responsible leadership.

The findings highlighted a very weak statistical association between academics’ inclusive talent management and organizational downsizing, whereas a strong statistical association has been discovered between exclusive talent management and organizational downsizing. Statistical analysis showed that responsible leadership has no role in mediating the relationship between inclusive/exclusive talent management of academics and their downsizing.

The authors have focused on only three Egyptian public business schools, the matter that may limit opportunities to generalize the results of this study to private business schools and other faculties in Egypt. Future research could use a double source method.

By preparing a set of academic competences, business schools will be able to classify their academic staff into talented and non-talented, and accordingly they can initiate their tailored downsizing strategies. Furthermore, undertaking a responsible strategy of downsizing, which includes and is not limited to justifying the need to decrease academic staff numbers to guarantee post-redundancy care practices for laid-off academics may alleviate many of the negative psychological, societal and economic consequences of downsizing.

This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and higher education literature, in which empirical studies on the relationship between talent management and academics’ organizational downsizing have been limited until now. This may create better research opportunities for cross-disciplinary papers that should be done by HR, higher education and leadership scholars.

This study aims to critically examine talent management practices and strategies from ethical and responsible management perspectives.

It achieves its aim through conceptual analysis by theorising through the lenses of talent philosophies, the organisational justice theory, the stakeholder theory and extant literature.

A responsible talent management construct and mode to guide the practice of talent management in a socially responsible way is developed. It argues that inclusivity; corporate responsibility; and equity and equal employment opportunity are the key underlying principles of a responsible talent management system. This study further argues that responsible talent management practices promote achievement of multilevel sustainable outcomes such as decent work, employee well-being and organisational well-being.

Emphasising responsible management and ethical concerns in organisational talent strategies and practices is non-negotiable, given the current level of interest in sustainable work and employment and in the quest to achieve sustainable human and organisational outcomes through management and organisational practices.

The development of a responsible talent management construct and model is original and novel and is expected to shape thinking and drive new research directions in the field of talent management. It further contributes directly to knowledge and practice by demonstrating how organisations can manage their talents in a responsible way.

In line with recent trends in the human resource management literature that address talented employees and their management, the purpose of this paper is to examine the associations between talent philosophies (innate/developable and exclusive/inclusive) and the way talent is identified and assessed in the context of service organisations.

A structured questionnaire was administered in shipping companies located in Greece and 125 questionnaires suitable for further use were collected. Moreover, the measurement instruments of the constructs under examination were adopted from relevant studies in the literature. Finally, the data were analysed through exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis.

The findings showed that the different talent philosophies impact upon the way talent is managed (i.e. identified and assessed). Specifically it was found that managers who adopt mainly innate and exclusive talent philosophies tend to rely more on their first impressions in the identification of talent and to focus in a greater extent on their personal judgment rather than standardized procedures in talent assessment.

Despite the increased academic voices on exploring the concepts of talent and talent management in the context of business organisations, the field is still lacking empirical evidence. Therefore, this study contributes to the limited empirical studies on talent issues and provides evidence on the links between the dominant talent philosophies and the way talent is identified and assessed in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how talent management (TM) unfolds in practice in a public organization.

An exploratory single case study was conducted of a Swedish public hospital, based on interviews, observations and documents.

The findings illustrate that despite a highly egalitarian and collectivist context, the hospital adopted an exclusive approach to TM, and a talent was not considered or identified through formal performance appraisals, but through informal criteria. The rationale behind this approach is influenced by the surrounding context, including the implementation of an innovative and strategically important practice, and the highly professionalized context.

The study offered a rich view of how TM unfolds in practice, which may not always be possible using large sample, survey studies; however, it limited the generalizability.

The study points to important issues when designing TM.

The paper addresses two main shortcomings in the TM literature: the under-researched context of public organizations and the lack of contextual awareness. The empirically driven analysis constitutes an important step for further theory development regarding exclusive/inclusive approaches in TM.

In this chapter, the authors review talent management in the research university sector, business schools in particular. The authors adopt an “exclusive” perspective on talent management, assuming that some scholars contribute disproportionately to organizational performance. The authors identify two particular groups of scholars likely to be the target of exclusive talent management practices in business schools: (i) faculty on a tenure track career path and (ii) “star” tenured faculty with exceptionally strong track records. Focusing on these current and potential future “stars,” the authors review and discuss talent management practices related to talent identification, recruitment and selection, performance management, talent development, benefits and rewards, and tenure, promotion, and retention. In the extant literature, these topics have been mostly examined in the general university environment and less so in the business school context. This is somewhat problematic given that business schools have their own special characteristics. Moreover, some of the reviewed topics – especially talent development – have received only marginal scholarly interest thus far. Based on this literature review, and by drawing on their own experience working in different roles in academia, the authors highlight some of the gaps in the current body of knowledge and propose an agenda for future research.

In this chapter, I propose an integrative framework for theorizing and empiricizing about talent management, based on the notion of “talent philosophies.” I believe that current debates about whether talent management should be inclusive or exclusive create the risk that our field will become fragmented, thereby undermining its social-scientific legitimacy. Nonetheless, this debate is absolutely correct in identifying the tensions between inclusive and exclusive approaches to talent management as a phenomenon. This, however, creates issues for talent management as a construct for scientific inquiry, as we need clear definitions and measures to create a cumulative body of research as a community. I propose that the solution lies in an expansion of our vocabulary as talent management researchers and identify four constructs that can help us structure and categorize our collective work: giftedness, talent, potential, and strength. Each of these constructs map logically onto different talent philosophies and talent management practices. In establishing “unity in diversity,” I believe talent management could finally make the transition into a more mature field of academic inquiry – although clearly phenomenon driven – characterized in equal parts by construct clarity, rigor, and relevance.

This paper examines antecedents to perceived injustice in exclusive talent identification practices.

31 in-depth interviews with individuals working in for-profit organizations in France were conducted and analyzed. Interviewees represented a variety of sectors such as transportation, aerospace, energy and telecommunications.

The use of exclusivity in talent identification influences perceived organizational justice through ambiguous advancement policies, support from hidden networks, lack of diversity in the talent identification process, frequent gender discrimination, and premature labeling of talent. These practices suggest breaches in procedural, distributive and interactional justice by allocating advantages to some employees over others. Exclusivity yielded frustration, jealousy and potential retaliatory behavior against those individuals deemed to be unfairly identified as talent.

The challenge of ensuring fair and equitable talent identification is a growing issue for organizations. For managers, it requires paying close attention to how some forms of exclusivity in talent identification may create unfair treatment of employees.

While organizational justice research focuses on the background and practices that promote justice, our research finds its originality in examining the sentiments of injustice that remain contextual, subjective and comparative.

Past research provides mixed evidence of the various elements of talent management. This review consolidates that research evidence to present a comprehensive evidence-based multilevel framework to inform practice and outline future research directions.

A systematic review of 120 empirical studies, focusing on determinants, practices and/or outcomes of talent management practices, was undertaken.

Our multilevel framework suggests that talent management perspectives determine talent management practices which, in turn, impact organizational, group and employee outcomes. Most studies focused on identifying talent management perspectives or practices within organizations, while few studies investigated how these perspectives influence practices. The inclusive vs exclusive perspective has been the main focus of the research. However, findings indicate that a combination of perspectives generates a hybrid approach which leads to a range of talent management practices. The most studied practices involve talent development and the least studied involve talent engagement. In total, 67 studies focusing on outcomes of talent management identified organizational performance as the most conspicuous outcome of talent management.

This review contributes to the existing knowledge of talent management by consolidating the empirical evidence on determinants and outcomes of talent management practices and provides a comprehensive, integrated and multilevel framework to guide practice and future research.