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The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online information and the implications for social stratification and mobility. This study provides an in-depth exploration of the online recruitment strategies pursued by human resource (HR) professionals. Qualitative interviews with 61 HR recruiters in two southern US metro areas reveal two distinct patterns in how they use Internet resources to fill jobs. For low and general skill work, they post advertisements to online job boards (e.g., Monster and CareerBuilder) with massive audiences of job seekers. By contrast, for high-skill or supervisory positions, they use LinkedIn to target passive candidates – employed individuals who are not looking for work but might be willing to change jobs. Although there are some intermediate practices, the overall picture is one of an increasingly bifurcated “winner-take-all” labor market in which recruiters focus their efforts on poaching specialized superstar talent (“purple squirrels”) from the ranks of the currently employed, while active job seekers are relegated to the hyper-competitive and impersonal “black hole” of the online job boards.

Using human capital theory and resource-based view (RBV), the authors argue that individuals and societies derive economic benefits from investments in people (Becker, 1992; Sweetland, 1996), thus effective management of talent is critical for economic development (Lepak and Snell, 2002; Khilji, 2012a). Next, the authors review governmental policies in three of the world's most populous countries, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, in order to highlight their national talent development efforts. The authors discuss how each country is meeting the challenge of making the talent they own, as well as buying diaspora talent in order to strengthen their local capabilities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors adopted a comparative analysis approach in order to frame our arguments and discussion.

The paper finds that Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have implemented a wide range of initiatives, from skill development programs to citizenship policies for its diaspora, in order to upgrade their local capabilities. In addition, these countries are simultaneously using inclusive, exclusive, and subject dimensions (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2013) in developing their national talent. The paper highlights prevalence of the paradox of development and retention particularly in Bangladesh and Pakistan, where youth is also being trained to emigrate.

Global talent management (GTM) has become an increasingly important policy initiative, in view of a global generational divide that will require youth-rich emerging economies and aging developed countries to implement policies that help them meet global talent needs.

This commentary advances a macro GTM view, and argues in favor of promoting a policy perspective to better connect policy, research and practice that may lead to maximizing human potential globally and addressing global talent shortages.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive framework that identifies thematic clusters and their interconnections within Global Talent Management (GTM), global careers and talent management (TM).

In this paper, this study conducted a co-citation analysis using bibliographic data to unveil the intellectual connections and relationships among thematic articles related to GTM sourced from the Web of Science.

This review highlights three key research themes: experiences working abroad, TM approaches and the complex nature of GTM as a living system.

The main limitation of this research is the sample itself. Content analysis based on the co-citation method resulted in some more recent releases being omitted.

The practical implications of the paper include providing a structured framework for understanding the complexities of GTM.

Research into the academic literature in this area is divided into various clusters, empirically demonstrating how GTM and global mobility are intertwined, revealing the need for us to more thoroughly comprehend the social ramifications of GTM practices and activities and the need to further analyse the influencing social aspects in a GTM strategy, like diversity, increased mobility and virtual reality.

The analysis revealed the emergence of three distinct thematic groups: (1) global work experiences, (2) TM approaches and (3) GTM.

The purpose of the paper is to afford a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of the construct of talent management through an inclusive exploration of conceptual clarifications for existing confusions while developing a complete measuring instrument.

The archival method was adopted together with a systematic review based on Khan et al.’s (2003) five steps of systematic literature review. The systematic review has encircled published research articles between 1982 and 2023 in the human resource management (HRM) arena. A total of 130 articles were initially scrutinized, and 106 were systematically reviewed to conceptualize, operationalize and explore clarifications for confusions and instrument development for talent management.

This study explored conceptual clarifications for existing confusions towards talent management while recognizing definitions that come under the main philosophical schools for the underlying concept of talent. A novel practical definition has been established for talent management while recognizing dimensions, and then certain elements. A comprehensive instrument has been developed to measure talent management.

This study is limited to instrument development in measuring talent management; nevertheless, there is an enormous scope for using the instrument to empirically measure talent management through organizational and employees perspectives linked to diverse global contexts in future studies.

The developed comprehensive instrument is a vibrant contribution to future investigations related to empirically measuring talent management associated with organizational and employee perspectives related to diverse global contexts in winning “war for talent.” This study endows a significant input to the whole frame of HRM knowledge as it resolves existing conceptual ambiguities towards talent management while defining and operationalizing it.

A core assumption of exclusive talent management is that some employees have more talent than others. Performance data and talent reviews provide some support for this assumption yet there are grounds thinking that a proportion of talent identification is false; average people can be included, talented people can excluded. In an exploration of how talent recognition is exposed to risk, this chapter considers two approaches to talent that are seldom treated together. First, the social construction of talent is developed in ways that highlight the dangers that inevitably arise in talent recognition processes. A social constructionist treatment raises the prospect of ‘empty’ talent pools and the chapter explores the ethical and moral issues arising and questions whether it matters that talent pools might be empty. Second, talent is considered as an innate characteristic of people highlighting that talents are not static and continue evolving up to a point. As such, and if so, it is right that organizations should look periodically for talent across their employee base. The chapter highlights areas for further research into the existence of ‘the talented’ in business contexts and in particular the question of how much talent pools actually contain people with above average talent. The practical implications of appreciating both social and natural bases of talent are considered.

The global migration and movement of talent plays an important role in the economic growth and competitiveness of many nations. In coming decades, it is anticipated that there will be increased competition between countries to attract the best and brightest. The World Economic Forum (2011) has recommended using nation branding strategies to attract talent. In response to this recommendation, the purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic framework and terminology for branding nations to attract highly skilled workers. Based on a review of the literature, it recommends five strategic vision drivers that can help countries brand themselves in an appealing and compelling way to talented professionals. This paper also recommends the term “relocation branding” to describe the practice of branding nations, regions and cities to attract talent.

This paper examines the literature on nation branding and talent mobility to propose a conceptual framework of five vision drivers for branding destinations to attract talent. It also discusses how these vision drivers can be used in the context of an overall branding initiative and campaign.

This paper finds that the determinants of talent mobility are complex and overlapping. Highly skilled temporary and permanent migrants have a broad range of concerns and interests when they voluntarily choose a country to live and work in. This paper argues that, given these complexities, a more tailored and multidimensional understanding of talent mobility is necessary to effectively craft a branding strategy that will appeal to the highly skilled. A clear vision, demonstrating an understanding of the challenges of moving between countries, has to be integrated into the brand from the outset.

This paper is one of the only in-depth studies of nation branding for the purpose of attracting temporary and permanent skilled migrants. The value of this paper is significant as it provides a framework for strategically creating and positioning nation brands to attract highly skilled workers.

A systems approach is used to study the development of human resources. Throughout the provinces of Canada exist many disparities between educational inputs such as inequalities of expenditure and also between outputs such as widely differing rates of pupil retardation and retention. There is a need to devote to the development of human resources the same energy, expertise and financial support that is invested in physical resources. Society expects education to contribute greatly to this process. There are three phases through which the education system might move in seeking to develop human resources: (1) discovery based on the acknowledgement that within industries and societies lie undisclosed abilities awaiting identification; (2) production, to utilize all known abilities currently underdeveloped; (3) refinement, when original ideas and creative modes of expression must have a discipline imposed upon them.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the composition of skillsets in biotechnology from the perspective of employers and its relation to open innovation processes in the sector. It provides conclusions for HR management practice.

The study is based on job advertisements content analysis and in-depth interviews with chiefs of research and development companies. It uses biotechnology as an example of industry where open innovation practice implementation is expanding. The authors have used data from American, British and Russian job search engines.

It is demonstrated that skills composition required in biotechnology does not vary significantly among selected countries as the market becomes increasingly globalized in terms of not only technology used but also personnel hired. Companies stress more on hard and digital skills, while soft skills appear to be a “must have without saying,” The mismatch between skills presented in the advertisements and articulated in the interviews has been found as employers tend to demonstrate innovation friendly company culture for possible applicants.

The present paper enriches literature on employee skills for open innovation. It gives comprehensive lists of biotech skills in-demand divided into hard, digital and soft categories and interprets them within the context of employee cognition and behavior. The new insight into employee skills articulated by the companies as a strong element of organizational culture is presented.

The sports industry is a forerunner in the international quest for talent as the search by sport clubs and the corresponding self-initiated expatriation of athletes starts at a very early age. The purpose of this paper is to address this phenomenon by exploring the experiences of talented young Icelandic footballers (soccer players) in their transition from Iceland into senior-level professional football in European leagues across six dimensions – three individual and three cultural.

Biographical narrative interviews have been conducted with eight Icelandic players moving overseas at a young age with the purpose of advancing their career. To investigate the coping strategies applied, a purposeful sampling approach was chosen, given that half of the participants successfully dealt with transitions in their career, while the other half did not experience the same success.

As an overall result, the expatriate journey for young footballers is complex, influenced by many events, expectations, conditions and pressures that affect their support web and ability to adjust. Reflecting on the experiences of successful transitions, problem-focused coping strategies have been more effective than emotion-focused coping.

This study highlights some necessary conditions and coping strategies for young self-initiated sports expatriates to cope with the expatriate transition successfully.

The authors contribute to research on expatriation, as this specific group of “young professionals” has not yet been addressed by the research within international human resource management. Our research framework responds to calls in the literature to consider additional stages of player development and an array of individual and cultural factors that may have a significant role in shaping players’ careers abroad.

The paper aims at dealing with the role of users in the creation (or curation) and distribution of digital contents. User generated contents (UGCs) refer to a variety of media such as Wikis, question-answer databases, digital video, blogging, podcasting, forums, review sites, social networking, social media and mobile phone photograph. It attempts assessing their potential role as co-innovators. The paper follows the progressive creation of a new space for users, tracking its specific forms in each subsector of the media and content industries. Each subsector reveals a disruption in the production and circulation of new content.

The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature, review of the technical journals, and analysis of annual reports. The paper is part of an on-going research project on media and content industries.

The paper argued that since 2007 (release of iPhone and Kindle) the landscape went through a dramatic change, scaling up. It illustrates how the entire value chain of content (production/distribution/consumption) has opened up. The amount of UGC produced triggered a qualitative jump, ushering in new modes of interaction between the customers and creators, without necessarily turning the consumer into a full-fledge producer. The UGC model adds another source of production, thereby increasing diversity, ushering in new ways for talent scouting. It reveals various forms of co-creation and the role of a community model while also showing its limits.

This paper concentrates on digital media and does not deal with any other aspect such as knowledge sharing (Wikis). The paper does not cover the reactions of traditional industry players to UGC (some elements are given for newspaper), neither possible policy and regulatory responses The paper relies mostly on reports from news agencies, consultancies or annual reports from companies so as to delineate the main trends.

It shows that the role of customers did change within this context. The new channels offer novel ways to produce, curate and disseminate contents. It offers a range of examples from different industries.

The paper documents the participation of consumers in the production of content. it hints at the evolution of labour, alludes to the issue of diversity and of creativity, but does not address other societal issues.

Some reports were devoted to UGC in 2007 (OECD) and 2008 (Idate-IVIR-TNO) but in spite of the major changes that took place over the past decade, the research has been scarce, or has concentrated on a specific segment of the media industry. The paper is trying to offer a comprehensive overview of the various segments. Each sub-segment of the media industry illustrates a specific dimension.