Managing talent in mission-driven organizations: a qualitative exploration

Abstract

Although there is fruitful talent management (TM) literature on large private companies, little of the TM research examines mission-driven organizations (MDOs). This study addresses this gap by presenting TM in the context of the not-for-profit sector in Russia. Using grounded theory, we interviewed 34 top managers to understand how they define talent and how they manage such talent. The research highlights the crucial role of social values in this context. It generates a perspective on the definition of talent that differs from that of the traditional TM literature. The variety of talent definitions creates the following three different paths for TM: community-based, innovation and learning-based, and security and status-based. Then, we derive from these paths three patterns of TM practices (“managerial”, “entrepreneurial” and “amateur”) that describe the TM practices among Russian MDOs. This study contributes to the TM literature by challenging the traditional approach to TM that focuses on large private companies in Western countries. This paper links TM with social and moral values and presents three different TM patterns, which might be helpful for CEOs, executives and TM managers.