Strategic talent management: future directions

Abstract

Introduction: key learning points from the book We complete this book by reviewing some of its key learning points, and summarizing the implications of these for the future development of practice and research. Chapter 1 provided a brief historical review of how the field emerged and developed and showed that while the field of strategic talent management is still very much in its infancy, it is becoming of growing significance to top managers as well as academics. We noted the range of recent special issues on the topic. It is also interesting to note that two out of the three most downloaded papers in 2013 from the Journal of World Business were about talent management. However, we also questioned what the contours of this new and emerging field will be, or should be. In the opening chapters we asked a number of important questions about the emerging field of strategic talent management: What do strategists think about the debates about talent management? What should be the role of expert knowledge in the assessment of talent? How should talent-management functions best think about strategic workforce planning and talent pipelines in an era of high levels of uncertainty? How should the field of talent management best draw upon marketing concepts when articulating concepts such as employee-value propositions or employer brands? How should organizations think about the strategic configuration of the talent-management practices that they need to put in place?