Testing three assumptions of talent management about the motivation to quit in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Recent scholarly claims suggest that talent management (TM) needs to move beyond assumptions and that TM research should address contextual factors. This study evaluated three assumptions of the TM literature entailing the intention to quit in a national context at the margins of Western culture. The salesforce of an international pharmaceutical company in Lima, Peru responded questions on the intention to quit and the Short Form of the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire; then the data were analyzed comparing employees in vis-à-vis out of its elitist talent pool. Talented employees presented weaker quit intentions. This finding is consistent with theory and wide international evidence, as well as with a recent twist in the TM literature, and suggests that a fundamental TM relationship transcends national contexts. The other findings contradicted extended beliefs among TM theoreticians and practitioners, who expect a dominance of intrinsic vis-à-vis extrinsic satisfaction and an absence of gender differences in the turnover dynamics. Further research is required to establish whether these findings are specific to the Peruvian context or are robust and valid elsewhere, too.