Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Impact of Strategic Talent Management Practices on Corporate Performance: A Literature
Review
Name
Institution
LITERATURE REVIEW 2
Impact of Strategic Talent Management Practices on Corporate Performance: A Literature
Review
Introduction
The consistent attainment of corporate performance targets is critical to the continuous
growth and profitability of public and private organizations in all sectors of the economy. While
technology systems and organizational structures are vital components of the business model, the
effective management of the people component is equally critical. Also, the imperative for
companies to deviate from traditional human resource management practices has increased the
need for new paradigms such as strategic talent management (Haeruddin, 2018). In this regard,
the focus is largely on how these management practices impact corporate performance and the
need for the identification of its elements and approaches that generate the desire performance
outcomes (Sareen & Mishra, 2016). Therefore, the aim of this literature review is the evaluation
of research evidence on the meaning, elements, and approaches for strategic talent management
(STM) that should guide the creation of the factors that result in positive impacts of tactical and
strategic corporate performance objectives.
Analysis of Strategic Talent Management and its Impacts on Corporate Performance
Strategic talent management is a new paradigm in organizational research has several
definitions that reflect its status as an evolving concept. In their research, Sareen et al. (2016)
defined the concept as the approaches that companies use to "recruit, train, develop, and manage
their workforce. They further included the processes for evaluating and maintaining the
performance of the people component of the structure. However, Mahjoub, Atashsokhan,
Khalilzadeh, Aghajanloo, and Zohrehvandi (2018) described strategic talent management as the
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organizational practices that are used for the identification of critical positions that contribute to
the sustainability and competitiveness of the organization. According to this definition, the
essence of the strategies and systems that a company uses to manage talents is the deployment of
people to fill the critical functions in the organizational structure. Another contrasting viewpoint
on the meaning of this concept that highlights its evolving nature as a human resource
management concept is the one provided by Haeruddin (2018) when he stated that strategic
talent management is used to empower and develop the high-performing workers in ways that
make it imperative for their managers to harness their potentials through the right incentives and
rewards. Therefore, there is disagreement in the literature on the meaning of the concept despite
the consensus that it is required to improve or maintain competitive advantages.
Elements of Strategic Talent Management
While the processes for implementing talent management strategies of a company are
several, multiple research studies revealed that developing the talent pool is the most critical.
According to Haeruddin (2018), the process occurs in the second stage of the strategic
management framework that companies that were examined in his study utilize for identifying
high performing employees and supporting them to accomplish their performance tasks. Najim
and Manasrah (2017) corroborated this perspective when they stated that talent development is
one of the elements of the strategies that are used by companies to ensure the delivery of the
three criteria for measuring the level of performance that is achieved by the individual employees
and teams. In contrast to these perspectives on the processes that are used for the execution of the
strategic management practices that could contribute to improved organizations, these two
studies considered other processes as necessary. While Najim et al., (2017) found from their
study of Jordanian banks that alignment of talent management strategy, maintenance, attraction,
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and renewal of talents are needed to support development, Haeruddin (2018) claimed that the
identification of positions and creation of human resource structures are additional processes for
make talent development effective. Regardless of this divergence and convergence of
perspectives from the literature on the elements of talent management, the evidence from
multiple studies is that STM is management practices that consist of the critical processes that
must be executed to derive its benefits.
Furthermore, the need to gain insights into the essential components of STM inspired
some researchers to consider the application of the concept in the global context. In an era of
globalization and its influence on the sustainability and profitability of companies, this area of
research was valuable to managers of multinational corporations. In order to expand the current
knowledge, King (2015) explored the potentials of a strategic framework for global talent
management that is derived from the impact of multiple mediators and predictors. It was argued
that this model is vital to support the quests of international businesses to determine the
differentiated roles in their structures and various human resource management actions and
decisions that should be made to manage talented employees. Additionally, global talent
management was found as the model that ensures the integration of the high-performing teams
into the broad enterprise system in ways that motivate their commitment to engage in business-
led activities that generate performance (King, 2015). Although the investigations into the
impacts of STM on a corporate performance that was conducted by Boštjančič and Slana (2018)
were limited to large corporations with local operations and structures, their findings supported
the need for companies with a large workforce to consider the use of a strategic framework that
recognizes the roles of multiple actors and mediators to accomplish the objectives of applying
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the concept to their management practices. Hence, this review of the literature must examine the
right approaches to implementing to impact corporate performance.
Approaches for Implementing Strategic Talent Management
As a management concept that consists of several processes that are executed
sequentially, it is essential to review the different approaches that contribute to the outcomes that
strategic talent management has on corporate performance. In this regard, evaluation of the
selected research publications for this review revealed two major approaches; exclusive and
inclusive methods. Najim et al., (2017) described the exclusive approach as one that is used to
identify a few high-performing employees and made to undergo the processes for talent
management that were described in the previous section. They further added that the inclusive
method for executing the STM practices of an organization considers the unique strengths and
knowledge of every employee that should be harnessed by the organization to accomplish its
corporate performance objectives. While Boštjančič et al., (2018) agreed with these descriptions
of the two approaches, their focus on the solution for overcoming the challenges with talent
retention resulted in the conclusion that the exclusive approach is widely adopted by large
corporations while medium-sized preferred the inclusive one due to its role in helping them focus
on the key positions that support organizational growth as various stages of its development.
Meanwhile, it is pertinent to note that the research publications on strategic management
documented the limitations of these approaches that managers should consider being adopting.
Also, the differences in the complexities of the industries, market environment, consumer
behaviors, and organizational structure and culture provide the additional rationale why the
selection and application of any of the approaches to the STM practices of managers should be
considered. For example, Najim et al. (2017) argued that despite the tendency for the exclusive
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approach to reduce overall employee engagement and contribute to higher rates of turnover, their
investigations revealed that it is the most effective method for delivering consistent long-term
performance result. This evidence-based perspective implies that senior managers and high-
performing middle and lower cadre workers benefit from the recruitment, development, and
reward systems that are used for executing STM. In other words, organizations that cannot
manage the adverse impacts of the high turnover rates and low engagement of its workforce
through its staffing plan should consider the use of the inclusive approach that supports the
flexibility that key functions need to contribute to its long-term growths (Boštjančič et al., 2018).
Therefore, there is evidence from previous studies that the STM practices of organizations
should be defined by its size, staffing plan, succession planning, and strategic corporate
performance objectives.
The limitations of the exclusive and inclusive approaches for implementing the STM
processes that impact corporate performance created gaps that current researchers are exploring.
In this regard, Ibrahim and Zayed (2018) investigated how multinational corporations use their
talent management practices to maintain or improve their competitive advantages in the Egyptian
market. According to the researchers, the integrated approach is the new paradigm that is gaining
increased recognition and utilization by these global corporations because of its potential to
provide robust and effective approaches to respond to the dynamic of various business
environments and ensure the flexibility to manage talented workers accordingly. The focus on
methods that integrate STM into the business context can help organizations to leverage the
strengths of developing high-performing workers and promoting knowledge sharing and personal
development among its entire workforce. Therefore, the integrated STM approach is an emerging
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aspect of the concept that would inspire future researchers to explore its suitability to all types of
organization, markets, and business strategies.
Outcomes of Strategic Talent Management Practices on Corporate Performance
The critical review of the selected research articles for this study on the impacts of
strategic talent management on corporate performance revealed that positive relationships
between concepts. According to Sareen et al. (2016), the organizational performance consists of
the financial and non-financial outcomes that illustrate the progress of a company or business
towards its corporate goals and objectives, For an organization to achieve the level of
performance that gives it advantages over its competitors in the marketplace, research shows that
certain contributing factors must be present to support the processes. Some of these factors
include the existence of systems that support continuous learning, align structures in ways that
encourage employee involvement and focus te on value delivery. Therefore, the STM policy of
an organization is the summation of the contributing factors to organizational performance and
reason for the positive correlations that were identified during the review of the literature on both
management concepts.
Additionally, the need to identify the specific ways that STM impacts corporate
performance resulted in the determination of four outcomes. First, STM was found to increase
the level of employee motivation for work and commitment to organizational goals in all types
of organizations (Haeruddin, 2018). Secondly, Mahjoub et al. (2018) found that the successes of
the projects that are used by project-based companies to accomplish their corporate objectives
are dependent on the quality and relevance of their STM policies and systems. Third, the
potential of reward systems to meet the diverse needs of employees and motivate them to deliver
expected individual and team performance results is dependent on the talent development
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processes that are used to improve the skills and knowledge of the company (Haeruddin, 2018).
Similarly, Ibrahim et al., (2018) considered corporate performance as the reflection of the values
that are created by the proper functioning of all the parts of the organizational structure. Finally,
the effectiveness of the succession plans and human resource systems of organizations to
promote the right organizational culture, strengthen the company's attractiveness to talents in the
labor market, and contribute to the continued growth and profitability is closely linked to their
strategic talent management policies.
Conclusions
In conclusion, the review of the literature highlighted the strategic importance of talent
management to successful companies and how an understanding of its various implementation
methods can generate expected outcomes. As the outcome of this review showed, companies can
utilize their STM policies to attract talented employees from the local and international labor
markets and identify its various elements that motivate current and new employees to increase
their commitment to organizational goals. Also, the increased dependence on globalization and
the role of technology systems to support this need of companies highlights the need for
management researchers to explore the models that can be used for implementing integrated
strategic talent management. Finally, the limited number of studies on this significant aspect of
talent management justifies the need for future researchers to explore investigate the frameworks
that would generate these models and assess the impacts of corporate culture and influence of
societal values on their effectiveness in both large and medium-sized companies.
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References
Boštjančič, E., & Slana, Z. (2018). The role of talent management comparing medium-sized and
large companies–major challenges in attracting and retaining talented
employees. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1750.
Haeruddin, M. (2018). Light My Fire: A Perspective on Strategic Talent
Management. Management, 8(1), 35-39.
Ibrahim, S. N., & Zayed, A. (2018). The Impact of the Integrated Talent Management on the
Competitive Advantage in Multinational Corporations. International Journal of
Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(7), 221-237.
King, K.A. (2015) Global talent management: introducing a strategic framework and multiple
actors model. Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of Expatriate Management
Research, 3 (3), 273-288
Mahjoub, M., Atashsokhan, S., Khalilzadeh, M., Aghajanloo, A., & Zohrehvandi, S. (2018).
Linking “Project Success” and “Strategic Talent Management” - satisfaction/motivation
and organizational commitment as mediators. Procedia Computer Science, 138, 764-774.
Najm, A., & Manasrah, A. K. (2017). The effect of talent management on organizational
performance: applied study in Jordanian banks. Review of Applied Socio-Economic
Research, 13(1), 36-51.
Sareen, P., & Mishra, S. (2016). A study of talent management and its impact on performance of
organizations. Journal of Business and Management, 18(12), 66-73.
