Mohammed Shafiq Hanif

100134260
Global talent management assignment 2 Talent
6HR502
Word count 2070

Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................... 3
Part 1 - Cultural perspectives on talent and talent management..........................3
Part 2 - Managing and developing talent in global businesses..............................6
Conclusion............................................................................................................. 7
References............................................................................................................. 9

Introduction
This report will focus on the influence of social culture on talent and talent
management, there are two further objectives to this report, the first being to analyse
how different cultures view, develop and manage talent. Specifically, a critical
evaluation of different cultural perspectives on talent and talent management;
secondly to evaluate the approaches and strategies global businesses use to
manage and develop talent.
The first issue concerning an organisation talent strategy is the business strategy,
Campbell (2002) states the business strategy should be the primary focus for a
business. He also describes business strategy as an ongoing process that consists
of three elements, these are organising the businesses purpose, the basic long term
goals and the adaptation and allocation of resources to achieve these goals which
have been taken from Chandler (1962). A research paper published by HR.com
(2012) states that executives still maintain that there are three key elements to a
successful business, these are the right business strategy, operations for the
execution of the strategy and the best talent to execute the operations. This supports
the previous statement made by Campbell (2002) and shows were the talent
strategy is linked to an organisations business strategy.
Moving on from this wages account for the expenditure of 55% of US gross domestic
product and as HR.com (2012) says, talent is critical for a businesss success and
therefore talent needs to be managed effectively with a clearly defined talent
strategy.

Part 1 - Cultural perspectives on talent and talent

management
The first issue concerning the talent strategy if the definition of talent, this varies
across cultures and their perception of what talent is, is the foundation of their talent
strategies (Hansen, 2007). Defining talent is important as the human resource is one
of the biggest costs to a business (HR.com, 2012). Webster (2013) describes talent
as a special ability to do something well, but this is a wide ranging description.
Hansen (2007) adds some clarification to this by pointing out that workers are
plentiful but talent is in a dangerous short supply. She also mentions that some
commentators continue to use the word talent to address a companys entire
workforce, but others use the term to acknowledge the core group of leaders and
contributors that a company has. Hansen (2007) defines this group as the talent pool
and it has been identified that they make up on average no more that 15% of a
companys workforce. Ulrich (2013) expands on defining talent with the formula
talent = competence x commitment x contribution. Therefore the views of Hansen
(2007) and Ulrich (2013) on talent are that it is a select group of people instead of
the conventional workforces.

Al Ariss (2014) supports the information concerning talent above with his research on
what talent means for five different cultural clusters, specifically the views of Hansen
(2007) and Ulrich (2013). These clusters are Anglo, Eastern European, Germanic,
Latin American and Latin European. From his research he expresses the opinion that
these five clusters all associate ability, skill, knowledge and potential with talent.
From this he says that the research shows the difference between the clusters on
what they think talent is, was small but there were some culture specific aspects
such as; the Anglo cluster emphasised the exceptional nature of talent with more
instrumental approach of associating talent with performance, potential and view
talent as being a resource. Eastern Europeans associate talent with willpower, effort
and the willingness and ability to learn. The Germanic cluster emphasised natural
abilities that lead to excellence but still maintain passion as an aspect talent. Latin
American relate talent to the belief of a persons calling or vocation which leads to
career success and the ability to do tasks with ease. The last clusters of Latin
European relate talent to innovation, art, creativity and learning. In addition to this Al
Ariss (2014) identifies no significant difference between the cluster in consideration
to having a fixed or growth related mindset about talent, he points out that for every
cluster over 50% of them hold the view that talent can be developed; and especially
in the Anglo and Germanic clusters, whereas Latin America and European have a
lower percentage of this belief.
Viaman (2008) states talented people are a source for knowledge, expertise, and
competitive advantage for a company. He indicates that they need to be managed
effectively by the hrm department and if they are not, problems such as the one
mentioned below will occur. Tulgan (2001) gives the argument that talented people
have less commitment and defends his statement with the reason for this as being,
talented people are thinking as free agents. He states the cause for this is employers
not being able to monopolise talent through long term employment relationships
anymore. This puts pressure on the hr departments to recruit, develop and manage
people more efficiently. Consistent with this there has also been a growing trend for
talent management; Scullion & Collins (2011) draw attention to a growing interest for
talent management by chief executive officers. Talent management is the hrm
processes that have been put in place for the attraction, development, motivation,
engagement and retention of employees to create a high performance workforce to
meet the requirements of the business strategy. A big aspect concerning talented
people is psychological and implied contracts; Rousseau (1989) mentions that
psychological can be based off culture and are as important as their implied physical
counterpart and need to be managed as effectively.
Hofstede (1993) declares that the talent management concept is an American
invention; he reveals that in other cultures the practices and basic concepts of talent
management may differ. He gives the reason for this as being differing cultural
influences, some of these will be discussed below. Because of these differences he
comes to the conclusion that there is no such thing as universal talent management

theories. The American perspective of talent management relates to the hrm

processes and to managers as a class of people who are held in high esteem by
their population. This class is seen as heroes even though they do not own
businesses but rather sell their skills and act on behalf of the owner, also they do not
produce anything but are seen as indispensible for production because they motivate
the talent to do so (Hofstede, 1993). Bournois (2002) has identified three stages of
American talent management, stage one is the identification and selection stage.
This involves selecting high performance individuals with three to eight years of
experience. Stage two is the training and development stage, people who perform
well in their initial assignments are seen as solid prospects or comers and are then
groomed for a further ten to fifteen years for important positions in the organisation.
Stage three is when the individual has been given the high position. Within western
talent management an individual is expected to relocate every two to four years,
experience unrelenting stress, work long hours and partaking in lengthy travel times.
Hofstedes (1993) research shows Germanys concept of management revolves
around setting tasks, knowledge and expertise to solve technical problems; not
motivation. This reflects Al Ariss (2014) research of organisational talent
management program being lower in Germanic counties. His research also shows
Germanic countries have strong apprenticeships for office and shop floor program
imbedded in their society with strong classroom and work based alternatives. This
has lead to an estimated two thirds holding a certificate which is universally
recognised in Germanic cultures.
Japan has the PM theory of leadership, PM stands for performance and
maintenance. They have two classes of talent; the permanent workers group and
non permanent employees, Hofstede (1993) highlights that talent is seen as seniority
rather than position and rely on internal graduate development schemes to develop
talent.

Part 2 - Managing and developing talent in global

businesses
As culture plays a big part in business and people in general, it is important to
understand how culturally diverse people manage their talent. The best place to do
this would be global businesses as they employ many different people of varying
cultures. Al Ariss (2014) identifies that global businesses use two differing
perspectives to manage and develop talent; these are exclusive and inclusive. Both
methods have been seen to be used in global business but, Al Ariss (2014) has
stated that no definitive method has come about to accurately represent what global
businesses use to date. The inclusive approach is known to further promote more
relaxed working environments which have an emphasis on trust and wellbeing
whereas the exclusive approach is more focused on higher returns to profit and
production. These two methods can also be linked to the hard / soft and theory x /
y approach to hrm, inclusive being more in line with the soft approach and theory y
and vice versa, Gratton (1997).
The exclusive method refers to the activities and processes of the management and
development of employees who are seen to have value within an organisation and
setting up internal organisational structures maintain and exploit a companys
competitive advantage. For example the creation a talent management team whose
goal is to identify key positions which are a source of competitive advantage that
need to be filled, finding the right people and developing them to fit the roles needed
and creating incentives to keep these people retained in long term employment
contracts.
The second is the inclusive method which refers to recognising and identifying where
an employees natural talent and potential lies, and creating development programs
that develop this potential into job specific skills and knowledge. This is in effort to
turn the employees imbedded talents into real world performance for specific jobs
roles on an individual basis. An example of this would be the further training and
development of an employee; who has shown potential in sales or management etc,
for them to better fit into and be more effective within the role.
Al Ariss (2014) also identifies a further two different methods of talent management
used by global businesses, these are selection or development of talent. These two
methods of talent development are extensions of the exclusive and inclusive
methods mentioned previously. These two factors refer to whether the management
team believe that talent can be taught and learned; Tulgan (2001) refers to these two
methods as making or buying talent.
The selection approach refers to talent being natural and inborn and is an exclusive
approach to talent management. This factor relies on processes such as
identification, assessments and selection to recruit talent. This method of talent

development relies heavily on aggressive searching, recruiting and selecting of the

highly sought after resource of talent as Hansen (2007) as mentioned previously.
Whereas the development method is linked to inclusive approach to talent
management, this method relies on the education, training and experience as tools
for talent development. Al Ariss (2014) brings some clarity to these two methods, he
states that even though both methods are prevalent in global businesses the people
in charge of this business process largely hold the personal belief that talent is
inborn and cannot be gained through the development method.
The chart below taken from Paauwe (2012) shows the generalised various aspects
of talent management in global business, as can be seen above there are finer
details that this chart is missing. The centre is how an organisation views talent; from
there the middle ring are six guiding principles of strategy and finally the outer ring is
the actual implementation. This existence of this chart from Paauwe (2012) conflicts
with Hofstedes (1993) view, that there can be no universal talent management
strategy.

(Chart taken from Paauwe, 2012)

Conclusion
This report has looked at how social culture affects the views of talent and talent
management, also how global businesses develop and management talent. With the
information contained within this report its shows that the influence of social culture
within organisations and how it affects their talent strategy. From the information
gained it shows that the basis of their talent strategies, whether it is based on

exclusive or inclusive is derived from the staff members in charge of the talent
management department and their initial definition of talent. From this the majority of
the other methods fall in line. Finally it is important to treat each company individually
with regards to their talent strategy as they have their own organisational culture as
well which might incorporate hybrid methods of talent management.

References
Al Ariss, A (2014) Global Talent Management: Challenges, Strategies, and
Opportunities, Belgium: Springer International Publishing.
Bournois, B (2002) Cross-cultural Approaches to Leadership Development, USA:
Greenwood Publishing Group
Campbell, D (2002). Business strategy, an introduction . 2nd ed. Oxford: Butterworth
and Heinemann . 7-9.
Gratton, L, 1997. Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A
Reappraisal. Journal of managment studies , [Online]. 1/34, 53-73. Available at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6486.00042/full [Accessed 17
November 2014].
Hofstede, G, 1993. Cultural constraints in management theories. Academy of
Management , [Online]. 1/7, 81-89. Available at:
http://users.ipfw.edu/todorovz/teaching/401/readings/Cultural%20constraints%20in
%20mgmt%20theories%20Hofstede.pdf [Accessed 30 December 2014].
HR.com. 2012. Driving Successful HR Leadership: Talent Managements Role in
Core Business Strategy. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/human-capital-management/talentmgmt-role-bus-strategy-1915947.pdf. [Accessed 24 November 14].
Paauwe, J, 2012. Six Principles of Effective Global Talent Management. MITSloan
management review , [Online]. 2/53, 27. Available at:
http://www.altocapital.co.nz/resources/Global%20Talent%20Management
%206%20Principles.pdf [Accessed 04 January 2015].
Webster. 2013. A definition of talent. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.merriamwebster.com/thesaurus/talent. [Accessed 17 November 14].
Ulrich, D, 2011. What is talent? Business & Management, [Online]. 63/2012, 55-61.
Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ltl.20011/abstract [Accessed
17 November 2014].
Hansen, F. (2007). What Is Talent? Workforce management. 86 (1), 15-17.
Rousseau, D.M. (1989). Psychological and implied contracts in organizations.
Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. 2 (2), 121-139.
Scullion, H & Collins, D (2011). Global Talent Managment . New York: Routledge. 311.

Tulgan, B, 2001. Winning the Talent Wars. Employment relations today, [Online].
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[Accessed 24 November 2014].
Viaman, V, 2008. Retention management as a means of protecting tacit knowledge
in an organisation: a conceptual framework for professional services firms.
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