Employee reactions to talent management: Assumptions versus evidence

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2254
• Author: Giverny De Boeck,Maria Christina Meyers,Nicky Dries
• Date: 01 February 2018
• Published date: 01 February 2018

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW

Employee reactions to talent management: Assumptions versus

evidence

Giverny De Boeck

1

|Maria Christina Meyers

2

|Nicky Dries

1

1

Department of Work and Organisation

Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

2

Department of Human Resource Studies,

Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Correspondence

Giverny De Boeck, Department of Work and

Organisation Studies, KU Leuven,

Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.

Email: giverny.deboeck@kuleuven.be

Funding information

KU Leuven, Grant/Award Number: C14/17/

04; Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek,

Grant/Award Number: 1166017N

Summary

Two assumptions about employee reactions are currently driving debates around talent

management (TM): First, that TM leads to positive outcomes in employees identified as talents;

and second, that TM creates differences between talents and employees not identified as talents.

This review critically evaluates these assumptions by contrasting theoretical arguments from the

non‐empirical literature on employee reactions to TM with the empirical evidence available. Our

analysis partly supports both assumptions. Although positive reactions toTM were indeed found

in terms of affective, cognitive, and behavioral employee outcomes, our review also found

evidence for negative affective reactions in employees identified as talents. Significant

differences between talents and non‐talents were found for behavioral reactions, but not for

affective and cognitive reactions; for the latter types of reactions, our review found mixed

effects. We summarize these findings in an integrative framework on the basis of social exchange

theory, which our review shows is the dominant theory underlying assumptions about employee

reactions toTM. We propose that 3 elements are missing in our current understanding, which can

help explain our review findings: uncertainty, power, and social identity. We conclude with

recommendations for TM research and practice.

KEYWORDS

effect sizes, socialexchange theory, systematicreview, talent management, talentpool, workforce

differentiation

1|INTRODUCTION

In recent years both academics and practitioners have been fiercely

debating whether or not talent management (TM)—“activities and pro-

cesses that involve the systematic identification of key positions which

differentially contribute to the organization's sustainable competitive

advantage, the development of a talent pool of high‐potential and

high‐performing incumbents to fill these roles, and the development

of a differentiated human resource (HR) architecture to facilitate filling

these positions with competent incumbents and to ensure their con-

tinued commitment to the organization”(Collings & Mellahi, 2009, p.

305)—is in fact a desirable practice for organizations and their

employees. TM typically revolves around the identification of a “talent

pool”, referring to the 1–10% most high‐performing, high‐potential

employees in a given organization (Swailes, Downs, & Orr, 2014).

Organizations view talented employees as unique resources, central

to achieving sustained competitive advantage, and use TM to capture,

leverage, and protect these resources (Sparrow & Makram, 2015).

TM generally entails a disproportionally high investment in talents,

which is based on two central assumptions.The first assumption inTM

literature is that employees who are assigned the (assumed to be

highly coveted) talent status by their organizations can be expected

to react positively to TM (Gelens, Dries, Hofmans, & Pepermans,

2013; Malik & Singh, 2014). More specifically, three types of desired

employee reactions are identified inTM literature: talent engagement,

talent development, and talent retention (Collings & Mellahi, 2009;

Thunnissen, Boselie, & Fruytier, 2013b). First, TM is argued to

motivate talented employees, leading to increased job satisfaction

and/or commitment to the organization (Bethke‐Langenegger, Mahler,

& Staffelbach, 2011). Second, TM is believed to contribute to the

ongoing development of company‐specific, relevant skills and knowl-

edge (Bethke‐Langenegger et al., 2011; King, 2015). Third, TM is

expected to influence the turnover behavior of talented employees

by convincing them to stay in the organization (Bethke‐Langenegger

et al., 2011; Festing & Schäfer, 2014). Taken together, talent engage-

ment, talent development, and talent retention are seen as essential

Received: 16 October 2015 Revised: 6 October 2017 Accepted: 11 November 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2254

J Organ Behav. 2018;39:199–213. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 199