CONTEXT-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES ON TALENT MANAGEMENT Inaugural dissertation submitted to attain the academic degree doctor rerum politicarum (Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaften) at the ESCP Europe Wirtschaftshochschule Berlin by M., Lynn In Ok Schäfer born on August 24th, 1981 in Seoul, South Korea Berlin 2014 Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer DOCTORAL EXAMINATION COMMITTEE Head: Prof. Erk Piening, ESCP Europe Berlin Examiner: Prof. Marion Festing, ESCP Europe Berlin Examiner: Prof. Collings, Professor of Human Resource Management, DCU Business School Dublin City University, Ireland Day of disputation: July 2nd, 2014 Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During my doctoral studies at ESCP Europe Berlin, I had the chance to meet a number of exceptional and dedicated people, such as professors, international fellow researchers, and especially the Berlin campus colleagues, who contributed significantly to making the years of doctoral study so enjoyable, enriching, and yet challenging.
It would be impossible for me to thank everyone individually who encouraged and supported me on my way to producing this work, but I am truly grateful for their inspiration, input, encouragement, support, and friendship. However, I would like to take the opportunity to thank a few individuals personally: First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Marion Festing for being my “Doktormutter” (supervisor) and co-author on all papers presented in this dissertation, as well as for her guidance and direction and at the same time challenging my intellectual capacity and giving me the chance to learn and to grow. These years were crucial in forming my academic profile, and one thing is for sure: “It was never boring!” I would also like to especially thank Prof.
David Collings from the DCU Business School, Dublin City University, Ireland, for being the second examiner, for reviewing my disserta- tion, and for being an inspiration in the field of talent management – based on his ground- breaking book “Global Talent Management,” I decided to focus my dissertation on this highly absorbing subject. Furthermore, I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Hugh Scullion (National University, Ireland) for his expertise and for being a wonderful co- author on my first paper on talent management and medium-sized enterprises. I would also like to say thank you to the professors involved in teaching courses on my doctoral program at ESCP Europe, namely Prof.
Schmid, and Prof. I also had a wonderful time with my fellow doctoral students at ESCP Europe Berlin (inside the university facilities as well as outside!): Eva, Kathi, Erik, Florian, Kyung, Max, Michael H., and Sven – it was a pleasure studying with you! I would also like to thank our ‘HR Love Chair’ (including alumni) for being awesome colleagues: Annabelle, Anne, Angela, Lena, Julia, Kathi, Stephi, Igor, Steve, Michael T. Last but by no means least, I would like to thank my wonderful family, for their infinite support, and my beloved Fabian, for patiently accompanying me – not only throughout this dissertation journey but far more: For believing in me and accepting me for who I am. Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer I TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES.
II LIST OF TABLES. III LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 1 2 STATUS QUO OF THE TALENT MANAGEMENT FIELD.1 DEFINING TALENT AND TALENT MANAGEMENT .2 THE RISING CALL FOR MORE CONTEXTUALIZATION IN TM RESEARCH .3 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDIES: THE GERMAN CONTEXT .1 OVERVIEW OF THE MANUSCRIPTS .2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS .3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES .1 TALENT MANAGEMENT IN MEDIUM-SIZED GERMAN COMPANIES: AN EXPLORATIVE STUDY AND AGENDA FOR FUTURE RESEARCH .2 VALUE CREATION THROUGH HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT NETWORKS AND TALENT MANAGEMENT IN CLUSTERS - A CASE STUDY FROM GERMANY .3 THINK TALENT – THINK MALE? A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF GENDER INCLUSION IN TALENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN THE GERMAN MEDIA INDUSTRY .4 GENERATIONAL CHALLENGES TO TALENT MANAGEMENT: A FRAMEWORK FOR TALENT RETENTION BASED ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT PERSPECTIVE. 22 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .1 SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS AND MAIN CONTRIBUTIONS .2 OVERALL LIMITATIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPTS .3 FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS.
38 Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer II LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Framework for conceptualizing talent in organizations. The TM wheel. TM and leadership identified as the most important HR issues (EU)….
Framework for studying context-oriented TM…………………………….11 Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer III LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Overview of the manuscripts included in this thesis. Overview of the research focus and context level in the four manuscripts……. Research objectives and questions in the four manuscripts………….
Overview of the research methods used in the four manuscripts.18 Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer IV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CEO(s) chief executive officer(s) Dr. editor(s) et al. et alii (and others) etc. exempli gratia (for example) € euro (currency) GFC global financial crisis (G)NBS (German) national business system GTM global talent management HR human resources HRM human resource management Hrsg./s professor/s SI special issue SME(s) small and medium enterprise(s) TM talent management TRM talent relationship management VAW value adding web Vol.
versus Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer 1 1 INTRODUCTION Talent management (TM) has been consistently cited as being one of the most urgent priorities for executives around the globe over the last few years (BCG and WFPMA 2010; BCG and EAPM 2011; BCG and WFPMA 2012; BCG and EAPM 2013). Likewise, it has caught academic researchers’ attention, and the research field has rapidly developed in this respect in the last decade (Tansley et al. 2007; Scullion and Collings 2011; Gallardo- Gallardo, Gallo and Dries 2013b). The reasons behind this increased focus are rooted in demographic shifts and challenges, such as declining birth rates, an ageing workforce, shortages of skilled labor, and the war for talent, all of which make it an interesting topic of strategic importance for practitioners and academics alike (Chambers, Foulton, Handfield-Jones, Hankin and Michaels III 1998; Michaels, Handfield-Jones and Axelrod 2001; Strack, Baier and Fahlander 2008; European Commission 2011; World Economic Forum 2011).
Acknowledging the various forms and definitions of TM, in this thesis it is understood as an organization’s ability to attract, select, develop, and retain key employees (in a global context) (see Stahl et al. A large body of TM research in the early stages stemmed from the United States and focused on investigating organizational TM practices (Stahl et al. 2007; Stahl et al. 2012); however, academics called for TM insights beyond American soil (Collings, Scullion and Vaiman 2011; Scullion and Collings 2011; Thunnissen, Boselie and Fruytier 2013b), thereby emphasizing the need for more context-oriented TM research (Thunnissen, Boselie and Fruytier 2013a).
Nevertheless, contributions on TM in different organizational and national settings are advancing slowly, but more research is needed in order to gain a better understanding of the drivers and challenges of TM in different contexts. Furthermore, diversity aspects in TM and the individual, the talent perspective, for the most part have been neglected (Tansley 2011; Dries 2013b; Thunnissen et al. 2013b), which is surprising, given the demographic shifts and talent shortages in some countries (European Commission 2011) and today’s diverse workforces. Hence, research with respect to generational aspects and an ageing workforce, as well as the inclusion of diversity aspects and values, preferences, and the perspectives of talents themselves, seems crucial, in order to better attract and retain diverse talents (D’Amato and Herzfeldt 2008; Tarique and Schuler 2010; Benson and Brown 2011; Schuler, Jackson and Tarique 2011; Al Ariss, Vassilopoulou, Özbilgin and Game 2013).
Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer 2 Although one can no longer call the research field ‘infant’, it is still far from the adolescent stage: Different definitions of talent and TM foci coexist (Lewis and Heckman 2006; Collings and Mellahi 2009; Tansley 2011; Dries 2013b; Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries and González-Cruz 2013a; Thunnissen et al. 2013b), large-scale empirical investigations on TM are scarce, and more profound academic research into TM, the combination thereof with other research domains, and TM in various contexts is required to further advance and develop the field (Collings and Mellahi 2009; Al Ariss, Cascio and Paauwe 2014). In an attempt to address these research gaps, this dissertation and the four manuscripts which form the foundation of the dissertation seek to make a contribution to context- oriented TM by focusing on analyzing and investigating the subject at various levels, such as: National: Investigating TM in medium-sized enterprises in Germany and research- ing to what extent and how the national environment is impacting the design and applied practices of TM in these enterprises. Regional: Analyzing, on a regional level, how human resource management (HRM) and TM networks can contribute to a firm and a cluster’s value creation.
Industry and organizational level: Gaining insights into TM practices on the organ- izational and industry level of larger German enterprises in the media industry, and especially analyzing the question whether TM is inclusive with respect to gender in these companies. Individual: Conceptually analyzing the impact of TM on the psychological contract of talents and the moderating role of generational effects. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to enrich and advance knowledge on TM and to contribute to a better, more informed understanding of the growing research field in various contexts, by shedding light on this topic from different perspectives and by integrating insights from the literature, namely institutional theory (e. the national business systems approach, Whitley 1999), gendered HRM and gender studies (gender-inclusiveness of TM), psychological contract theory (Rousseau 1995), and generational studies.
Furthermore, by using a variety of research methodologies, the four manuscripts also deliver initial empirical, exploratory, and conceptual contributions to the research topic that have not been investigated in this way before. In the following, starting with Chapter 2, an introduction to defining talent and TM, as well as a call for more context-oriented research, will be provided, supplemented by a descrip- Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer 3 tion of the background to this thesis, namely the German context. This is followed by Chapter 3, which outlines the structure of the thesis and summarizes the main research questions and methodologies used in the different manuscripts. The core of the thesis is the presentation of the four manuscripts in Chapter 4.
Finally, in the concluding chapter, the dissertation finishes with a summary of its key findings and contributions, a discussion of its limitations and potential future research topics, and, lastly, some practical implications. Dissertation Lynn In Ok Schäfer 4 2 STATUS QUO OF THE TALENT MANAGEMENT FIELD 2.1 Defining talent and talent management In the late 1990s, McKinsey consultants coined the term ‘war for talent’. Based on the findings of a consulting study, they pushed forward the idea of the differential treatment of high performers, based on the recognition that some employees contributed significantly more to the overall performance of the organization than others (Chambers et al. 1998; Michaels et al.
They introduced the terminology of A (high performers, who should be developed and retained), B (average performers, who should be affirmed and devel- oped), and C players (those with low performance, who should either be supported to perform better or be removed), based on individual employee performance (Chambers et al. 1998; Michaels et al. However, a decade later, Tansley (2011, p. 266) summarized the findings of a philological analysis (from a historical and linguistic-comparative perspective): “There is no single or universal contemporary definition of ‘talent’ in any one language;” rather, “there are different organisational perspectives of talent.” Furthermore, scholarly debate has dis- cussed whether talent is innate (giftedness, nature) or can be acquired (nurtured) (Lewis and Heckman 2006; Tansley 2011; Dries 2013a; Gallardo-Gallardo et al.
2013a; Meyers, van Woerkom and Dries 2013); however, the general consensus is that talent is highly organization-specific and influenced by the type of industry, context, and nature of work and mainly relates to the individual level, although this is difficult to measure (Tansley 2011; Dries 2013a; Nijs, Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries and Sels 2014). In a review on the meaning of talent in organizational contexts, Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries, and González-Cruz (2013a, p.
