Conceptualizing talent in public sector municipalities
| Author | Daniel Tyskbo |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211065162 |
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Conceptualizing talent in
public sector municipalities
Daniel Tyskbo
Halmstad University, Sweden
Abstract
While talent management is considered a top priority among practitioners and consti-
tutes a major research area, the actual meaning of talent still remains largely undefined.
In response to a lack of clarity and empirical basis regarding the notion of talent, various
calls have been made for exploring how organizations conceptualize talent, particularly
in the public sector context. This article answers these calls by adopting a qualitative
in-depth case study to explore how senior Human Resources (HR) managers in public
sector municipalities conceptualize talent in practice. The findings illustrate how HR man-
agers use a variety of conceptualizations of talent. We analyze and theorize this variation
and the ways of conceptualizing talent using two conceptualization categories: non-con-
textual conceptualizations, which are general and related to official practices (i.e. talent
as future leaders and talent as a general commitment and drive forward), and contextual
conceptualizations, which are specific and related to informal assumptions (i.e. talent as
Trojans and specialists, talent as individual agility, and talent as public service awareness).
Points for practitioners
Human Resources (HR) managers use a variety of conceptualizations of talent in practice.
Two conceptualization categories –that is, “non-contextual”(general and related to offi-
cial practices) and “contextual”(specific and related to informal assumptions) –help us
understand this variation and the ways of conceptualizing talent. HR managers are only
partly shaped by the particularities of the public sector context, and some of the talent
philosophies held by HR managers do not align with the existing and official talent man-
agement practices.
Keywords
municipalities, public sector, talent, talent conceptualization, talent management,
talent philosophies
Corresponding author:
Daniel Tyskbo, School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Box 823, SE-301 18, Halmstad, Sweden.
Email: Daniel.tyskbo@hh.se
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2023, Vol. 89(2) 519–535
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211065162
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Introduction
While there has been a surge in research on talent management (TM) (Collings et al.,
2018), the actual meaning of talent is still largely undefined (Gallardo-Gallardo et al.,
2013; Meyers et al., 2020). The mainstream literature is rather unclear and lacks empirical
basis regarding the notion of talent (McDonnell et al., 2017). This is a major limitation, as
it is essential to have a mature understanding of what talent means and how it is concep-
tualized in practice in order to develop a well-functioning TM system (Jooss et al., 2019).
Various calls have therefore been made for research exploring how talent is understood in
organizations, particularly in the public sector context (Thunnissen and Buttiens, 2017;
Tyskbo, 2019; Wiblen and McDonnell, 2020).
This article answers these calls by contributing to better conceptualization of talent
through focus on the context of public sector municipalities. The broader TM literature
has also paid little attention to the public sector in general (Kravariti and Johnston,
2020; McDonnell et al., 2017; Thunnissen et al., 2013), despite its economic and
social importance in many countries, and its significant talent shortages and struggles
in attracting and retaining talent (Glenn, 2012; Mensah, 2019). We ask the following
research question: How do HR managers conceptualize talent in public sector municipal-
ities? By focusing on public sector municipalities, we aim to reveal whether there are any
particularities of the public sector context that shape the meaning of talent, thereby also
providing important and sought-after insights into whether the TM ideas prevalent in the
literature on private organizations also resonate in other contexts, such as in public sector
organizations (Kravariti and Johnston, 2020; Thunnissen et al., 2013; Wiblen and
McDonnell, 2020). Understanding the organizational context when studying TM in the
public sector seems critical, as it has been highlighted as a unique context that is signifi-
cantly impacted by complexity and institutional mechanisms (Blom et al., 2020). Public
organizations are strongly impacted by the principle of equality, relying more on egali-
tarian values compared with private organizations (Christensen et al., 2007), which we
would expect to see translated into a reluctance to use the formal label of talent and an
endeavor to implement inclusive TM approaches and views of talent (Boselie and
Thunnissen, 2017; Thunnissen and Buttiens, 2017). Public sector organizations are
also highly impacted by the orientation of delivering services to people with a purpose
of doing good for others and society (Perry and Hondeghem, 2008). With this focus
on improving the lives of the people they serve and responding to societal needs, we
would also expect these organizational values to impact how HR managers think about
the talent needed to deliver against these ambitions (Mensah, 2019). However, as few
empirical studies have been conducted in a public sector context, the extent to which
this is the case is unclear. In this study, we address this by using a qualitative in-depth
case study focusing on the practice level, thereby showing how talent is conceptualized
in practice by HR managers.
The findings illustrate how HR managers use a variety of conceptualizations of talent.
This variation and the ways of conceptualizing talent are analyzed and theorized using
two conceptualization categories: non-contextual conceptualizations, which are general
and related to official practices (i.e. talent as future leaders and talent as a general
520 International Review of Administrative Sciences 89(2)
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