Talent management and talented employees’ attitudes: mediating role of perceived organisational support
| Author | James Kwame Mensah |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852319844318 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
Talent management and
2019, Vol. 85(3) 527–543
! The Author(s) 2019
talented employees’ attitudes:
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mediating role of perceived
DOI: 10.1177/0020852319844318
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organisational support
James Kwame Mensah
University of Ghana Business School, Ghana
Abstract
This study responds to calls to examine the mechanism through which talent manage-
ment affects talented employees’ attitudes. Anchored on exchange theories, this study
examines a salient mechanism, perceived organisational support, through which talent
management practices might affect talented employees’ attitudes. Data were obtained
from a cross-sectional survey of 242 talented employees in the Ghanaian banking sector
and analysed with the use of the structural equation modelling analytical technique.
Our findings show that talent management has not only a direct effect, but also an
indirect effect, on talented employees’ attitudes of affective commitment and quit
intention through perceived organisational support. The study has implications for
the management of talented employees.
Points for practitioners
The effectiveness of organisational support systems exists not only in the practices
themselves, but also in the perceptions that employees have of those practices.
For organisations to benefit fully from the implementation of talent management,
managers must inform talent pool members of their status and constantly communicate
talent management practices. While directly impacting affective commitment and inten-
tion to quit, talent management also operates through a path connecting perceived
organisational support to these attitudes.
Keywords
banking sector, commitment, perceived organisational support, quit intention, satisfac-
tion, talent management
Corresponding author:
James Kwame Mensah, University of Ghana Business School, Department of Public Administration and Health
Services Management, PO Box LG 78, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
Email: jamesmensah@ug.edu.gh
528
International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(3)
Introduction
Despite much scholarly research claiming a relationship between talent manage-
ment (TM) and talented employees’ attitudes, there has been little work examining
the mechanisms responsible for this relationship. Previous findings provide a ratio-
nal interpretation of the TM process: talents are recruited and developed with
a broad variety of TM practices and, as a result, lead to positive attitudes.
In doing so, the TM process is disconnected from other influences in the external
and internal organisational context. Thus, while TM researchers and scholars
acknowledge that positive employee attitudes and superior organisational perfor-
mance may be achieved through TM practices, the mechanisms by which TM
practices affect employees’ attitudes remain poorly understood (Gallardo-
Gallardo and Thunnissen, 2016; Swailes and Blackburn, 2016; Thunnissen,
2016). Consequently, improving our understanding of the mechanisms responsible
for the relationship between TM and employee attitudes is of importance to both
researchers and practitioners alike (Gallardo-Gallardo and Thunnissen, 2016). We
examine a salient mechanism through which TM might affect talented employees’
attitudes, namely, perceived organisational support (POS).
Eisenberger et al. (1986: 501) defined POS as ‘beliefs concerning the extent to
which the organisation values their contribution and cares about their well-being’.
Scholars have identified antecedents (Wayne et al., 1997) along with the conse-
quences of POS (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002). This study however, combined
the two streams of research – TM and employee attitudes – to consider the medi-
ating role of POS in this relationship. Using POS as a mediator variable between
TM and employee attitudes is important in that the effectiveness of organisational
support systems does not exist in the practices themselves, but rather in the per-
ceptions that employees have of those practices. Based on their perceptions,
employees will react in various ways. We anticipate that from a social exchange
theory (SET) perspective, POS may partially mediate the relationship between TM
and employee attitudes, specifically, affective commitment and quit intention.
The general idea of exchange can be traced to Barnard (1938) in the 1930s and
later to March and Simon (1958) in the 1950s, who proposed that exchanges are
based on organisational inducements invoking corresponding employee contribu-
tions. In this study, an organisation’s investments in TM practices are considered
the ‘inducements’ thereby creating POS, which will eventually lead to employee
attitudes of affective commitment and less intention to quit.
Furthermore, although it is accepted that TM is positively related to employee
attitudes, there is a great need for additional evidence to support the
TM–employee attitudes relationship from different contexts (Gallardo-Gallardo
and Thunnissen, 2016; Thunnissen et al., 2013; Vaiman et al., 2012). Explicitly,
while a few studies have been initiated in other parts of the world, the literature
highlights that most TM studies have been conducted in Western contexts
(Gallardo-Gallardo and Thunnissen, 2016; Thunnissen et al., 2013). To fill this
gap, it is important to conduct analysis in non-Western contexts. This article
Mensah
529
investigates the mediating role of POS in the relationship between TM and
employees’ attitudes in the Ghanaian banking context. Situated in the west of
Africa, not only does Ghana provide an interesting context in which to study
TM, but the Ghanaian banking sector is also experiencing the talent shortage
‘mantra’, which has led to the implementation of TM practices (Mensah and
Bawole, 2018; Mensah et al., 2016).
Our choice of the employee attitudes of affective commitment and less intention
to quit is based on the following reasoning. First, these employee attitudes are
central and prominent responses to positive social exchange relationships
(Eisenberger et al., 2001). Second, affective commitment has been linked with
enhanced organisational performance and thus has implications that extend
beyond the individual (Messersmith et al., 2011). Third, whereas the turnover of
poor performers can benefit organisations, that of talented employees is more
likely to be dysfunctional for the organisation (Trevor et al., 1997), to the extent
that the turnover of top talented employees results in greater performance losses
and the loss of future leaders of the organisation (Sturman et al., 2003).
Admittedly, the high turnover costs concerning difficulties in attracting and replac-
ing talented employees make a study of the underlying mechanisms that reduce
talented employees’ intention to quit even more significant.
The article contributes to the extant literature by testing the mediating role of
POS in the relationship between TM and talented employees’ attitudes in a non-
Western context (Gallardo-Gallardo and Thunnissen, 2016; Thunnissen et al., 2013),
increasing the international breadth of the empirical link between TM and talented
employees’ attitudes. The article proceeds as follows. The next section discusses the
theoretical background and hypotheses while the second section provides an over-
view of the methods and data used in the study. The third section presents the model
estimation and results. The discussion of the findings is presented in the fourth
section and conclusions are presented in the final section.
Theoretical background and hypotheses
The success of organisations is partially dependent on the challenges faced in the
effective identification, attraction, management and retention of talent, as well as
adapting to these challenges as they evolve and develop. This requires the man-
agement of talented employees. Indeed, TM has gained much attention not only in
the private and multinational sectors (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2015; Thunnissen
et al., 2013), but also in the field of public administration (Glenn, 2012; Kock and
Burke, 2008; Mensah and Bawole, 2018). Broadly, TM focuses on the activities
and processes that are used to identify key positions, develop a pool of talented
and high-performing employees to fill these roles, and continually manage such
employees with differentiated human resource architecture in order to ensure their
continued commitment to the organisation (Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Gelens
et al., 2013; Mensah and Bawole, 2018). Generally, there have been two main
approaches: exclusive and inclusive to TM (Iles et al., 2010). The exclusive
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International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(3)
perspective is based on the notion of workforce segmentation and understands
talented employees as an elite subset of the organisation’s population (Gallardo-
Gallardo et al., 2013; Minbaeva and Collings, 2013). On the contrary, the inclusive
perspective is of the view that everyone in the organisation potentially has ‘talent’
(Iles et al., 2010). In this study, we adopted an exclusive approach and concentrat-
ed on employees who are perceived as talented and of high potential singled out for
special treatment.
While different views of social exchange have emerged, theorists agree that
social exchange involves a series of interactions that generate obligations
(Emerson, 1976). Within SET, these interactions are interdependent and contin-
gent on the actions of another person (Blau, 1964). Social...
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