The importance of talent management: a study of Chinese organisations
| Date | 06 October 2014 |
| Published date | 06 October 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCEFTS-12-2014-0026 |
| Pages | 153-172 |
| Author | Yi Liu,Cecil A.L. Pearson |
| Subject Matter | Economics,International economics |
The importance of talent
management: a study of
Chinese organisations
Yi Liu and Cecil A.L. Pearson
School of Management, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the importance of talent management (TM) as a fundamental
component of management philosophy and practice to auger contemporary competitiveness in Chinese
organisations, which have forged transformational synergies with traditional forms of political intervention
and capital investment.
Design/methodology/approach – A pluralist design was used, in which the quantitative and
qualitative assessment was adopted with Chinese decision-making executives of corporations
operating in the global arena. By using managerial responses, this paper offered a more nuanced and
grounded understanding of TM in general.
Findings – Although the results revealed that the concept of TM gained a signicant footprint in the
studied organisations, the inuence of cultural nuances and organisational structural processes restrict
the practice of TM, and, indeed, there is a need to have a Chinese characteristic.
Research limitations/implications – This research underlies the importance of intensifying
critical scrutiny of the relativity of TM, organisational practices and cultural heritage when developing
future organisational leaders.
Practical implications – The instruments for assessing the phenomena of TM and related concepts
encourage legitimacy to extend the limited empirical research with more industries across different
geographical regions in China.
Originality/value – This paper addresses an under-researched area of world importance, namely, the
critical role of TM, which is to optimise these scant resources in the worthy pursuit of economic and
political stability in both the domestic and global contexts.
Keywords China, Culture, Human resource management (HRM), Talent management (TM)
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The centre of gravity of economic activities has inevitably shifted to the emerging
markets of China. In recent years, China has become a global powerhouse with economic
and political inuences in the world economy (Tellis and Mirski, 2013;Santos-Paulino
and Wan, 2011). Indeed, as the world’s third largest economy after the USA and the
European Union, China has produced US$13.34 trillion economic output in 2013
(Amadeo, 2014). By December 2014, China surpassed the USA to become the world’s
largest economy (Fox News, 2014). In addition, the substantial amount of foreign direct
investment made by the Chinese rms has symbolised the increasing global integration
of this emerging economy (Gill and Singh, 2012). For example, in 2013, Chinese
companies invested in 156 countries and regions, and for the non-nancial sector, the
investment amount reached US$901.7 billion (Beijing Business Newspaper, 2014). This
rapid accumulation of wealth and capital has not only attracted considerable attention
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Importance
of talent
management
153
Journal of Chinese Economic and
Foreign Trade Studies
Vol. 7 No. 3, 2014
pp. 153-172
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1754-4408
DOI 10.1108/JCEFTS-12-2014-0026
and interest worldwide, but soaring cost in raw materials, uctuating currency
exchange rate and changes in the Chinese labour market system has exposed the
importance of the eld of people management, and the need for organisations in China to
expand their acquisition and development of talent management (TM) assets.
To build the level of competitiveness, Chinese organisations have forged synergies.
These transformations have essentially been undertaken with the hardware of
planning, establishment of economic zones and expanding industrial capacity, but the
effectiveness of these arrangements will largely depend on the software of TM to sustain
long-term viability and growth. While considerable research has been undertaken in
Western context to comprehensively understand the formidable challenges to attract,
develop and retain TM, relatively few studies have been conducted in the Eastern global
marketplace. Lessening the gaps and omissions for theoretical and empirical development of
the concept of TM in Chinese organisations is exacerbated by a shortage of quality global
professional managers, and the relentless pressure of erce competition fuels the focus of
this paper.
The emphasis on TM suited for the contemporary global arena is a signicant shift
from traditional personnel management. Initially, the focus was on the systematic
identication of the key positions and the acquisition of people in recruitment and
selection practices in endeavours to maximise “the competitive advantage of an
organisation’s human capital.” (Collings and Mellahi, 2009, p. 304). Reviews of the
relevant literature by a number of social scientists (Iles et al., 2010;Lewis and Heckman,
2006;Heinen and O’Neill, 2004;Chowanec and Newstrone, 1991) revealed that TM was
undertaken as a collection of typical human resource management (HRM) practices (e.g.
the rst research stream); functions; andspecialised areas, such as recruiting, selection and
career succession management. There is evidence that in many Asian communities, talent
identication is often undertaken in family-oriented arrangements, and recruitment
agencies in typical Western corporations’ ethnocentric institutional practices, as a core of
strategic HRM, are used to manage the ow of staff in the pursuit of organisational growth.
Nevertheless, these narrowly based and outdated schemes hinder the recruitment,
retention and deployment of talented people in Chinese international businesses. An
enormous shortage of internationally competent managers (Connell and Stanton, 2014),
vital for global operations, is intensifying with the growth of the emerging international
marketplace. This condition places a further demand for managerial talents
(ManpowerGroup, 2013) and, in particular, threatens the economic growth of China (Iles
et al., 2010;Eloot et al., 2013;Downing et al., 2008), which, in turn, attracts signicance
for the discrete activity of TM acquisition. Consequently, it is imperative for Chinese
rms to develop an effective TM strategy to sustain and prosper future organisational
competitive advantage.
Despite the widespread popularity of TM, the concept remains disturbingly unclear
in denition, scope and process. Earlier, Lewis and Heckman (2006) claimed, following
a deliberate and systematic assessment of the literature, that TM had three distinct
streams. Based on prior works (Byham, 2001;Heinen and O’Neill, 2004;Mercer, 2005;
Olsen, 2000) a primary proposition was TM “[…] as a collection of typical human
resource department practices, functions, activities or specialist areas such as
recruiting, selection, development, and career and succession management” (Lewis and
Heckman, 2006, p. 140). The second stream was the development of talent pools to meet
project needs, as well as career development, while the third stream was the managing
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