Talent development : analyzing academic, practitioner, and organizational approaches

Abstract

Talent development is a concept that has escaped academic interest, triggering practitioners to publish abundant amounts of works on the topic, as well as making organizations conceal their talent practices. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an overview of three parties in talent development with the research question: ‘‘How do academia, practitioners, and organizations view talent development?’’ This paper will take an approach of analyzing these three bodies, as well as identifying gaps such as lack of contextualization and hidden nature of TM. Theoretical approaches such as inclusive-exclusive, psychological contracts and empirical findings from company reports are stressed. The academic literature review reveals that talent development is in a state of still being mapped. On the other hand, the approaches practitioners take suggest that academic studies are not relevant. The secondary data proposes that organizations do not release their TM research. The syntheses of these three subjects suggest there is a discrepancy between academia, practitioners, and organizations. This is due to the irrelevance of TM as a result of its adolescent state, hence why the three bodies have differing views. Academia dismisses talent development as a field, whereas practitioners see it as an opportunity to release their practical knowledge, and organizations are of the belief that the field needs to remain secluded.