Talent Management in India

Journal of World Business 45 (2010) 143–149

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Journal of World Business

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jwb

The barriers to effective global talent management: The example of corporate ´ elites in MNEs

Kamel Mellahi a,*, David G. Collings b,1

a b

University of Sheffield Management School, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics, NUI Galway, Galway, Ireland

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Global Talent management Failure Multinational enterprise Bounded rationality Agency theory

This paper focuses on talent management failure by multinational enterprises (MNEs). It examines barriers to corporate advancement of talents located in subsidiaries and more specifically on promotion of talent already employed by the MNE to be part of the upper echelon management team at its centre. Drawing on agency and bounded rationality theories, we discuss the underlying causes of talent management failure in MNEs. At the subsidiary level, we draw on agency theory to delineate self-serving mechanisms displayed by subsidiary managers that might hinder effective talent management systems throughout the MNE. At the headquarter level, we use bounded rationality to explain how decisionmaking processes, and information top management teams use to make decisions about talent management results in overlooking talents at subsidiary level. ß 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Talent management has emerged as one of the key strategic issues facing managers in the twenty first century (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2007; Capelli, 2008; Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Huselid, Beatty, & Becker, 2005; Ready & Conger, 2007). Recently, substantial inquiry has focused on the association between talent ¨ management and superior performance (Bjorkman, Fey, & Park, 2007; Chamber, Foulon, Handfield-Jones, Hankin, & Michaels, 1998). Talent management has been investigated under several...