Talent management

Talent management in a global context

In the few years since the emergence of this work, building an EVP has become a central focus of HRM in many global organizations. Scullion and Starkey (2000) have argued that talent management is important in both centralized and decentralized international organizations. They based this observation on a study of thirty UK organizations in which they drew attention to the importance of senior management development activity, succession planning and the development of an international cadre of managers. They concluded that “[there is a] growing recognition that the success of international business depends most importantly on the quality of top executive talent and how effectively these critical resources are managed and developed” (Scullion and Starkey, 2000: 1065).
However, talent management on a global basis is a far broader concept than plotting a series of international assignments for young high potentials and an international cadre of managers (Harris et al ., 2003). As has been evidenced throughout this book, when global lines of business are introduced there is a more immediate relationship between the international HR professional and the global leadership teams within major business functions or markets. International organizations want to know who are their top people and what are the key roles within the business that they need these people for. They want to know how they can develop them and then get them to key positions, then how they can build succession cover for these key positions. In order