How gender and career concepts impact Global Talent Management
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to further develop Global Talent Management (GTM) and the career literature by conceptualizing a model that uses widely discussed contemporary career concepts such as boundaryless career, protean career and kaleidoscope career, with a special focus on gender issues and contextual impact factors. This model contributes to the understanding of how GTM in multinational enterprises (MNEs) can be designed to fit lifelong career courses and to reduce talent scarcity by increasing the deployment of female talent.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop a theoretical model of a talent’s lifelong development of career orientations, and draw insights from many discreet literature bases. Through a review of the relevant literature, this paper synthesizes a holistic approach to understand why MNEs need a tailor-made GTM with a particular focus on gender and a life phase-specific career orientation with strong local responsiveness.
Findings
The Dynamic Career Cube is a hermeneutic model that helps to visualize the individual career course of talented employees and the fit of talent’s career orientations and GTM.
Research limitations/implications
A research agenda that includes a retrospective analysis of biographies, especially considering contextual factors such as culture and role stereotypes, is proposed as a starting point for research in this field.
Practical implications
The design and implementation of current GTM must be questioned to fit the contextual factors and to currently match the needs of talented male and female employees throughout their lifelong career course. Tailor-made GTM measures depending on the career phase are proposed.
Originality/value
The paper provides a novel synthesis of the existing research and literature on GTM, gender and careers. By showing the complexity of individual career decisions that are influenced by internal and contextual factors, the paper emphasizes the importance of flexible, locally responsive and gender-inclusive GTM. The paper is useful for academics who seek insight into a talent’s decision-making process and practitioners who manage talent globally.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank participants for their valuable feedback during the 4th Workshop on Global Talent Management in Berlin in 2014. Particular thanks go to the reviewers, who helped the authors to substantially improve this paper, and editors of this special issue, especially Hugh Scullion.
Citation
Böhmer, N. and Schinnenburg, H. (2016), "How gender and career concepts impact Global Talent Management", Employee Relations, Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 73-93. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2015-0154
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited