French Insights on Defining and Managing Talents

• Author: Alain Klarsfeld,Feirouz Guettiche,Héloïse Cloet,Sophie d'Armagnac,Anne Janand
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12371

French Insights on Defining and

Managing Talents

SOPHIE D’ARMAGNAC,

1

FEIROUZ GUETTICHE,

2

ANNE JANAND,

3

ALAIN KLARSFELD

1

and HÉLOÏSE CLOET

2

1

TBS Business School, Toulouse, France

2

Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris, France

3

Université Paris-Sud, Paris, France

Research on the topic of talent definition and talent management historically comes from Anglo-American

countries, but the importance of the specific context where these notions emerged often goes unacknowledged. The

objective of this research is to clarify the meaning of talent as well as to examine talent-management practices in

France, investigating the possibility of a unique French approach rooted in a different initial context. Based on 39

interviews conducted among employees of 26 global French companies, this study highlights the French

idiosyncrasies of the notion of talent: the reconsideration of traditional high-potential profiles, the preference for

insiders, concern about the effects of segmentation, and the role of talents in helping others develop into talents.

Accordingly, the multidimensional concept of talent can be refined for a single dimension (the exclusive/inclusive

one) and then extended by adding new dimensions. Finally, this article considers the implications of these findings

for the managers of French companies, for human resources professionals, and for talents themselves.

Keywords: talent management; talent concept; French corporate perspective; talent context-dependence

Introduction

The concept of ‘talent’and talent-management (TM)

practices are now increasingly part of the core of

human resources management and corporate policies

worldwide (Boudreau and Ramstad, 2007; Cappelli,

2008; Dejoux and Thévenet, 2010). A study conducted

in 2014 by Towers Watson, which captures perspectives

on attraction, retention, and engagement issues from

1,637 organizations (including 337 companies from

the United States) across 31 countries, argues that talent

management is critical to firm performance. Yet these

companies encounter difficulties in hiring and retaining

their talents: nearly two out of three respondents

experienced problems attracting top performers (65%)

as well as high-potential employees (64%) and more

than half of employers reported difficulties retaining

high-potential employees (56%) and top performers

(54%).

Organizationsaround the globe haveexpressed concern

about these challenges; in response, academicresearch on

TM –having been initiated with the seminal work of the

McKinsey consultants who coined the term (Michaels

et al., 2001) –has matured. A major limitation of the

existing research on talent, however, is that it has been

conducted mainly in the United States (Collings et al.,

2011) and is dominated by Anglo-American frameworks

(Tansley, 2011). The existing literature has advanced the

debate significantly and has provided important insights

into the conceptualization and understanding of TM. But

as the field moves into adolescence, it is important for

insights frombeyond the Anglophone context to influence

the debate. Researchers have thus called for

internationalizing the field (Collings et al., 2011;

Thunnissen et al., 2013b). ‘This is not to critique the

significant contributions which have emerged from the

USA’,Collingset al. have cautioned, ‘but rather a call

for a counterbalance from different perspectives and

traditions’(2011, p. 455).

Context matters(Tansley et al.,2013; Thunnissen et al.,

2013b). Significant differences can be observed among

countries. For instance, in a study conducted in Australia

of 18 different companies from diverse industries, talent

is typically associated with executivepositions and highly

Correspondence: Sophie d’Armagnac, TBS Business School, 1 Place

Alphonse Jourdain - CS 66810, 31068 TOULOUSE Cedex 7, France.

Tel.:+33 5 61 29 48 50. E-mails.darmagnac@tbs-education.fr

European Management Review, Vol. 17, 449–465, (2020)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12371

©2019 European Academy of Management

significant roles (Jones et al., 2012). German companies,

in contrast, adopt a developmental approach that targets

all employees (Festing et al., 2013). In China, talent is

embedded in a collectivist approach inherited from

Confucianism (Hartmann et al., 2010). As Gallardo-

Gallardo and Thunnissen (2016) have argued, although

academicliterature has recentlybegun to address a number

of European contexts and countries –Germany (Festing

et al., 2013), Italy (Guerci and Solari, 2012), Poland

(Skuza et al., 2013), Sweden (Bolanderet a l., 2017), and

Spain (Valverde et al., 2013) –the meaning assigned to

the notion of talent and the understanding of the role of

TM remains understudied and many contexts remain

unexplored.

Given this persistentgap in the literature, and following

a number of researchers’suggestions to better integrate

national and cultural context into the understanding of

TM (Thunnissen et al., 2013a, 2013b; Gallardo-Gallardo

et al., 2013; Tansley et al., 2013; Painter-Morland et al.,

2019), this article focuses on the French example,

exploring how 26 global French companies define talent

and concretely manage the employees they define as

talents. Our exploration of French TM practices offers

more than a focus on another national variation, however.

Identifying and explaining differences between French

approaches to TM and results from other regions enables

us to refine existing theory, as well. Finally, we also ask

how French companies adapt the TM framework to their

own needs (Calás et al., 2009) and,in doing so, how they

‘translate’it or attribute new meaning to it.

To answerthese questions, the first section of the paper

develops a literaturereview comparing current conceptual

frameworks on talent management including the French

perspective. We then present the results of a qualitative

study of TM practices in 26 French organizations. We

next propose our main theoretical contribution:

identifying the French idiosyncrasies of the notion of

talent and refining the two dimensions of the conceptual

framework of TM.

Conceptualising talent and talent

management: theoretical dimensions and

French appropriation

The conception of ‘talent’as both potentialin general and

an individualhigh performer has providedthe basis for the

definition of talent management in the Anglo-American

literature since Michaels et al. (2001) coined the term.

The early empirical research was done in the context of

the Anglo-American countries (Collings et al., 2011).

Recent scholarship, however, has since shown both the

influence of the European context and the multiplicity of

theoretical approaches to talent (Thunnissen et al.,

2013a, 2013b). Recent literature reviews indicate that the

variations of the TM theoretical framework are organized

through a set of polarized features (they are termed

‘dimensions’in Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2013;

Thunnissen et al., 2013a; Bolander et al., 2017; they are

called ‘tensions’in Dries, 2013; Cappelli and Keller,

Tab le 1 Dimensionsfor talent concept and talentmanagement (TM)

450 S. d'Armagnac et al.

©2019 European Academy of Management