Exploring Talent Philosophies: A Path to Competitive Advantage

In this article, Meyers & van Woerkom(2014) arguments are based on the fact that, so as to explain how and why talent management can lead to a business’s sustained competitive advantage, there is need to gain insights into certain philosophies about talent that underpin management of talent. The article gives an introduction of four talent philosophies that are different in the talent’s perception as a universal or rare and stable or developable that is the stable or exclusive; developable or exclusive; stable or inclusive, developable or inclusive talent philosophy. Discussions are made on basic assumptions, practices on talent management, challenges and opportunities for each of the four philosophies given in the article. On the basis of this discussion, development of propositions that are testable for future research is done (Mathis & Jackson, 2009).

The article has specific statements that I never considered in the past, but now makes sense given my new found expertise in human capital.

One statement is in page 194 under the subtopic; the exclusive/stable talent philosophy, (paragraph 1). The statement holds that with the given dictionary definition of what talent is;

• People commonly understand talent as a construct that is scarce and genetically determined. It also states that;

•

The writer strongly believes that the former is related to the fact that several important myths that regard to management of talent may undermine contribution to management of talent to the effectiveness of multinational corporations and retard of management practice development in this