Talent management, leadership development and knowledge transfer in an international context

Iles, PA

Abstract

This submission incorporates twelve published works relating to issues of talent
management, leadership development and knowledge transfer in an international
context. These issues are examined from a consistently contextual and processual
stance employing primarily social constructivist and interpretivist methodologies that
challenge individualist and essentialist accounts of these phenomena.
Publications 1 and 2 address issues in employee resourcing and assessment,
discussing strategic and psychometric perspectives and their limitations before
developing social process and discourse perspectives that address these areas in a
more contextual, less individualistic ways. This perspective is then developed and
applied to issues of competence and talent management. Papers 3 to 5 inclusive
develop this perspective on talent management, investigating how talent management
is defined in seven companies in China, how it is seen as similar to or different from
HRM, and what is driving its adoption. The issue of whether talent management can
be seen as a fashion is discussed through institutional theory, bibliometric analyses,
and empirical studies in China.
Papers 6 to 8 inclusive address issues of leadership and leadership development, using
social capital theory and empirical studies of the leadership development experience
of UK Chief Executives to challenge individualistic, essentialist and competencebased
conceptions of this area. The papers also explore issues of bonding, bridging,
brokering, anxiety, uncertainty, and identity construction in leadership development
and of distributed leadership in ethical leadership in English local government.
Papers 9 to 12 inclusive explore the issue of knowledge transfer between individuals
and organizations in an international context from contextual and processual
perspectives. They discuss empirical and conceptual studies of knowledge transfer
involving SMEs and universities, international joint ventures, international alliances
between universities in the UK and Czech Republic, and the transfer of HRM
knowledge in Mauritius. Links between these areas and issues for further research are
also discussed.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Aug 5, 2021
• Award Date: Oct 1, 2012