Talent Management: Towards More Inclusive Theorizing

The extant work on talent management (TM) has largely promoted neoliberal agendas concerned with ranking, rating and recording employees’ talent, or indeed lack of talent. While there are emerging insights that unravel the gendered, racialized and classed logics underpinning dominant TM writings, there is largely an acceptance of TM as an elitist practice, and there has been limited critical work that challenges the epistemological foundations of TM. In this symposium we adopt a critical lens and stress on the importance of power relations that shape, constrain and may hinder opportunities for all employees. In line with this year’s AOM theme “putting the worker front and center”, this presenter symposium aims to broaden our sight for more inclusive TM theorizing by including five papers that bring intersectionality to the forefront. The collection of papers documents the voices of the silenced talent from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Ghana, and draws on feminist, critical, transnational and postcolonial epistemologies to challenge the dominance of masculinist and neo-liberal logics in TM theorizing and open up opportunities to review TM systems that stress inclusion and equity. This is a timely endeavor to draw out, extend, give emphasis and voice to what and who is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented in much of the current TM literature with the aim of broadening our sight in TM theorizing. Global Talent Mobility Literature: A Systematic Review Towards a More Inclusive Theorizing Author: Beverly Metcalfe; École supérieure des affaires Author: Yasmeen Makarem; American U. of Beirut Author: Fida Afiouni; American U. of Beirut For Whom does Talent Management Make Sense? Author: Sanne Nijs; Human Resource Studies, Tilburg U. Author: Edina Doci; Vrije U. Amsterdam, School of Business and Economics Author: Joost Luyckx; KU Leuven Tapping into Marginalized Talent: Examining the Work and Career Experiences of LGBTQ Employees Author: Caroline Straub; Bern U. of Applied Sciences Author: Pamela Lirio; U. of Montreal Author: Barbara Beham; Berlin School of Economics and Law Putting Intersectionality Front and Centre in Public Sector Talent Management Research Author: Alma M. McCarthy; U. of Galway Author: Denise Holland; National U. of Ireland Unfolding the Existence of the Colonial System in Talent Management Practices Author: Mustafa B Ozturk; Queen Mary U. of London Author: Ahu Tatli; U. of London Author: Zinabu Shaibu; zinabu