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Introduction
The topic of talent management (TM) is one that is addressed with an increasing frequency in the general business literature but with little consensus with regard to its definition (Gallardo–Gallardo and Thunnissen, 2016). TM is also a topic of significant interest within hospitality (Horner, 2017; Sheehan et al., 2018) and is an area faced with significant definitional challenges in hospitality, as it is in the wider business context (D’Annunzio-Green, 2008). The same author, reflecting on her 2008 study around 10 years later, also highlights that how TM is defined and framed is contingent in a way that reflects the huge diversity that is the contemporary hospitality industry across a wide range of indicators, some of which we highlight later in this paper (D’Annunzio-Green, 2018). She also notes that this context-specific understanding of TM tends to focus on organisational needs to the neglect of the individual talented employee. Broadly, we recognise that there is widespread academic and organisational acceptance of the sentiment that underpins the definition proposed by Collings and Mellahi (2009, p. 205). They see TM as:
[…] activities and processes that involve the systematic identification of key positions which differentially contribute to the organizations’s sustainable competitive advantage, the development of a talent pool of high potential and high performing incumbents to fill these roles, and the development of a differentiated human resource (HR) architecture to facilitate filling these positions with competent incumbents and to ensure their continued commitment to the organization.
However, we also recognise the problems associated with some applications of TM that arise through this definition that, among other concerns, raise issues of elitism (Nilsson and Ellström, 2012) which are implicit in many TM analyses. Indeed, Swailes et al.’s (2014) call for a more inclusive framing for TM is, perhaps, more in tune with the hospitality industry context of this paper and reinforces similar sector-based arguments put forward by Baum (2008).
In discussing TM in the context of hospitality, we adopt a framing that focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on the bespoke TM pipeline which has emerged over the past 125 years and is dedicated to meeting the managerial skills needs of the hospitality sector. Hospitality is unusual among business sectors in supporting and being supported by a wide range...