1. Introduction
While there has been substantial research undertaken on talent management as an HR
initiative (Scullion et al., 2010), as Howe et al. (1998, pp. 399-400) note, people are rarely
precise about what they mean by the term ‘‘talent’’ in organisations and the implications of
defining talent for talent management practice (Tansley et al., 2007).
This is disappointing because a ‘‘working’’ definition of talent is important for robust talent
management policies and practices that are shared across the organisation and vital for the
employee development specialist designing and planning training and development
interventions. However, choosing a definition of talent is no easy task, not least because
there are a number of ways in which talent may be defined within a particular organisation.
For example, a common notion of organisational talent refers to those who are identified as
having the potential to reach high levels of achievement.