Talent Management: A New Concept or Repackaging of Existing Concepts? Gary N. McLean

Abstract

Talent management (TM) is a recently emergent term that has attracted a great deal of interest from both practitioners and researchers. However, the meaning of TM is not yet clear, leaving many unanswered questions. Why has it been embraced so widely on a global level? What concepts does TM include? Is it really a new concept, or does it simply repackage what both HRM and HRD have been doing for many years? In fact, given that this journal is an HRD journal, is this a legitimate topic for Consideration within this venue? As with many of the difficult questions facing HRD, this article explores these questions, providing many perspectives and suggesting what may be needed to clarify its use and to remove some, but not all, of the ambiguity conveyed in its use. My favorite theme, “it depends,” is repeated in this article.