Abstract

Studies estimate that around 65% of organizations worldwide have talent management programs in place (Church, Rotolo, Ginther, & Levine, 2015; Collings, Mellahi, & Cascio, 2019; Dries & De Gieter, 2014). Talent management (TM) typically revolves around the identification of a “talent pool”, referring to the 1–10% of the most high-performing, high-potential employees in the organization (Finkelstein, Costanza, & Goodwin, 2017). Inspired by a “war for talent” discourse (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001), companies have become convinced that they should groom their most talented employees (i.e., their “A players”) for positions of strategic importance, while directing their “B players” towards support positions, and their “C players” towards the exit (Huselid, Beatty, & Becker, 2005).