The psychology of talent management: A review and research agenda

Across six different streams of the literature (i.e., HRM; I/O psychology; educational psychology; vocational psychology; positive psychology; social psychology) we identify a number of discrepancies (i.e., between practitioner and academic interest; between talent management discourse and practice), theoretical perspectives (i.e., talent as capital; talent as individual difference; talent as giftedness; talent as identity; talent as strength; and talent as the perception of talent), tensions (i.e., object–subject; inclusive–exclusive; innate–acquired; input–output; transferable–context-dependent), and assumptions (i.e., about intuition versus data; about the effects of being labeled ‘talented’; about the effects of differential treatment) which we argue can serve as a basis for theory building, methodological advances, and new empirical work. With this review, we hope to join a growing group of talent management scholars pushing to make the transition from a growing into a mature field of study, characterized by widely accepted theoretical frameworks and research designs, and supported by the scholarly community. •Takes a phenomenon-driven approach to the study of talent management.•Uses bibliometrics to demonstrate the growing state of the field.•Offers a comparative review of HRM versus psychological perspectives on talent.•Discusses five tensions and four assumptions as a basis for hypothesis development.•Concludes with specific suggestions for research questions and designs.