Exploring talent management and its relationship with employees' performance in the Jordanian telecommunication organisations

Exploring talent management and its relationship with employees' performance in the Jordanian telecommunication organisations

Talent management has received considerable attention in the last two decades. Academics and practitioners attempt to investigate the practices, output and the relationship of talent management. The talented employee's importance stems from the fact that they are scarce and organisations realise that they are the main source of competitive advantage, in particular, with ongoing shifts in the economy from product-based to Knowledge-based. However, in Middle Eastern countries, talent management is underexplored or even unexplored. This study will address the gap in the literature regarding talent management in the Jordanian telecommunication industry and the influence of talent management practices on employees performance. Therefore, the study objectives were to investigate talent management in the Jordanian telecommunication industry. Also, to measure the impact of talent management on employees’ performance in the context of this study.

To achieve this study objective a sequential exploratory mixed method design adopted to fulfil these two objectives. In the first stage, a qualitative study conducted followed by a quantitative study in the second stage. Thus, the first objective met through conducting individual interviews with employees responsible of talent management in their organisations. The second objective fulfilled by conducting survey questionnaire to collect the quantitative data and then analyse it. The target population consists of employees’ working in the Jordanian telecommunication industry. In the qualitative phase non-probability, purposive sampling deployed to select 15 respondents from three organisations (Zain, Umniah and Orange). The semi-structured interview was the instrument to collect qualitative data. Thematic analysis used to analyse the qualitative data through manual analysis and with NVivo software. in the quantitative phase, 350 participants were selected via simple random sampling technique. Based on the result of the qualitative data analysis and previuose literature a questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale developed to collect the quantitative data. The descriptive statistics deployed to analyse the quantitative data; correlation and regression by SPSS and the structural equation modelling (SEM) via (AMOS) used to test the study hypotheses.

The main findings of the qualitative study were talent management is applied in the context of this study. However, talent management is still seen through human resource management lens rather than strategical lens. Therefore, talent management in the Jordanian telecommunication organisation in its infancy stage. The quantitative study result emphasise the positive impact of talent management practices(talent acquisition, talent learning and development and talent retention) on employees performance dimensions (task performance and contextual performance). However, a negative impact of talent management practices counterproductive performance.

The current study project have theoretical, practical, methodological and policy contributions. The theoretical contributions relied on enhancing the understanding of talent management in particular in emerging economies as Jordan and the impact of talent management practices on employees performance. The practical contribution based on the research recommendations which based on the study results regarding talent management practices, how to apply these talent management practices while the methodological contributions rely on enhancing the adoption of a mixed-methods design in talent management research. Finally, the policy contribution is that the Jordanian government will be able to transfer the results and recommendations of this study to another public sector.

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