دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله بررسی صلاحیت جهانی: از منابع انسانی بین المللی تا مدیریت استعداد (نشریه الزویر 2016)

بررسی صلاحیت جهانی: از منابع انسانی بین المللی تا مدیریت استعداد

The search for global competence: From international HR to talent management

Abstract

This article describes the evolution of the search for global competence through a 50-year content analysis and review of published research in the field of International HR Management (IHRM), and more recently, Talent Management (TM), with special emphasis on the Journal of World Business. We present a detailed examination of the IHRM/TM content of the Journal of World Business from its inception in 1965 through 2014. To put the results of that review into perspective, we review key themes in global business and strategy from 1965 to the present, noting where IHRM/TM research and business trends correspond, diverge, and lag. Next, we present a brief history of IHRM and TM, showing how the emerging theme of TM offers challenges and promise for connecting future IHRM/TM research with emerging business, strategy, and social trends. We conclude with the implications of our findings for future research, and the importance of the search for global competence.

‘‘A new role for business is beginning to take shape as a consequence of far-reaching changes in the structure of world commerce . . . at a far faster pace than is sometimes realized, great trading companies, with home offices in many advanced nations, are becoming what has come to be known as multinational organizations . . . This is a powerful unifying influence in the affairs of mankind that has not yet been fully recognized, but which must inevitably make itself more felt in the years to come . . . The multinational company thereby becomes a major vehicle to carry the have-nots toward ‘takeoff’ and the haves into frontier fields.’’ Courtney C. Brown, Editor, Columbia Journal of World Business, 1966.

The celebration of unified multinational organizations (including corporations, but also governments and non-governmental organizations) as the vehicle toward economic prosperity for the ‘‘have-nots’’ and even greater growth for the ‘‘haves’’ contrasts a bit with a more recent prediction for the future in the 21st century. ‘‘New competitors are coming from many countries across the world and in numbers that far outpace those of past decades. This new wave will be far tougher on some established multinationals. The shift in the weight of the global economy toward emerging markets, and the emergence of nearly two billion consumers who, for the first time, will have incomes to support significant discretionary spending, should create a new breed of powerful companies whose global expansion will take place on the back of strong positions in their home markets’’ (Dobbs, Ramaswamy, Stephenson, & Viguerie, 2014).

Throughout it all, writers have recognized the importance of talent, including all the human and organizational elements that are pivotal to enterprise success, and the pivotalness of leadership that recognizes the human touch: ‘‘Executives will be able to make the biggest difference through the human touch . . . asking the right questions of the right people at the right times . . . inspiring the troops, empathizing with customers, [and] developing talent . . . tolerating ambiguity, synthesizing information, and focusing on the ‘softer’ side of management to engage the organization and build its capacity for self-renewal’’ (Dewhurst & Willmott, 2014, p. 2, 7).

Underlying the evolution of global business, this human touch takes the form of a search for global competence – managerial, cultural, and operational. Global competence is embedded in organizational talent and the systems and leadership that organize and deploy it, but it is increasingly embedded within a workforce that lies beyond the familiar boundaries of regular full-time employment, and is empowered by technologies, platforms, and connectedness that could hardly be dreamt of in the 1960s. The search for global competence is a race with no finish line, but instead, it is one with many hurdles and benchmarks.

This article describes the evolution of the search for global competence through a unique lens: a 50-year content analysis and review of published research in the field of International HR Management (IHRM), and more recently, Talent Management (TM), with special emphasis on the Journal of World Business (known as the Columbia Journal of World Business from 1965 to 1996).

The article is structured as follows. We begin by examining the IHRM/TM content of the Journal of World Business from its inception in 1965–2014. We will describe the relative emphasis on IHRM/TM topical areas, as well as changes in them, as reflected in ten 5-year blocks from 1965 to 2014. To put the findings of that review into perspective, we then identify key themes in published work on global business, strategy, and society from 1965 to the present, and show how the results of our 50-year review correspond or do not correspond to those global trends. We then present a brief history of IHRM and the recent emergence of TM, and note the challenges and opportunities of this evolution for enhancing IHRM/TM research, and its relevance to broader trends. We conclude with a discussion of the research implications of our findings with respect to current and emerging trends in business as well as in IHRM/TM. Let us now turn to our central empirical question, the trends and evolution of research as embodied in the 50-year history of the Journal of World Business.