Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘Digital Talent’—A New Breed of Talent Calling for a New Kind of Talent Management

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Digital Talent Management

Abstract

This chapter sets up the conceptual foundation for the remaining chapters, by reviewing the literature on digital work as performed by information and communication technology professionals and managers and the literature on talent management that focuses on defining talent. It then provides an original conceptualization of digital talent that reflects the latter’s distinctive professional characteristics and unique personal attributes. It shows that two interlinked facets—a digital and a human one—best reflect the nature of digital talent and argues that a human-centered approach to conceptualizing and managing talent is required, going beyond the talent-as-object and talent-as-subject approaches found in the talent management literature. The chapter distinguishes between different groupings of digital talent depending on the range of actors and scope of activities considered, and ends with defining digital talent.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Balthasar, A., Bättig, C., Thierstein, A., & Wilhelm, B. (2010). “Developers”: Key Actors of the Innovation Process: Types of Developers and Their Contacts to Institutions Involved in Research and Development, Continuing Education and Training, and the Transfer of Technology. Technovation, 20, 523–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, R. (2001). Labouring Under an Illusion? The Labour Process of Software Development in the Australian Information Industry. New Technology Work and Employment, 16, 18–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, R. (2004). Working at Webboyz: An Analysis of Control Over the Software Development Labour. Sociology, 38(4), 777–794.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benson, J., & Brown, M. (2007). Knowledge Workers, What Keeps Them Committed, What Turns Them Away. Work, Employment and Society, 21(1), 121–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bethke-Langenegger, P., Mahler, P., & Staffelbach, B. (2011). Effectiveness of Talent Management Strategies. European Journal of International Management, 5(5), 524–539.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boston Consulting Group. (2019). Decoding Digital Talent, What 27,000 Digital Experts in 180 Countries Tell Us About Their Mobility and Work Preferences. Boston Consulting Group & the Network.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buckingham, M., & Vosburgh, R. M. (2001). The 21st Century Human Resources Function: It’s the Talent, Stupid! Human Resource Planning, 24(4), 17–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collings, D. G., & Mellahi, K. (2009). Strategic Talent Management: A review and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 19(4), 304–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, C., & Kehoe, R. (2017). Examining Strategic Fit and Misfit in the Management of Knowledge Workers. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 70(2), 308–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davenport, T. H. (2005). Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances and Results from Knowledge Workers. Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dekas, K. H., Bauer, T. N., & Welle, B. (2013). Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Version 2.0: A Review and Qualitative Investigation of OCBs for Knowledge Workers at Google and Beyond. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(3), 219–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evangelista, R., Guerrieri, P., & Meliciani, V. (2014). The Economic Impact of Digital Technologies in Europe. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 23(8), 802–824.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fang, Y., & Neufeld, D. (2009). Understanding Sustained Participation in Open Source Software Projects. Journal of Management Information Systems, 25(4), 9–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flood, P., Turner, T., Ramamoorthy, N., & Pearson, J. (2001). Causes and Consequences of Psychological Contracts Among Knowledge Workers in the High Technology and Financial Services Industries. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(7), 1152–1165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallardo-Gallardo, E., & Thunnissen, M. (2016). Standing on the Shoulders of Giants? A Critical Review of Empirical Talent Management Research. Employee Relations, 38(1), 31–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallardo-Gallardo, E., Dries, N., & Gonzales-Cruz, T. F. (2013). What Is the Meaning of ‘Talent’ in the World of Work? Human Resource Management Review, 23, 290–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallardo-Gallardo, E., Thunnissen, M., & Scullion, H. (2020). Talent Management: Context Matters. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(4), 457–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gonçalves, M. K., de Souza, L. R., & Gonzalez, V. M. (2011). Collaboration, Information Seeking and Communication: An Observational Study of Software Developers’ Work Practices. Journal of Universal Computational Science, 17(14), 1913–1930.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halme, K., & Niinikoski, M.-L.. (2019). Innovation Policy to Renew the Economy and Society. Publications of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, 2019:7, Government of Finland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holtom, B. C., Mitchell, T. R., Lee, T. W., & Eberly, M. B. (2008). Turnover and Retention Research: a Glance at the Past, a Closer Review of the Present and a Venture into the Future. The Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 231–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kraft, P. (1999). To Control and Inspire: US Management in the Age of Computer Information Systems and Global Production. In M. Wardell, T. Steiger, & P. Meiksins (Eds.), Rethinking the Labor Process (pp. 17–36). State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lepeley, M. T., Morales, O., Essens, P., Beutell, N. J., & Majluf, N. (Eds.). (2021). Human Centered Organizational Culture: Global Dimensions. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2017). Exploring Software Developers’ Work Practices: Task Differences, Participation, Engagement, and Speed of Task Resolution. Information & Management, 54(3), 364–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, W. Z. (2006). The New Key Word ‘Talent Management’ in Retaining the Top Employees. Human Capital Magazine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marks, A., & Huzzard, T. (2008). Creativity and Workplace Attractiveness in Professional Employment. Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting, 12(3), 225–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marks, A., & Scholarios, D. (2008). Choreographing A System: Skill and Employability in Software Work. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 29(1), 96–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, A., Barton, L. E., Fritz, T., Murphy, G. C., & Zimmermann, T. (2017). The Work Life of Developers: Activities, Switches and Perceived Productivity. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 43(12), 1178–1193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H., & Axelrod, B. (2001). The War for Talent. Harvard Business School Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muratbekova-Touron, M., & Galindo, G. (2018). Leveraging Psychological Contracts as an HR Strategy: The Case of Software Developers. European Management Journal, 36, 717–726.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niemi, M. K., Dan, S., Kalliokoski, J., Shahzad, K., Shakeel, S.R., Alagirisamy, R. & Laurila, I. (2021). Talent Retention and the Development of Digital Skills: A study of the ecosystem-based Digitalisation Academy located in Vaasa, Finland. Publications of the Ministry of Affairs and Employment 2021:23, Helsinki, http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-327-840-0.

  • O’Donohue, W., Sheehan, C., Hecker, R., & Holland, P. (2007). The Psychological Contract of Knowledge Workers. Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(2), 73–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortlieb, R., & Sieben, B. (2012). How to Safeguard Critical Resources of Professional and Managerial Staff: Exploration of a Taxonomy of Resource Retention Strategies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(8), 1688–1704.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ralph, P., Baltes, S., Adisaputri, G., Torkar, R., Kovalenko, V., Kalinowski, M., Novielli, N., Yoo, S., Devroey, X., Tan, X., Zhou, M., Turhan, B., Hoda, R., Hata, H., Robles, G., Fard, A. M., & Alkadhi, R. (2020). Pandemic Programming: How COVID-19 Affects Software Developers and How Their Organizations Can Help. Empirical Software Engineering, 25, 4927–4496.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Restubog, S. L. D., Bordia, P., & Tang, R. L. (2006). Effects of Psychological Contract Breach on Performance of IT Employees: The Mediating Role of Affective Commitment. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 79, 299–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rilla, N., Deschryvere, M., Oksanen, J., Raunio, M., & van der Have, R. (2018). Immigrants in the Innovation Economy: Lessons from Austria, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands. Publications of the Government’s Analysis, Assessment and Research Activities 1/2018, Government of Finland, Prime Minister’s Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, D., Hansen, S., & Tomprou, M. (2018). A Dynamic Phase Model of Psychological Contract Processes. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 39(9), 1081–1098.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scarbrough, H. (1999). Knowledge as Work: Conflicts in the Management of Knowledge Workers. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 11(1), 5–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scholarios, D., Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M., Van der Schoot, E., Bozionelos, N., Epitropaki, O., Jedrzejowicz, P., Knauth, P., Marzec, I., Mikkelsen, A., & van der Heijde, C. M. (2008). Employability and the Psychological Contract in European ICT Sector SMEs. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19, 1035–1055.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scholarios, D. M., & Marks, A. (2004). Work-Life Balance and the Software Worker. Human Resource Management Journal, 14(2), 54–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shin, G., Choi, J. N., & Moon, R. J. (2019). Skilled Migrants as Human and Social Capital in Korea. Asian Survey, 59(4), 673–692.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer, J., Lethbridge, T., Vinson, N., & Anquetil, N. (2010). An Examination of Software Engineering Work Practices. In Proceedings CASCON 1st Decade High Impact Papers (pp. 174–188).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tansley, C. (2011). What Do We Mean By the Term ‘Talent’ in Talent Management? Industrial and Commercial Training, 43(5), 266–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tripp, J. F., Riemenschneider, C., & Thatcher, J. B. (2016). Job Satisfaction in Agile Development Teams: Agile Development as Work Redesign. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 17(4), 267–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trott, P. (2016). Innovation Management and New Product Development (6th ed.). Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winstanley, D., & Woodall, J. (2000). Towards a Human Centered Organisation. Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 19(3/4), 3–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vaasa InnoLab, Vaasa, Finland

    Sorin Dan

  2. Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Diana Ivana, Monica Zaharie, Daniel Metz & Mihaela Drăgan

  3. NTT DATA, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Diana Ivana & Daniel Metz

Authors
  1. Sorin Dan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Diana Ivana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Monica Zaharie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Daniel Metz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mihaela Drăgan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sorin Dan .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Dan, S., Ivana, D., Zaharie, M., Metz, D., Drăgan, M. (2021). ‘Digital Talent’—A New Breed of Talent Calling for a New Kind of Talent Management. In: Digital Talent Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76750-1_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation