International Journal of Organizational Leadership

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in talent management, but there is still considerable debate with regard to understanding of the meaning of talent. While talent management has been criticized for the lack of conceptual and intellectual foundation, this paper aimed at exploring the systematic approaches to talent management in Icelandic organizations. A qualitative study was performed and some interviews were conducted with 10 human resources managers. The results indicated that there were positive attitudes towards the talent management. Also, the interviewees described talent management as a rather new phenomenon within Icelandic companies. Talent management was defined by the managers as a powerful tool to monitor, attract, and develop their employees’ skills and retain new talent.