Zusammenfassung

Despite the growing importance of talent management as an important tool to gain competitive advantage its practical realization in organisations is still not to be very effective. One of the reasons is the sparse theoretical background for talent management. Without a consensus on the meaning of ‘talent’, talent management research cannot be advanced. On the other hand, talent management in organisations is determined by the definition of ‘talent’ itself, which is strongly influenced by the organisational context The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the theoretical understanding of talent management, more specifically to deepen the theoretical understanding of the concept of talent. The paper begins with an overview of the current views and approaches on talent, specifically object and subject and inclusive and exclusive approaches are discussed. Consequently our modified model of different approaches to the meaning talent which represent the holistic approach to talent is provided. Implications for those how organisation designs and implement talent management based on different approaches to talent are presented at the end of this paper.