Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535

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Journal of Business Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres

What’s next in talent management?

Esther Pagan-Castaño a, c, *, José Carlos Ballester-Miquel a, Javier Sánchez-García b,
María Guijarro-García a, c
a
ESIC Business & Marketing School, Spain
b
Universitat Jaume I Castellón, Spain
c
ESIC University, Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This article presents a literature review of the academic research on talent management (TM). This research topic
Bibliometrics is contemporary and highly relevant, given its links with human resources, knowledge management, and dy­
Talent management namic marketing capabilities. An exhaustive bibliometric analysis of TM was conducted. The analysis covered
Leadership
publications from the early 21st century. In total, 1,373 documents published from 2003 to 2020 were retrieved
Competencies
from the Web of Science (WoS) database and analyzed. Bibliometric methods were applied using some of the
Web of Science
VOSviewer primary bibliometric indicators: number of publications, most cited articles and authors, institutions and
countries, and keywords. This analysis reveals the importance of TM in light of companies’ decisions to switch to
human capital as a source of competitive advantage. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of TM in
new business realities and to propose areas of further research.

1. Introduction
Globalization, the advancement of technological processes, and so­
cioeconomic and demographic changes are shaping a business envi­
ronment in which there is a need to focus on identifying, attracting,
recruiting, developing, and retaining talent to meet challenges (Claus,
2019; Reiche, Lee, & Allen, 2019). Thus, organizations have shifted from
focusing solely on increasing their productivity and differentiating their
products and services to focusing on their human capital, considering
their employees the most important asset of the organization (Elshar­
nouby & Elbanna, 2021; Kehinde, 2012).
Organizations that manage their human capital efficiently have been
found to be more likely to have outstanding performance and to create
sustainable competitive advantage (Rop & Kwasira, 2015). Hence, talent
is a key factor in increasing and sustaining organizational performance
(Farndale, Beijer, Van Veldhoven, Kelliher, & Hope-Hailey, 2014).
However, many organizations struggle to implement effective talent
management (TM) programs (Al Ariss, Cascio, & Paauwe, 2014; Vai­
man, Scullion, & Collings, 2012). In many cases, for example, talented
employees represent only 3% to 5% of an organization’s payroll (Berger
& Berger, 2004). Faced with this talent constraint, organizations have
attempted to find and implement talent management strategies associ­
ated with outstanding sustainable organizational performance aligned
with their objectives (Collings, Mellahi, & Cascio, 2019; Ingram, 2016)
and the market. Thus, attracting, developing, and retaining talent has
become one of the biggest challenges facing companies worldwide
(Gallardo-Gallardo, Thunnissen, & Scullion, 2020).
This article presents a bibliometric review based on methods derived
from bibliometrics and content analysis to evaluate the current state of
the TM literature objectively and quantifiably. Unlike other bibliometric
articles, such as the one by Gallardo-Gallardo, Nijs, Dries, and Gallo
(2015), this paper provides the results of quantitative analysis using new
analysis tools such as VOSviewer.
The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to gather the data for
this study. This platform provides indexed articles, with data that are
highly reliable and multidisciplinary. It also has advantages over other
scientific databases such as Scopus in relation to the selection of key­
words (Krämer, Momeni, & Mayr, 2017). Specifically, it enables analysis
of the volume of publications, journals, impact factors, the most cited
articles and authors, and the institutions and countries where the most
research has been authored. It also enables analysis of the evolution of
TM. VOSviewer was used to represent and analyze co-authorship, co-
citations, bibliographic coupling, and keyword concurrence between
articles.
The aim of this review is to offer a rigorous, up-to-date overview of
TM to provide a clear, complete picture of the advances in this field

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: esther.pagan@esic.edu (E. Pagan-Castaño).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.11.052
Received 8 June 2021; Received in revised form 2 November 2021; Accepted 18 November 2021
Available online 3 December 2021
0148-2963/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
E. Pagan-Castaño et al.
while helping to propose future lines of research in under-explored areas
of TM. This review is important for both researchers and practitioners of
TM.
The article is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical
framework of TM. Section 3 describes the method and data source.
Section 4 shows the results of the bibliometric analysis of the number
and importance of published articles, as well as the most prominent
authors by country and institution. In addition, it shows the keywords
associated with TM. Section 5 presents the main conclusions and pro­
posals for future lines of research on TM.
2. Theoretical framework
The concept of talent management (TM) was introduced in 1998 by
McKinsey Consultants in the book The War for Talent (Axelrod,
Handfield-Jones, & Michaels, 2002). This book highlighted the impor­
tance of TM and generated avid interest in the subject. Recent studies
have shown that organizations are devoting more and more resources to
the TM process (Schiemann, 2014). Academics and practitioners have
both cited TM as one of the key challenges for organizations because it
represents a potential source of sustained competitive advantage in the
current market environment (Farndale, Scullion, & Sparrow, 2010;
Schuler, Jackson, & Tarique, 2011). However, despite strong interest in
TM, the literature reveals ambiguity in the way it has been conceptu­
alized (Lewis & Heckman, 2006).
Although the general understanding of TM has improved substan­
tially, research has focused on the emergence of TM as a phenomenon,
and there is a lack of studies supporting the development of the concept
of TM (Dries, 2013; Lewis & Heckman, 2006). In recent years, a more
pluralistic conceptualization of TM has emerged (Collings, 2014;
Thunnissen, Boselie, & Fruytier, 2013). This conceptualization places
more attention on the employee’s perspective, individual talent, and its
constraints (Collings, Scullion, & Vaiman 2015). The suggestion is that,
to retain talent, the approach to TM should be more balanced between
the needs of organizations and the goals and expectations of individuals
(Farndale, Pai, Sparrow, & Scullion, 2014).
The literature contains four schools of thought regarding TM (Col­
lings & Mellahi, 2009; Lewis & Heckman, 2006). This first focuses on
specific human resource practices, such as recruitment, leadership
development, succession planning, and the like. It therefore simply re­
places the label of “talent management” with that of “human resource
management”. The second focuses on planning for employees and
managing their progression through jobs, making a clear distinction
between talent management and human resource management. The
third focuses on managing talented people. It is argued that roles within
the organization should be filled by “A players” or “top grading” (Smart,
1999), and it emphasizes the management of “C actors” who consistently
underperform. Finally, the fourth school of thought emphasizes the
identification of key positions that have the potential to influence
competitive advantage. This approach focuses more on the identifica­
tion of key positions and less on the talent of individuals.
Cluster analysis suggests the existence of four talent philosophies:
exclusive/stable, exclusive/developable, inclusive/stable, and inclu­
sive/developable. Regarding these philosophies, a relationship with the
size of the organization has been found, such that smaller companies
develop a more inclusive talent philosophy (Meyers, Woerkom, Paauwe,
& Dries, 2020).
These schools of thought suggest that TM is a “bridging field”
(Sparrow, Scullion, & Tarique, 2014) based on ideas from human
resource management (HRM), in addition to other approaches such as
the resource-based view (RBV) and capability theory (Sparrow & Mak­
ram, 2015). TM has even been defined through ability, motivation, and
opportunities (AMO) theory, which implies that employee performance
is a function of ability, motivation, and opportunity (Collings & Mellahi,
2009).
TM can be defined as the activities and processes that involve the
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Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535
systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, reten­
tion, and deployment of talent that is valuable within an organization
(Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Scullion, Collings, & Caligiuri, 2010; War­
raich & Ahmed, 2020). Likewise, TM can be described as the activities
and processes that involve the systematic attraction, identification,
development, engagement, retention, and deployment of those talents
that add value to an organization to create sustainable strategic success
(Boudreau & Ramstad, 2005). Hence, talent may be considered a stra­
tegic resource to create competitive advantage (Warraich & Ahmed,
2020).
Therefore, TM is part of HRM strategies to improve and sustain
organizational performance by enhancing procedures to attract, retain,
develop, and profit from people (Cheese, Thomas, & Craig, 2007). Based
on the human capital approach, value is found in the set of unique
knowledge, capabilities, contributions, commitment, skills, abilities,
competencies, and aptitudes possessed by an organization’s talent.
These aspects enable talent to carry out value-creating strategies and
achieve sustained competitive advantage, in addition to higher perfor­
mance, thus turning talented employees into a strategic asset (Sparrow
& Makram, 2015).
This article reviews the literature on TM by applying methods
derived from bibliometrics and content analysis to assess the current
state of the TM literature objectively and quantifiably. The analysis is
based on the volume of publications, journals, impact factors, most cited
articles and authors, preferred methods and countries, and evolution of
TM. The aim of this review is to help to identify future lines of research
in the area of TM.
3. Method
3.1. Data collection
The Web of Science (WoS) by Clarivate Analytics is one of the
world’s most popular and trusted databases for scientific publications in
general, particularly for bibliometric analyses (Šubelj, Waltman, Traag,
& van Eck, 2020). There is a consensus within the scientific community
that the WoS Core Collection is one of the most reliable databases
available (Verma, Lobos, Merigó, Cancino, & Sienz, 2020). The use of
WoS is a consequence of its high level of thematic composition, which
guarantees broad, multidisciplinary data coverage. The WoS Core
Collection indexes more than 10,000 peer-reviewed journals in the sci­
ences, arts, humanities, and social sciences, as well as more than
100,000 conference proceedings updated on a weekly basis. It has some
advantages over other databases, such as Scopus, in terms of keyword
selection and visual disambiguation (Sun, Yao, Xiao, Zhang, Zhang, &
Tang, 2020).
For all these reasons, the WoS Core Collection was chosen for this
study. To collect the data, a search using the keyword “talent manage­
ment” was conducted. The search focused on publication titles to ensure
that the authors truly centered the bibliometric analysis on TM while
avoiding other fields or topics.
3.2. Bibliometric analysis
In science, bibliometrics is associated with quantitative analysis.
Bibliometric studies aim to verify the patterns of production and diffu­
sion of scientific knowledge (Araujo, Carneiro, & Palha, 2020). The
contribution to the productive outcome of the diffusion of scientific
knowledge is studied using an extensive range of indicators.
Bibliometric analysis can show the importance of the production and
evaluation of scientific activity in a given field. The data for this study
were taken from the Web of Science (WoS). The study examines scien­
tific production in journals, cited articles, and the subject categories
found in the Journal Citation Reports, including journal impact factors.
Software such as Procite Pajek and Moodle was used in the analysis.
The bibliometric indicators were the number and distribution of
E. Pagan-Castaño et al. Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535

Table 1
The most influential articles in TM.
R TC Document title Author PY C/Y

1 314 Using corporate social Bhattacharya, C. B.; 2008 26.17

responsibility to win the Sen, Sankar; Korschun,
war for talent Daniel
2 266 The role of the Farndale, Elaine; 2010 26.60
corporate HR function Scullion, Hugh;
in global talent Sparrow, Paul
management
3 218 Performance Gruman, Jamie A.; 2011 24.22
management and Saks, Alan M.
employee engagement
4 175 Talent management: Al Ariss, Akram; Cascio, 2014 29.17
Current theories and Wayne F.; Paauwe,
future research Jaap
directions
Fig. 1. Number of articles over time. 5 175 What is the meaning of Gallardo-Gallardo, Eva; 2013 25.00
’talent’ in the world of Dries, Nicky; Gonzalez-
publications and scientific impact indicators. A distinction was made work? Cruz, Tomas F.
6 172 Six Principles of Stahl, Guenter K.; 2012 21.50
between citations, which a document receives from other documents,
Effective Global Talent Bjorkman, Ingmar;
and references, which a document makes to other documents (Krauze & Management Farndale, Elaine;
Hillinger, 1971). Morris, Shad S.;
Paauwe, Jaap; Stiles,
3.2.1. Performance analysis Philip; Trevor,
Jonathan; Wright,
To study the historical evolution of TM research, both quantitative
Patrick
and qualitative indicators were used. For example, the total number of 7 171 Global talent Schuler, Randall S.; 2011 19.00
articles published is one of the most commonly used quantitative in­ management and global Jackson, Susan E.;
dicators in bibliometric studies. The number of citations is an important talent challenges: Tarique, Ibraiz
Strategic opportunities
qualitative indicator that reflects the importance of the topic under
for IHRM
study. The h-index was also used. This composite index combines 8 169 Talent management for Cappelli, Peter 2008 14.08
quantitative and qualitative measures. It is an easy-to-use relative value the twenty-first century
derived from the number of publications and the number of citations 9 164 The barriers to effective Mellahi, Kamel; 2010 16.40
(Mas-Tur et al., 2020). global talent Collings, David G.
management: The
example of corporate
3.2.2. Mapping analysis elites in MNEs
The visualization of similarities is intended to transform abstract 10 157 Talent Management and Iles, Paul; Xin Chuai; 2010 15.70
data, especially in bibliometric networks, into visible and user-friendly HRM in Multinational Preece, David
companies in Beijing:
messages. This technique is called scientific mapping. The software
Definitions, differences
used to visualize similarities was VOSviewer version 1.6.15 (van Eck, and drivers
Waltman, Noyons, & Buter, 2010). VOSviewer provided graphical rep­ 11 119 Talent management Vaiman, Vlad; Scullion, 2012 14.88
resentations of co-authorship, co-citations, bibliographic coupling, and decision making Hugh; Collings, David
keyword concurrence. In the graphical representation, the size of the 12 117 The influence. of Meyers, Maria 2014 19.50
underlying philosophies Christina; van
circle symbolizes the importance of an article, and the connecting lines
on talent management: Woerkom, Marianne
represent the linkages between articles. Theory, implications for
practice, and research
4. Results agenda
13 115 Talent or Not? Bjorkman, Ingmar; 2013 16.43
Employee Reactions to Ehrnrooth, Mats;
The search was conducted in January 2021 using the WoS Core Talent Identification Makela, Kristiina;
Collection database search engine. The search was limited to all papers Smale, Adam;
published from 2003 to 2020. Using the keyword “talent management” Sumelius, Jennie
as the search string, 1,373 papers were identified. The analysis was 14 115 Targeted employee Hausknecht, John P.; 2009 10.45
retention: performance- Rodda, Julianne;
restricted to articles. based and job-related Howard, Michael J.
Next, following a bibliometric analysis approach, the search was differences in reported
restricted to articles, reviews, notes, and letters (Merigó, Gil-Lafuente, & reasons for staying
Yager, 2015; López-Rubio, Roig-Tierno, & Mas-Verdú, 2021). As a result 15 113 Developing tomorrow’s McDonnell, Anthony; 2010 11.30
leaders-Evidence of Lamare, Ryan;
of these restrictions, the number of papers was reduced to 955. This
global talent Gunnigle, Patrick;
restriction was set to guarantee that the analyzed documents had been management in Lavelle, Jonathan
peer-reviewed, thus ensuring their scientific quality (García, Rodríguez- multinational
Sánchez, & Fdez-Valdivia, 2017). enterprises
16 112 Talent management of Hartmann, Evi; Feisel, 2010 11.20
western MNCs in China: Edda; Schober, Holger
4.1. Publication and citation structure Balancing global
integration and local
Fig. 1 shows a graphical representation of the number of articles responsiveness
17 110 How do MNCs establish Makela, Kristiina; 2010 11.00
from 2003, when the first scientific articles on TM were published, to their talent pools? Bjorkman, Ingmar;
2020. During the first decade of the analysis, fewer than 20 articles were Influences on Ehrnrooth, Mats
published each year. In contrast, from 2017 onwards, more than 100 (continued on next page)
articles were published each year. The data therefore show growth in the

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Table 1 (continued ) Table 2

R TC Document title Author PY C/Y
The most productive and influential authors in TM.
R Author Affiliation Country TP TC h C/P
individuals’ likelihood
of being labeled as 1 Scullion H. Univ Hull, Fac UK 24 602 13 25.1
talent Business Polit &
18 108 Talent management and Thunnissen, Marian; 2013 15.43 Law, Kingston
the relevance of Boselie, Paul; Fruytier, Upon Hull, N
context: Towards a Ben Humberside,
pluralistic approach 2 Sparrow P. Univ Lancaster, UK 18 532 7 29.6
19 103 Talent Management: Cappelli, Peter; Keller, 2014 17.17 Management
Conceptual Approaches J. R. Sch, Int HRM,
and Practical Lancaster LA1
Challenges 4YW
20 100 Talent management in Cooke, Fang Lee; Saini, 2014 16.67 3 Collings Dg. Dublin City Ireland 16 640 12 40.0
China and India: A Debi S.; Wang, Jue Univ, DCU
comparison of Business Sch,
management Leadership &
perceptions and human Talent Inst,
resource practices Dublin 9
4 Dries N. Katholieke Univ Belgium 13 703 11 54.1
Notes: R = rank, TC = total citations, PY = publication year, C/Y cites per year.
Leuven, Dept
Work & Org
number of TM publications each year over the last decade. Studies, Leuven
5 Vaiman V. Calif Lutheran USA 11 388 11 35.3
Univ, Thousand
4.2. Influential papers Oaks, CA
91,360
6 Farndale E. Penn State Univ, USA 8 535 5 66.9
Regarding the most representative publications, Table 1 shows the Sch Labor &
document title, authors, total citations, publication date, and citations Employment
per year of the 20 most cited papers on TM. These most cited articles Relat, 508d
were published between 2008 and 2014, and all have at least 100 ci­ Keller,
University Pk,
tations. The article by Bhattacharya, Sen, and Korschun (2008), entitled
PA 16,802
“Using corporate social responsibility to win the war for talent”, leads 7 Thunnissen Fontys Univ Netherlands 8 367 6 45.9
the list of the 50 most cited TM articles, with 314 citations and 26.17 M. Appl Sci, Sch
citations per year. According to Google Scholar, this paper has 1,167 HRM & Appl
citations. The second most cited article was authored by Farndale, Psychol,
Eindhoven Univ
Scullion, and Sparrow (2010). The article, “The role of the corporate HR Utrecht, Utrecht
function in global talent management”, has received 266 citations in Univ Sch
WoS and 667 on Google Scholar. Governance
USG, Utrecht
8 Mcdonnell Univ Coll Cork, Ireland 8 284 5 35.5
4.3. Authors, institutions, and countries A. Cork Univ,
Business Sch,
Dept
This subsection presents the main authors, institutions, and countries
Management &
in relation to TM. Table 2 lists the 10 authors who have contributed the Mkt, Cork
most to TM. The results are ordered by number of publications and are 9 Festing M. ESCP Business Germany 8 201 5 25.1
based only on publications on TM. The authors in this list have more Sch,
than seven articles and more than 100 citations. The list also provides Heubnerweg
8–10, D-14059
information on affiliation, country, total citations, h-index, and total Berlin
citations per article. The continent with the highest contribution is 10 Brewster C. Univ Reading, UK 8 208 5 26.0
Europe. The most representative country is the UK. With 24 articles, the Henley Business
author with the highest number of TM publications is H. Scullin of the Sch, Reading,
Berks
University of Hull in the UK. Scullin is followed by P. Sparrow of Lan­
caster University in the UK and D. Colling of Dublin City University in Notes: R = rank, TP = total publications, TC = total cites, H = h index, C/P =
Ireland, with 18 and 16 articles, respectively. The h-index is a robust cites per publication. The results are based only on articles published in TM. All
estimator of the impact of a scientist’s contribution to a particular authors in the table have more than 7 articles and more than 100 citations.
research area (Hirsch, 2005). That is, it reflects the quantity and visi­
bility of the work by a given author (Bornmann & Daniel, 2007; Egghe & citations (16 and 1,006, respectively), Tilburg University (Netherlands)
Rousseau, 2006). These 10 most cited authors each have more than 200 has a higher citation rate of 62.9. In general terms, the dominant uni­
citations and an h-index ranging from 5 to 13. H. Scullion has the highest versities in the subject are located in the UK (80) and Ireland (47). Four
number of citations per article, with an h-index of 13, followed by D. countries also appear in the ranking: Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, and
Collings, with 12, and N. Dries and V. Vaiman, with 11. Dries and Vai­ South Africa.
man were also the most cited authors, with 703 and 604 citations,
respectively. 4.4. Map of authors
Table 3 shows the 13 main university affiliations of the authors who
have published on TM, classified by the total number of publications on Fig. 2a graphically shows the co-authorship network of authors
the subject. The National University of Ireland Galway has the highest publishing on TM. This map was produced with the data on the co-
number of publications (21), the highest number of citations (1,116), the citations of the authors included in the analysis. The colors indicate
highest h-index (15), and the highest average number of citations per the group to which each author should be assigned according to the
publication (53.1). Although it has a lower number of publications and application of the cluster technique.

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E. Pagan-Castaño et al. Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535

Table 3 The clustering has a simple interpretation such that authors are
The most productive and influential institutions in TM. related to each other in a visual way. This aspect is one of the main
R Institution Country TP TC h C/P advantages of VOSviewer over other widely used tools such as SPSS and
Pajek, where, for example, the overlapping of labels prevents a clear
1 National U. of Ireland Galway Ireland 21 1116 15 53.1
2 Lancaster U. UK 16 569 8 35.6 visualization.
3 Tilburg U. Netherlands 16 1006 10 62.9 The graph highlights four groups of interconnected co-authors. Red
4 U. of London England 16 317 10 19.8 corresponds to group 1, consisting of H. Scullion, D. G. Collings, M. J.
5 Ku Leuven Belgium 14 621 11 44.4 Morley, M. Festing, and I. Tarique. Yellow corresponds to group 2,
6 Dublin City U. Ireland 13 457 9 35.2
7 U. of Limerick Ireland 13 341 13 26.2
formed by I. Bjorkman, E. Farndale, and P. Sparrow. Blue denotes group
8 Saint Petersburg State U. Russia 13 59 4 4.5 3, which consists of N. Dries, R. Pepermans, M. Thunnissen, and E.
9 U. of Reading UK 12 259 8 21.6 Gallardo-Gallardo. Finally, green corresponds to group 4, which is
10 U. of Nottingham UK 12 138 6 11.5 formed by V. Vaiman, A. McDonnell, and V. Khoreva. The three most
11 U. of Warwick UK 12 135 6 11.3
representative authors in the field (Table 2) appear in group one and
12 Edinburgh Napier U. UK 12 38 4 3.2
13 U. of South Africa South Africa 11 21 3 1.9 serve as a link between the groups of co-authors.
Fig. 2b shows a density view using the co-citation data of the authors
Notes: R = rank, TP = total publications on the subject of TM, TC = total cites, H
analyzed within the main network. Colors indicate the group to which
= h index, C/P = cites per publication.
each author is assigned, according to the application of the clustering

Fig. 2a. Co-authorship map of authors Notes: Minimum number of documents per author = 5; 32 of the 1,854 authors meet this condition.

Fig. 2b. Co-authorship map of authors (main network) Notes: Minimum number of documents per author = 5; 32 of the 1,854 authors meet this condition.

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E. Pagan-Castaño et al. Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535

Fig. 3. Bibliographic coupling analysis Notes: Minimum number of citations per document = 30; 96 of the 955 documents meet this condition.

Fig. 4. Key concepts in TM Notes: Minimum number of occurrences of keyword = 20; 52 of the 3,367 keywords meet this condition.

technique. This graph shows that the co-citation network arises from the
author with the highest number of publications on TM (H. Scullion),
with 24 articles in purple.
4.5. Bibliographic linkage of authors, institutions, and countries
Bibliographic linkage is used to detect relationships between docu­
ments, and therefore authors. This linkage refers to the similarity be­
tween the citing document and the cited document. There are two
groups of documents: one in which the citing document and the cited
document appear together and one consisting of the documents that
reference them. The intensity of the bibliographic linkage is determined
by the total number of citations or references of other third parties that
share documents.
In Fig. 3, there are three main groups in red, green, and blue. The red
group, led by Bhattacharya, focuses on challenges and opportunities
faced by companies that deploy their CSR efforts as a strategy to develop
talent, recognizing the importance of how it is implemented in organi­
zations as a fundamental vector of competitive advantage. In the green
group, Gruman and the group of authors associated with this network
approach TM from the perspective of performance management as a
means to generate higher levels of utility by promoting employee
commitment. They also include the aspect of studies of public action. In
blue, Farndale proposes a line of research on the role of corporate HR

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with respect to global talent management (GTM), also considering the
concept of exclusive talent status in organizations.
Fig. 4 illustrates the keywords associated with TM. The most repre­
sentative keywords are performance, human resource management,
management, talent, impact, leadership, career, and job satisfaction.
These keywords reflect the strong connection of TM with HRM. In
addition, the graph shows a wide variety of connected keywords such as
education, tourism, and repatriation, which are seemingly not strongly
related to the definition of TM. The growth shown in Fig. 1 and this wide
range of fields can be considered a symptom of a non-mature field
(Thunnissen & Gallardo-Gallardo, 2019).
5. Conclusions
This article presents bibliometric analysis of the scientific research
on TM published between 2003 and 2020 and indexed in the Web of
Science database. The paper provides a literature review and an analysis
of the research conducted so far in this field.
First, the study examined the trend of TM academic publications over
the last 17 years, revealing progressive growth, mainly in the last
decade. This growth (Fig. 1) is a sign of the growing interest in the
subject from both practitioners and academics. The growth also reflects
changes in the business paradigm derived from a growing interest in HR
and human capital. This finding highlights potential for the develop­
ment of future research in this field, specifically in relation to TM.
Particularly, there is an opportunity to break with the generic concep­
tual framework resulting from the view of TM as a bridging concept of
HRM (Sparrow & Makram 2015).
Second, the study examined the most influential TM articles. In this
case, the article authored by Bhattacharya, Sen, and Korschun (2008),
entitled “Using corporate social responsibility to win the war for talent”,
is the most heavily cited, with 314 citations. Interestingly, these authors
do not have the highest number of citations and publications. With
respect to publications classified according to authors, affiliation, and
country, the author with the highest number of publications is H.
Scullion of the University of Hull (UK), with a total of 24 publications
and an h-index of 13. However, D. N. Katholieke of the University of
Leuven (Belgium) has the most citations (703).
Third, the study examined productivity by authors, countries, and
institutions. The author with the highest number of publications on TM
is H. Scullion (24). The continent with the highest number of publica­
tions is Europe. The UK is the most prolific country in terms of publi­
cations in this field, and its universities dominate this research area.
However, the National University of Ireland has the highest number of
publications on TM (21), the highest number of citations (1,116), and
the highest h-index (15).
Finally, there is a wide variety of connected keywords such as edu­
cation and tourism that were previously thought to be unrelated to the
definition of TM. This interrelatedness may be a symptom of a field that
has yet to mature and of the need for further theoretical exploration of
this concept (Warraich & Ahmed, 2020).
These findings are a sign of the evolution of ways of thinking about
TM, which is considered an important element to develop the compet­
itive advantage of companies and is increasingly studied within various
disciplines. It is developing into its own area and is becoming less
limited to HRM practices. This trend suggests that future lines of
research should address the relationship between TM and competitive
advantage in greater depth through the development of the compe­
tencies of not only company members but also future workers.
The principal limitation of the study is the fact that the analysis was
mainly conducted using the WoS Core Collection database, which con­
tains a limited number of publications. In addition, the fact that this
study consisted of quantitative bibliometric analysis means that it does
not go into depth regarding the definitions and conceptual frameworks
of TM. However, the publications reflect the current state of knowledge.
Therefore, the results of this study can be generalized. Regarding topics
534
Journal of Business Research 141 (2022) 528–535
for further research, the clusters identified in the current paper should
be investigated in more depth.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Esther Pagan-Castaño: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing –
original draft. José Carlos Ballester-Miquel: . Javier Sánchez-García:
Resources, Methodology. María Guijarro-García: Conceptualization,
Formal analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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Esther Pagán-Castaño Esther Pagán Castaño is Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the
University of Valencia. Master’s Degree in Secondary Education from the University
Jaume I of Castellón. She is part of the teaching staff and the research department of ESIC
Valencia. Her professional career has been developed in the Fundación Educativa Activa-t
in the creation of educational programs to promote deliberative pedagogy in the classroom
through tools such as school debate. She is currently a doctoral student at Jaume I
University.
José Carlos Ballester-Miquel Phd, from the Universitat Politècnica of Valencia. Degree in
Business Administration from the UNED and Industrial Technical Engineer (current de­
gree) from the Universitat Politècnica of Valencia. Master in Commercial Management and
Marketing from ESIC Business & Marketing School and Master’s Degree in Marketing and
Market Research from the University of Valencia. Founding Manager of IBBA Negocios, S.
L. company dedicated to real estate brokerage, director of a Commercial Agency operating
in the retail sector. He is currently collaborating in a Collaborative Economy Project
commissioned by the government within a team of researchers from the Polytechnic
University and the University of Valencia. He has been a collaborating professor at ESIC
since 1998.
Javier Sánchez-García Javier Sánchez García is Full Professor of Marketing and Market
Research at Universitat Jaume I (Castellón, Spain). He holds a Degree in Economics and
Business Administration from the University of Valencia. Phd in Business Administration
from Universitat Jaume I. Author of articles in journals included in the Journal Citation
Report: Transport Reviews, Journal of Air Transport Management, Journal of Business-to-
Business Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business & Industrial
Marketing, Service Industries Journal, International Journal of Aging & Human Devel­
opment, Tourism Management, Tourism Geographies and Annals of Tourism Research.
María Guijarro-García. PhD accredited by ANECA in the integration of NNTT (New
Technologies) in the business organization, Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain).
She e holds a Degree in Computer Science, branch Management Systems from Universitat
Politècnica de València. Master MBA from ESIC Business & Marketing School. She is part of
the teaching staff and is director of the research department at ESIC Valencia. Her primary
areas of research included customer relationship management and marketing. She has
published international journals such as Journal of Busines Research, Sustainability, or
International Journal of Intellectual Property Management. Director of the International
Symposium on Applied Innovation (IMAT). Regarding her professional profile, she has
worked in different companies in the consulting and marketing departments.