Global Talent Management and its Career Implications: What Does the Talent Want?

Much of extant global talent management (GTM) literature emphasizes multinational enterprises' (MNEs) identification and deployment talent. However, the 'talented' employee is the under-explored yet crucial stakeholder actually experiencing these GTM strategies. This study focused on the employee perspective by examining i) the extent to which subsidiary talent displays protean and boundaryless career orientations and ii) the subsequent mismatch between employees' career orientations and MNEs' GTM strategies. Fifty-three in-depth interviews with managers/professionals in four MNEs revealed that employees display very strong learning/developmental and international mobility career orientations as well as high financial expectations, irrespective of organizational ability to accommodate these expectations.