Introduction
According to several studies, human resource management (HRM) has become a vital aspect of today’s firms. Globalization is one of the most significant cornerstones of any company with worldwide operations. Furthermore, part of HRM, talent management (TM), is a crucial issue in businesses and conversations. However, since those countries have opened borders to foreign workers, it is significant to examine what abilities are essential for an individual to be employable. This research aims to establish a new aspect of human resource management that has recently evolved to be substantial, namely talent management. The study will involve organizations from Romania and Sweden dealing with TM in all major HRM phases, such as selection, retention, and recruiting. It is vital to investigate whether these procedures have similarities or differences.
Furthermore, it is crucial to establish the capabilities that businesses require and the kind of protocols firms have in place to produce international leaders. Having that historical event can influence management mechanisms differently in multiple nations, specifically in human capital; the study will concentrate on assessing from a country and organization perspective. Moreover, the new era of technology practically in HRM tasks today makes information, communication, and traveling easier than in prior decades and might be one of the components of regional talent management equality. As previous studies establish that national culture impacts an organization’s culture, the study will initiate the Hosfede Theory of Cultural Diversity. It will be employed to determine the distinction that prevails in the two European countries and how they influence organizational culture.
Review of the Literature
Human resources are defined as the firm’s function of recruiting, developing, managing and motivating employees. It also provides specialized and practical support and systems for the workers’ engagement and management of systems to foster regulatory compliance with human rights and employment standards (Wiblen & Marler, 2021). According to different studies, HRM is a unique approach to employee management as it aims to achieve a competitive edge through the tactical distribution of outstanding individuals (Roundy & Burke-Smalley, 2021). Employees are speculated as assets to be evolved not as a cost to be handled but as significant shareholders in the organization.
HRM’s goal is to apply strategies that will aid the workers to become more adaptable, devoted, and innovative. The mechanisms are based on the assumption that human resource gives a firm a competitive advantage. HRM is considered a different approach to employee management that strives for competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of personnel utilizing diverse techniques. Moreover, it also refers to activities such as staffing, performance, human resource planning, development, and industrial relations that a firm carries out to make the most of its human resources.
Talent is established as the competence or the natural ability to perform a specific task.TM is a planned action to recruit, attract, retain, and develop employees who, collectively or individually, can significantly impact the results of a firm and whose abilities apply to an organization (Dzimbiri & Molefi, 2021). Since the research examines talent management approaches in two countries, Romania and Sweden, it is crucial to comprehend the role of human resource management. The topic of TM has gained mainstream acceptance in action; however, empirical study on the subject appears to be lacking. Nonetheless, the notion of TM seems to necessitate a significant amount of time from CEOs of firms across multiple ranges of industries, and it has become essential in the information economy that corporations are compelled to shift where there is talent (Dzimbiri & Molefi, 2021). As a result of globalization, global talent management has outgrown its deals with the firms’ operations to select, retain, and attract competent employees for the most strategic positions.
Solid global leadership in the form of governing brings people from different cultural diversity to work together. The attribute is critical since cultural distinctions influence the actual and intended leadership and people’s conduct and values. As in HRM, three key areas are distinctive in TM: selection, assessment, and retention. An organization with a talent management system can contribute to the business results through talent strategy. Furthermore, a firm should use a talent pool that is constantly changing. According to a cultural definition, it
is the beliefs, art, law, morals, and customs that are acquitted by a community member’s man (Botelho, 2020). One of the significant attributes of culture is that it is a delicate process that influences attitudes, actions, and values. Cultural diversities are important and multinational; hence firms should consider them when interacting and communicating across borders.
Methodology
This thesis aims to identify how different firms in Romania and Sweden deal with talent management in HRM practices and speculate if there are any differences or similarities. In addition, it determines if organizational and country culture plays a role in talent management. The study used various methods, including observation, questionnaires, and interviews. A self-completion questionnaire with both closed and open quizzes was used in this research, focusing on the interpretation of answers. The questionnaires were sent to firms through email and phone calls to the targeted organization in Romania and Swedish. The initial concept was to target five to ten organizations from both countries. In addition, the study aimed to have a similar organization from Sweden and Romania to make an exact comparison. Some of the research limitations are that some desired organizations did not participate due to internal policies, lack of interest, and lack of time (Botelho, 2020). Hence the study will involve four organizations from each nation and organizations from distinct industries. For instance, only one Swedish and Romanian bank supports a direct comparison in HRM policies, specifically in terms of TM.
In measures of the size, it might be initiated that only four Romanian and Swedish enterprises are insufficient for a thorough comparison; hence the results cannot be generalized to be specific to these countries. It may also be alleged that only one individual from each organization responded to the quizzes; hence, people respondents can be a constraint in the research. The questionnaire was written in English, which is not the respondent’s first language; thus language employed may also be an issue in the study.
Findings
The finding of the organizations that responded to the survey can establish certain discrepancies and similarities in their responses. There are also some inquiries in the answer sheets which have no or only a brief answer. In terms of talent management definitions, all the firms described the word as having only one organization claiming to be unfamiliar with the concept. The organizations employ different HRM core activities, selection, retention, and recruiting tools. Although not all the organizations responded to this question, the information provided is more extensive regarding the identical measures used in TM. According to the organization’s responses, not all of them monitor talent management effectiveness, and those that use internal turnover rates and potential based (Dzimbiri & Molefi, 2021). Organizational culture evolves to influence both the type of organization and brilliant employees.
Firms have provided multiple forms of leadership programs, unique programs tailored to the development of future leaders, the most popular of which is training. The organizations provided instances or processes for identifying talented personnel, such as talent reviews, 360 feedback, or nine boxes. According to the companies’ responses, talent pools are employed externally, internally, or not; firms’ reactions to the topic of whether three distinct criteria for selecting, retaining, and selecting talents for international leadership development versus national leadership range from yes to no (Dzimbiri & Molefi, 2021). However, examples of the vital critical skills for building global leaders were provided in expectation of one firm that said TM principles had been created and that TM is an element of the company’s growth strategy.
There are many positive responses to similar strategies in all nations where enterprises operate. However, not all the organizations responded to the questions presented. On the other side, that study has outlined that coaching, mentoring, and training are the most coveted areas in TM strategy in all organizations depicted with examples. There are four organizational cultures: control, compete, collaborate, and create a brief description. Four firms only picked one to describe the company. Aside from that, two organizations chose one quality from each category, and one firm used two firms’ cultures to identify suitable characteristics.
Analysis
The finding of the research outline that firms in both Romania and Sweden have varying levels of understanding of talent management. Hence the companies gave various expansions of what TM means to them, consistent with other scholars who disagree with the single definition. Moreover, the firms have demonstrated the tools they employed in the three primary HRM practices: retention, selection, and recruiting. Three of the four Swedish firms in this study measure TM efficiency, whereas only one of the Romania organizations does so. In terms of the company’s culture, all four Swedish firms, with the expectation one had a similar opinion on how firm culture affects culture (Jooss et al., 2019). On the one hand, three Swedish businesses outline that they collaborate, compete, or produce concerning organizational culture. The fourth firm chose one feature from each type of corporate culture.
One Romanian company chose the control type; another organization chose both compete and control. The third chose all four organizational cultures. The fourth instigated that none of them fit into a firm corporate style. Both Quinn and Cameroon’s stress and Hosfsted work on cultural factors can be employed to expound on how the corporations have been selected (Krishnan & Scullion, 2017). In leadership development, all four Swedish firms have distinct programs in the sense that they presented to the study some of the samples of significant abilities for growing leaders. Three out of four Romanian enterprises have similar programs; however, only two have presented examples.
Three Swedish firms and Romanian organizations utilize the talent pool in the same ratio, indicating that the companies are aware of it. Empowerment, mentoring, and coaching were the most addressed areas in TM strategy by both Romanians and Swedish firms, demonstrating some of the patterns offered. In expectation of the Romanian firm, the remainder of the organization and the Swedish firm instated that they created the TM principles and that Tm is part of the growth strategy (Meyers, 2020). Aside from that, three out of four Swedish firms have the same HRM strategy across their nations of operations, whereas only one Romanian company has the same approach.
Discussions
In the theory section, it was evident that different scholars have different views of talent management. Given the wide range of meanings and definitions of the term, it is easier to comprehend why the firms in the survey presented different meanings. The literature review explicitly demonstrates the examples provided; there are various tools businesses can employ in HRM operations (Meyers, 2020). Thus, the empirical data reveal that multiple of these tools are used in the selection, recruitment, and retention process by both Romanian and Swedish. However, the similarities and distinctions in these behaviors must be identified. The Swedish enterprise’s responses were more supplicated than those of the Romanian. For instance, only two of the four Romanian enterprises exemplified the HRM method specified in the dimension of talent. Hence the study can conclude that HRM is more evolved in Swedish business than in Romanian.
Another intriguing concept is talent management effectiveness which is measured majority in Swedish compared to Romanian. After implementing talent management systems, organizations are expected to evaluate how efficient it is to comprehend how it influences an organization’s results. As a result of the empirical finding, Romania has not yet built a talent management system. A human development report was employed in prior studies to govern how HRM is developed in Romania and Sweden (Perlstein & Ciuk, 2019). The report was generated to manage human development in seventy-seven countries. Hence both Romania and Sweden are developing rapidly; however, the ranked levels make significant distinctions. Sweden was ranked as the sixth nation, while Romania was number sixty. Romania has adopted many practices and principles from developed countries during its transition to a market economy. Hence this argument can expound on the similarities and distinctions between these two countries.
Romanian and Swedish organizations believe that organizational and national cultures influence brilliant people. Given the four forms of corporate culture, Swedish favors competition, creation, and collaboration; however, Romanians favored completion and control of none of them. According to cultural dimension theory, Romania and Sweden are on opposite ends of the spectrum in all dimensions (Rodriguez & Stewart, 2017). With the high Romanian score on masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance dimensions, it is easy to speculate why Romanian businesses are prone to control organizational cultures. On the other hand, Sweden has proven the national culture impact on companies by the business decisions that are prone to create, collaborate, and compete for types of cultures while having a relatively low on the same dimension except for individualism.
As other scholars have pointed out in their prior research, national culture affects organizational culture. Hence as long as national culture influences corporate culture HRM particularly talent management can be assumed to be impacted, as evidenced by findings. However, other essential factors can be debated, such as the company’s age and the country’s history. The domain activity may all play a role in organizational culture. For instance, in Romanian, businesses are at a disadvantage from a historical point of view (Roundy & Burke-Smalley, 2021). To the study, Romania transposed to a market economy in 1989 and only became a European Union member in 2007. Hence, firms in Romania do not have the same age as those in Sweden, which has never experienced a command economy under a communist regime. Therefore, HRM, mainly talent management, is not developed as it is in Sweden.
Moreover, the activation domain is a significant consideration in the study. The firms in question operate in various industries; for instance, there is one in a Romanian bank, a Romanian financial firm, and a Swedish bank. The remaining enterprises engage in numerous practices which are not alike. Above all, the size of the firms and the worldwide markets where their businesses operate differently. For instance, Romanian companies perform only in a few European nations, such as Germany, Poland, France, United Kingdom, but Swedish businesses function worldwide. Thus, the comparison of these firms and their empirical results cannot be considered valid. The study established that firms should leverage external or internal talent pools, except that Romanian and Swedish enterprises use talent pools on both sides. Secondly, in terms of training programs, all the Swedish companies demonstrated this program with multiple distinction instances instead of the Romanian firms where one company, for example, does not have an agenda (Roundy & Burke-Smalley, 2021). Similarly, the same firms have established that the tactics employed in talent acquisition are consistent with the theory behind the significant stream of ideas in talent management.
The first stream substitutes HRM with Tm and focuses on particular HR activities such as development and recruitment. The second stresses talent pool development, and the third stream relies on talent management. However, it is crucial to note that only two of the four Romanian firms involved in the research provided more appropriate and detailed responses to this question than the Swedish companies. Hence these two firms, both of which operate in the international and banking sector, can be regarded as having a western development (Tyskbo, 2019). The talent management attitude was explored from the organizational talent management strategy perspective. The firms responded positively to the quizzes relating to the Tm mindset; without enough instances of what exactly covers the companies’ Tm strategy, it can be perceived as challenging to get a comprehensive picture.
Another facet focuses on the essential skills for building international leaders. Swedish companies focus on various professional aspects such as strategic thinking, leadership, and performance. They believe that concentrating on firm competencies gives them a competitive advantage. On the other hand, the Romanian organizations have partially responded with the exact mechanism. Only one firm responded the same way as the Swedish firms, while another considered critical personal capabilities such as empathy and charisma when it comes to relationships. Thus, when comparing Swedish firms to Romanian companies, working with TM in HRM and focusing on developing leaders by considering them in organizations’ development protocols may be perceived as lacking (Wiblen & Marler, 2021). However, it may be debated that relevant instances were scarce from which a strong pattern concerning companies’ TM mindset could be formed.
Conclusion
While this research better comprehends similarities and variations in personnel management linking selected firms in Romanian and Swedish, more academic research may be explored. It has clearly outlined how talent management and culture influence HRM by using two countries. The purpose of the study has been advanced as the research has provided indefinite findings. However, the investigation had some limitations; a few recommendations are put in place in case of further studies on the same. The first recommendation for future studies should be conducted on a large sample size to gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the study. More emphasis should be on the company’s domain activity to produce more relevant results. Since globalization is rapidly extending and shaping new modes of collaboration, it will be interesting to have more comprehensive research connected to HRM, specifically on talent management between eastern and Western Europe nations.
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