Talent Management as Boundary Work

Talent management as a strategic aspect of human resources management is essential to a company's success. By providing an analysis of the narratives of talent management specialists using boundary work theory, this thesis sheds light on the process of creation of their social position within organisations. Talent management specialists define, in collaboration with other organisational actors the understanding of talent management within organisations. This process of collaboration gives rise to tensions that need to be efficiently managed in order to create a coherent and adequate vision of talent management. Once this constructed vision exists, talent management specialists engage in a process of control of boundaries around it, in the sense of promoting and safeguarding the desired contents. To do so, talent management specialists rely on their legitimacy as organisational actors and credibility gained through different channels. By apprehending the social role of talent management specialists, this thesis brings us a step further in the understanding of talent management and provides new answers to the crucial question of the nature of talent management and of its practice.