In­vi­ta­tion for PhD De­fen­ce - Sara Var­di

In order to obtain the PhD degree, Sara Vardi has submitted her thesis entitled:

Rethinking Talent:

Conceptual Foundations, Mechanisms and Context in Talent Management.

This dissertation examines three fundamental questions at the heart of talent management: what talent is, how it is identified, and whether TM programs deliver on their promises. It does so through three interrelated studies: The first study systematically reviews how talent is defined across 192 peer-reviewed articles and proposes an integrative conceptual framework that embraces the inherent tensions in talent definitions rather than resolving them through binary categorization. The second uses a vignette experiment and qualitative interviews to examine how human capital and social capital shape internal talent selection, finding that social capital is the dominant predictor and that its absence is treated as an active liability, particularly for global roles. The third applies quasi-experimental methods to longitudinal data from a Danish multinational to show that TM program participation increases the likelihood of deployment into key positions through mechanisms that extend beyond individual performance improvement. Taken together, the studies advance talent management and strategic human capital theory by challenging binary conceptualizations of talent, uncovering the asymmetric role of social capital in talent identification, and providing evidence that TM programs drive deployment into key positions through mechanisms that go beyond individual skill development. The dissertation bridges conceptual theory and empirical findings and offers actionable insights for organizations seeking to design more effective and evidence-based talent management systems.

The thesis will be available from research.cbs.dk