A multidisciplinary review into the definition, operationalization, and measurement of talent

Organizations report great difficulty in measuring talent accurately, reflecting the lack of theoretical foundations for talent-identification in the HRM literature. This multidisciplinary review aims to contribute to the establishment of a stronger theoretical basis for talent-management by presenting a conceptual framework of talent in which the definition, operationalization and measurement of talent and its relation to excellent performance is clarified. We systematically introduce 11 propositions into the framework, building on fragmented insights from the literature-from the fields of HRM, gifted education, positive psychology, and vocational psychology respectively-that will guide readers in understanding and applying the proposed framework. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.