Determinants of top management’s capability to identify core employees

Abstract

Despite the increasing academic interest, the human resource management formulation process still remains unclear. Building on human capital and talent management literatures, this study investigates how top management teams identify critical human resources. The proposed model explores how top management teams’ ability to identify core employees is conditioned by two human capital attributes of their members (cognitive skills and value orientation). The empirical analysis developed confirms the influence of human capital. Nevertheless, results only provide partial support to our hypotheses, showing that the identification of critical human resources is more complex than theoretically assumed. The estimation of the proposed model shows that, to efficiently develop this process, top management teams require the combination of rational and creative skills, as well as a collectivistic orientation. The implications of this conclusion for both academics and practitioners are discussed in the paper, as well as the limitations of the study.