A Decade of Talent Management Practices in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, A Systematic Review of a Developing Field

Abstract

Abstract Talent management (TM) is a relatively new management discipline that has generated considerable interest among scholars and practitioners within the past decade. It has been studied extensively among large enterprises and global organizations, but the practices have received limited investigation among Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This research paper uses a systematic review of the existing literature from 55 papers to present some insights into how TM is defined, conceptualized, and practised. An agenda for future research of SMEs TM is presented to spur further study. The paper uses the PRISMA methodology recommended by (Moher et al., (2009) to search the databases of Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar for papers published within the last ten years between 2011-21. The findings confirm that the study of TM in SMEs is a developing field, and while there has been an encouraging increase in the number of publications in the past 10 years, it still lags behind other fields. Thus, there is a need for researchers and academics to accelerate the pace of research.