Evaluating the Attitude of Employees from the Practice of Exclusive Talent Management: A Study of Hotel Employees in Delhi

Understanding employees’ attitude towards the practice of exclusive talent management (ETM) has become increasingly important for ethical concerns. Despite its significant importance, this study is one of its kind, which first aims to examine the positive and negative attitude arising from the practice of ETM and also checks for the difference between the talented and non-talented employees. Based on social exchange and signalling theories, past studies have conceptually proposed that there may exist a difference in talented and non-talented employees because of their perception of justice and support, as this practice follows workforce discrimination in the organisation. Second, this article also aims to analyse how perceived justice and perceived support affect the attitude of employees towards ETM practices. Data was collected through the questionnaire method by applying convenience sampling technique, and responses of 735 employees were collected across 15 luxury hotels in New Delhi. Structural equation modelling and mediation analysis were conducted in AMOS to test various relationships. The findings suggest that ETM practices significantly affect both positive and negative attitude of employees. Also, talented employees perceive higher levels of positive attitude than non-talented employees, whereas no significant difference was found in their perception of negative attitude. Further, it was proposed that the differences in the attitude of the employees are because of their perception of justice and support towards ETM practices. It was found that perceived justice mediates the relationship of ETM with both positive and negative attitudes, but perceived support only mediates the relationship of ETM practices and the negative attitude.