Talent Management and Performance in the Public Sector

This chapter explores the academic debate regarding the linkage between human resource management (HRM) and performance, and in particular to the extent to which this discussion suits the specific public sector context. In the early 2000s, the general HRM and performance debate not only focused on organizational outcomes, but also on employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation, turnover, absence due to illness, and commitment. Academics involved in the public sector performance debate state that in the measurement of performance, context specific characteristics have to be taken into account. Private companies define organizational performance in terms of productivity, service quality, sales, profits, market share, and market value. The model heavily builds on multiple stakeholder theory and situational factors known from strategic contingency approaches of the 1970s and 1980s. The public values are determined by the existing institutional and cultural framework.