Talent management and turnover intention: focus on Danang city government in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

The current study has examined determinants of turnover intention of talented public officials who join two talent management (TM) programs in Danang city government, Vietnam. Based on the survey data from 336 public officials who hired based on the TM program, we have found that perceived hard HM practices are negatively related with turnover intention while there is no relation between soft HM practice and intention to leave the organization. Employee engagement (EE) fully mediates the relationship between perceived hard TM practices and turnover intention, and partially mediates the relationship between perceived person-environment (PE) fit and turnover intention. The study suggests that public organizations in Danang city should focus on hard TM practices and the congruence of individual with work environment, particularly with organization and job, to retain their talents.

KEYWORDS:

• Soft talent management
• hard talent management
• person-environment fit
• employee engagement
• turnover intention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The information is drawn from official documents on Danang’s TM programs during 1998–2014.

2. According to Lewis and Heckman (2006), there are three perspectives to define TM. The first defines TM as a regular human resource management (HRM) practices. There is not much difference between TM and HRM, except ‘doing it faster’ or ‘across the enterprise’ in the perspective. The second covers typical HR practices and process but is closer to ‘succession planning/management or human resource planning’ (p. 140). There are two sub-viewpoints under the third perspective which focuses on talent itself. The first viewpoint seeks, hires, and gives rewards highly competitive performers, while the second one is more focused on making everyone in an organization achieve high performance. Based on their perspectives, the definition of TM in the current study is closer to the first viewpoint of the third perspective.

3. Vietnam organizes local governments into three levels under the authority of people’s council and people’s committee at each level: province/city, district, and commune/ward. Danang local government has seven districts and 56 wards. The Danang People’s Committee has 19 departments, while the People’s Committee at each district/ward level has its own divisions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linh Thi Thu Bui

Linh Thi Thu Bui works in the Danang Department of Home Affairs, Vietnam. She earned the master’s degree of Public Management and Policy Analysis from the Graduate School of International Relations at the International University of Japan, sponsored by the Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship. Her specializations are public policy process and human resource management.

Yongjin Chang

Yongjin Chang is an associate professor in the Graduate School of International Relations at the International University of Japan. His research focuses on public human resource management, whistleblower protection, government ethics and corruption, and comparative public administration.