Talent management in China and India: A comparison of management perceptions and human resource practices

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The article is an empirical qualitative study published in the Journal of World Business. It uses an electronic qualitative survey of non-HR managers in China and India and analyzes responses through content analysis. It does not report regression models, statistical hypothesis testing, or quantitative effect estimates. Its evidence comes mainly from categorized qualitative responses and descriptive percentages.

Research question

How do managers in China and India understand talent management, and how do firms in these two emerging economies manage talent in practice?

More specifically, the article asks three research questions.

First, how do Indian and Chinese managers understand the concept of talent management, and what talent management policies and practices are in place in their organizations?

Second, how is talent management similar and different between China and India, and how can these similarities and differences be explained?

Third, what implications do the findings have for modeling HR institutions in emerging economies and for developing talent management theory in a way that is more sensitive to local institutional and cultural contexts?

Hypotheses

Not specified.

The article does not test formal hypotheses. It uses qualitative survey evidence to compare managerial perceptions and HR practices in China and India.

The guiding expectation is that talent management in emerging economies cannot be understood only through universal Western models. Instead, it should be examined in relation to local institutional context, cultural values, labour-market conditions, ownership forms, management education, and organizational capability.

Method

The study uses an electronic qualitative survey.

The authors surveyed experienced non-HR managers in China and India. This respondent group is important because many earlier talent management studies focused mainly on HR professionals, while line managers are often responsible for managing people operationally and may also experience talent management practices themselves.

The initial target group included 137 managers from India and 87 managers from China. These managers were alumni of postgraduate management, MBA, or EMBA programmes taught by the authors in the three years before the survey. The authors argue that this helped secure participation and encouraged detailed answers.

The survey was conducted in September 2012. Indian respondents completed the survey in English. Chinese respondents completed it in Mandarin because many were less comfortable responding in English. The Mandarin version was translated and checked by the authors for accuracy.

The survey asked six main questions:

1. Who are considered to be talent in your company?
2. What do you think talent management means?
3. Does your company have any talent-management schemes or HRM practices to manage talent? If yes, what are they?
4. How effective are these schemes or HRM practices?
5. What are the current and future individual, organizational, and macro-contextual barriers to talent management in your country?
6. How can these barriers be overcome?

The authors received 121 responses from India and 74 from China. This equals response rates of 88% and 85%, respectively. After screening, 11 Indian responses and 6 Chinese responses were removed because they were too brief or incoherent.

The final sample contained 178 valid responses:

• 110 Indian managers;
• 68 Chinese managers.

Respondents came from different sectors and ownership forms. The Indian sample skewed toward high-tech industries, with more than 50% from high-tech, and toward the private sector. About 17% of Indian respondents worked in state-owned enterprises, 22% in foreign multinational corporations or joint ventures, and 60% in privately owned enterprises.

The Chinese sample was more evenly distributed across sectors and ownership forms. About 31% of Chinese respondents worked in state-owned enterprises, 26% in foreign multinational corporations or joint ventures, and 43% in privately owned enterprises.

Firm sizes ranged from 47 employees to 23,000 employees. At the workplace level, respondents worked in units ranging from 47 employees to more than 4,000 employees.

All respondents were between 29 and 47 years old and had worked for their company for at least three years. More than 80% were mid-career managers under 40. Most were in managerial, technical, or functional roles with HR responsibilities.

The authors used content analysis to categorize and analyze the qualitative responses. The findings are organized around definitions of talent, meanings of talent management, HRM practices used for talent management, barriers, and proposed solutions.

Results / key findings

The article’s first major finding is that managers in China and India usually defined talent in elitist and firm-centered terms.

Only about 5% of respondents defined talent as all employees. This inclusive view was mainly found in high-tech or knowledge-intensive firms where the workforce was relatively young, educated, and homogeneous. Even then, the authors found that supposedly inclusive firms often still operated elite reward systems in practice: everyone was covered by the same HR policies, but the best performers rose to the top and were treated as talent.

About 10% of respondents defined talent as well-educated employees or job candidates. This view appeared more often among Chinese respondents, especially in state-owned enterprises and privately owned enterprises. The authors connect this to Confucian values, where education carries high social status and historically shaped elite selection.

The dominant definition was talent as best performers or high achievers. About 45% of respondents used this definition. Most respondents in this category came from foreign multinational corporations, joint ventures, or privately owned enterprises. The authors interpret this as evidence of a competitive, performance-oriented, outcome-driven approach to talent management.

More than 21% of respondents defined talent as core personnel whose expertise and social resources are crucial to firm competitiveness. This included key managers and employees in important technical, professional, marketing, and sales roles. The authors connect this view to the resource-based view because talent is understood as valuable human and social capital.

Less than 3% of respondents defined talent as skilled technical workers. All respondents in this category came from Chinese manufacturing firms, reflecting skill shortages in Chinese manufacturing.

About 6% defined talent as employees with the right attributes, especially attitudinal and behavioural traits. These included innovation, enthusiasm for challenges, willingness to go the extra mile, foresight, proactivity, collegiality, and willingness to develop others.

About 5% defined talent as ready-made personnel from the labour market. These respondents mainly came from firms struggling with recruitment and retention. Most were privately owned enterprises with limited internal HR capability.

Less than 5% defined talent as high-potential employees who should be developed through mentoring, coaching, training, and team building. All respondents in this category came from state-owned enterprises or foreign multinational corporations/joint ventures, suggesting stronger internal labour-market and development orientations.

The second major finding is that talent was usually treated as a temporary status based on relative firm value.

Across both countries, respondents largely defined talent from the firm’s perspective. Talent was viewed as valuable when it improved organizational performance, competitiveness, or immediate capability. The authors note that employee needs and well-being received little attention. In this view, employees must continuously defend their talent status through performance and relative value.

The third major finding is that managers often struggled to distinguish talent management from general HRM.

Respondents generally described talent management as mechanisms for recruiting, identifying, developing, managing, and retaining key personnel or scarce employees. However, most could not give a comprehensive or coherent definition of talent management. The most common practices mentioned were recruitment, performance management, training and development, and retention.

More than 30% of respondents also emphasized organizational culture-building as part of talent management. Some saw culture as a way to attract and motivate talented individuals. Others saw it as a way to create a high-performance, innovative environment into which individuals must fit.

At least two-thirds of respondents believed the purpose of talent management was to realize strategic organizational goals and improve competitiveness. Only a few emphasized designing jobs around individual skills and capabilities.

The fourth major finding is that most firms did not have a specific talent management scheme.

More than 70% of respondents, 125 out of 178, reported that their firms did not have a specific talent management scheme. However, many respondents also stated that a separate scheme was not necessary because talent management was handled through existing HRM policies and practices. This again suggests that managers often saw talent management as part of HRM rather than as a distinct strategic system.

The fifth major finding is that talent management practices in China and India strongly resembled high-performance HR practices.

The most frequently reported practices included:

• recruitment and skills sourcing;
• financial incentives;
• training and development;
• performance management;
• intrinsic rewards;
• role modelling;
• job rotation;
• improved working conditions;
• communication;
• employee involvement.

Financial incentives, training and development, performance management, and fast-track promotion were among the most common practices in both countries.

Table 2 gives concrete examples. Recruitment practices included multi-channel recruitment, employee referral schemes, collaboration with universities, insourcing, and critical skill gap analysis. Financial incentives included flexible pay, employee stock options, voluntary benefits, ad hoc fringe benefits, housing benefits in China, and bespoke wage policies in China. Development practices included sponsored MBA or EMBA programmes, overseas training, in-house learning, career planning, mentoring, succession planning, and leadership development. Performance management included linking appraisal to reward and promotion, fast-track promotion, and skill or competence contests in China.

The sixth major finding is that materialistic rewards were central to talent management in both countries, especially China.

Respondents from both countries reported extensive use of workplace-based voluntary benefits. The authors connect this to paternalistic cultural traditions in both China and India, where employers are expected to look after employee welfare.

China showed a particularly strong emphasis on financial rewards. Nearly 70% of Chinese respondents reported that performance appraisal was heavily linked to extrinsic rewards such as wages, bonuses, and organizational positions. Chinese firms also appeared to have more flexibility in using favourable terms and conditions to attract talent.

Indian respondents, by contrast, more often identified inflexibility in financial reward systems as a barrier to talent management, especially in state-owned firms.

The seventh major finding is that training and education mattered in both countries, but the meaning differed.

Respondents from both countries commonly mentioned sponsoring education. Indian respondents mainly emphasized qualification-based formal education, especially postgraduate management education such as MBA and EMBA programmes. These programmes improved management competence and labour-market employability.

Chinese respondents emphasized continuous education, knowledge renewal, and self-improvement more strongly. The authors connect this to Confucian values around lifelong learning and advancement.

The eighth major finding is that firms faced barriers at individual, organizational, and macro levels.

At the individual level, the most widely reported challenge was opportunistic behaviour among talented employees. Respondents described talented employees as ambitious, eager to succeed, highly mobile, and prepared to move jobs quickly to advance their careers. Younger employees were seen as less attached to lifelong employment and more focused on employability and rapid upward mobility.

At the organizational level, barriers included short-termism, buying talent instead of growing it, poor leadership, poor communication, management indifference, unprofessional managerial behaviour, workplace politics, nepotism, favouritism, poor strategic HR, weak HR capability, ineffective incentive schemes, recruitment difficulties, and lack of tools that line managers could actually use.

At the macro level, respondents in both countries pointed to dysfunctional education systems. A major problem was mismatch between skill supply and skill demand. In China, respondents blamed under-resourced vocational education and narrow technical training for skill shortages. In India, respondents highlighted the mismatch created when engineering graduates were assigned to management roles, leading to underuse of technical skills and employee dissatisfaction.

Indian respondents also identified cultural diversity, social hierarchy, and caste-related class culture as barriers to talent management.

The ninth major finding is that ownership form shaped talent management.

Indian privately owned firms appeared more proactive, innovative, and strategic in talent management than Indian state-owned firms. Indian public-sector organizations were criticized as bureaucratic, rigid, and reactive.

In China, the pattern was different. Chinese state-owned enterprises appeared to face fewer talent management problems than private firms because large SOEs often had market power, prestige, better pay, and attractive working conditions. They also had more resources to mobilize HR interventions and develop internal labour markets.

Chinese privately owned enterprises appeared more reliant on external hiring as a quick fix, often because of weaker internal HR capability.

The tenth major finding is that respondents were pessimistic about talent retention.

More than 60% of respondents believed that loyalty and organizational commitment could not realistically be expected from talented employees who were highly sought after. They argued that firms should design HR policies to get the most out of talented employees while they remain with the firm, rather than assume long-term retention.

This is one of the article’s strongest practical messages. Talent management in China and India was shaped by job-hopping, strong bargaining power among scarce talent, and firms’ willingness to compete through pay and fast progression.

The eleventh major finding is that Western talent management models need contextual adaptation.

At least 30% of respondents felt that meritocratic HR systems characteristic of Western HR models may not fully fit their cultural context. They argued that loyalty and emotional support from employees still mattered and should be rewarded. This suggests that talent management models in China and India need to include attitudinal and behavioural norms, not only objective performance metrics.

The final major finding is that the article supports a contingency approach.

The authors reject a universalist model of talent management. They argue that talent management should be understood through institutional, cultural, industrial, organizational, and individual factors.

Figure 1 summarizes this logic. It shows that talent management in China and India is influenced by workforce characteristics, paternalistic culture, political ideology, value of education, state influence in education, ownership form, industrial sector, market and economic forces, and individual labour-market behaviour and career expectations. These factors shape who is seen as talent, what talent management means, how HR practices are used, and why organizations pursue talent management.

Overall, the article argues that talent management in China and India is pragmatic, elitist, material-reward driven, and strongly shaped by local context. It is often more transactional than relational, with firms focusing heavily on current performance and talent acquisition rather than long-term internal development.

Practical implications

For managers, the article’s core message is that talent management must fit the local institutional and cultural context.

A talent management system copied from a Western multinational may not work automatically in China or India. Firms need to understand how education systems, labour-market behaviour, ownership structures, cultural values, state influence, and employee expectations shape what talent management means in practice.

For firms in China and India, one major implication is that talent management cannot rely only on pay escalation. Financial incentives matter, and the article shows they were central in both countries, especially China. But heavy reliance on material rewards can create a bidding war for mobile talent. This may raise costs without creating long-term commitment.

Managers should therefore build stronger internal HR capability. Many firms, especially privately owned firms, appeared to rely on external hiring because internal development systems were weak. This may solve short-term recruitment problems but can worsen long-term talent shortages.

The article also warns against treating talent management as just regular HRM. More than 70% of respondents said their firms had no specific talent management scheme. This may be fine if existing HR practices are strategically aligned, but risky if talent management becomes a vague label for recruitment, training, pay, and retention without clear priorities.

For managers in Chinese firms, the article suggests that external hiring and financial rewards need to be balanced with deeper talent development. Chinese respondents often emphasized education, learning, moral conduct, and performance. Talent systems should therefore combine performance incentives with long-term development and culturally credible expectations around behaviour.

For managers in Indian firms, the article highlights the importance of fairness, transparency, and flexibility. Indian respondents were more likely to critique rigid systems, especially in state-owned organizations. In private firms, the challenge is to sustain strategic HR capability while managing fast growth, cultural diversity, and employee mobility.

For multinational firms operating in China and India, the article shows that talent management must be localized. Global talent frameworks may provide structure, but local implementation needs to reflect specific labour markets, education systems, cultural expectations, and ownership conditions.

The article is also useful for public policy and business education. Respondents blamed dysfunctional education systems and skill mismatches for talent shortages. Firms cannot fix these issues alone. They need stronger collaboration with universities, vocational institutions, and policymakers.

For practitioners, useful diagnostic questions include:

• Does the organization define talent clearly, or is talent simply whoever performs best right now?
• Is talent management treated as a distinct strategic priority or just normal HRM?
• Are talent practices built around long-term capability development or short-term talent buying?
• Is the organization over-relying on external hiring because internal development is weak?
• Are financial rewards creating commitment or only escalating bidding wars?
• Do talent management practices fit the cultural and institutional context?
• Are line managers clear about how talent is identified and managed?
• Are talent decisions shaped by performance, potential, education, social ties, moral conduct, or political visibility?
• Does the organization understand why talented employees leave?
• Are firms working with education institutions to reduce skill mismatch?
• Are talent practices aligned with business strategy and workforce expectations?
• Is the firm using Western HR tools without adapting them to local context?

Theoretical implications

The article contributes to global talent management research by showing that talent management concepts cannot be assumed to travel unchanged across contexts.

Much early talent management research was based on Western assumptions, especially North American and multinational corporation contexts. Cooke, Saini, and Wang show that talent management in China and India is shaped by different institutional, cultural, and labour-market conditions.

The article contributes to comparative HRM by directly comparing two major emerging economies. China and India are often grouped together as large, fast-growing economies, but the study shows important differences between them. China’s talent management context is shaped by Confucian values, socialist moral norms, state influence, strong SOEs, and a stronger emphasis on material incentives and external labour markets. India’s context is shaped more by management education influenced by Western HRM, democracy-related expectations of fairness and transparency, private-sector dynamism, and social hierarchy.

The article also contributes to talent management theory by challenging universalist models. The authors argue for a particularistic and contingency-based approach. Talent management should be theorized in relation to ownership form, sector, labour market, education system, state influence, cultural norms, and firm capability.

The study also contributes to debates about inclusive versus exclusive talent management. Although a small number of managers defined all employees as talent, the dominant view was selective and elitist. Even inclusive rhetoric often translated into elite reward practices. This suggests that formal talent philosophy and actual HR practice can diverge.

The article contributes to resource-based view logic by showing how managers in China and India often define talent as employees with performance, expertise, social resources, and strategic value. Talent is understood as a firm resource, but one whose value is temporary and dependent on organizational needs.

The study also contributes to institutional theory. Talent management practices are not only chosen by firms; they are shaped by education systems, political ideology, state policy, cultural traditions, ownership regimes, and labour-market behaviour.

Finally, the article contributes by foregrounding non-HR managers. Many earlier studies focused on HR professionals. This article shows how line managers conceptualize talent and talent management, which matters because they often implement HR practices and experience talent systems directly.

Limitations

The study uses a qualitative survey rather than interviews. This allowed the authors to collect rich responses efficiently from 178 managers, but it did not allow follow-up questions or deeper probing.

The sample consists of MBA, EMBA, and postgraduate management programme alumni known to the authors. This helped access and response quality, but it may not represent all managers in China and India.

The study includes only non-HR managers. This is a strength because line managers are underrepresented in talent management research, but it also means the article does not capture HR managers’ views of formal talent management policy and system design.

The views of non-managerial employees are not included. This matters because employees may experience talent management differently from managers.

The data were collected in 2012. Since then, China and India have changed significantly in terms of labour markets, digitalization, global competition, education, platform work, and multinational expansion.

The Indian sample is skewed toward high-tech industries and privately owned firms. The Chinese sample is more evenly distributed across sectors and ownership forms. This affects cross-country comparison.

The article relies on respondent perceptions. Managers may not have complete knowledge of formal HR policies or may interpret talent management through their own experience.

The article does not provide quantitative statistical tests. It reports descriptive categories and percentages based on content analysis.

The article discusses industries broadly but does not deeply analyze sector-level differences. Talent management may vary strongly between technology, manufacturing, services, R&D, public sector, and state-owned firms.

Future research

Future research could compare the views of HR managers, line managers, senior executives, and non-managerial employees within the same organizations.

Researchers could conduct case studies of firms in China and India that are considered successful in talent management to identify more detailed practice models.

Future studies could test whether firms with more internally developed talent pipelines perform better than firms relying mainly on external hiring.

Longitudinal research could examine whether material-reward-heavy talent management improves retention or whether it accelerates job-hopping and pay escalation.

Researchers could study how talent management in China and India has changed since 2012, especially after digitalization, remote work, platform employment, AI adoption, and changing graduate labour markets.

Future studies could examine talent management in specific industries, such as manufacturing, IT services, pharmaceuticals, automotive, financial services, consulting, and public-sector organizations.

Researchers could compare state-owned enterprises, privately owned firms, domestic multinationals, foreign multinationals, and joint ventures more systematically.

Another useful direction would be to study the role of management education. The article suggests that Indian managers were more familiar with Western HRM language, while Chinese managers were more cautious about Western applicability. This could be studied more directly.

Future research could examine whether emotional bonds, loyalty, moral conduct, and social ties should be included in talent management theory for Asian contexts.

Researchers could also study employee reactions to elitist talent systems in China and India. The article shows that firms often define talent from the organization’s perspective, with little attention to employee well-being. Later research could test how selected and non-selected employees react.

Finally, future studies could build more context-sensitive global talent management frameworks that combine universal HR principles with institutional, cultural, and organizational adaptation.