Digital Talent Management

A Position Paper and Research Agenda

Abstract

Digital economy presents a distinct evolution from traditional “pre-digital” industries. Business now can be run from anywhere and at any time, leading to new market segments and business processes. Digital transformation has become the focus of organizations all over the world in recent years where "born-digital” organizations have emerged to compete with their pre-digital counterparts. Among the challenges for pre-digital organizations include finding the talent with the right skills to support digital transformation. Although it is generally agreed that digital talent would provide competitive advantage to organizations in digital economy; there is a yet consensus on what constitutes digital talent, leading to various interpretations of what it is and what it does. This paper puts forth a notion of using competency models to manage digital talent. Digital talent can be viewed as a blend of individual, organizational and industrial competencies. Individual competency refers to the personal traits of a talent (soft skills) whilst organizational competency refers to hard skills and usually specific to a particular job. Industrial competency refers to a set of competencies that is shared by organizations in the same industry. Although individual and organizational competencies have been identified by organizations for decades, industrial competency has become more profound in digital economy especially in supporting digital transformation strategies. In addition, research agenda for digital talent is presented including competency identification, development of digital talent model and framework, and development of digital talent support tools.