In order to meet the research purpose, the researcher firstly developed the theoretical framework according to the literatures of TM, and generalized TM issues to several parts including the alignment with business strategies, the integration of involved function, workforce planning, talent attraction, talent development, talent retention, and measures of TM, and the roles involved in TM. Afterward, the in-depth interviews were conducted for companies which respectively belong to FDI companies and local companies. In an interview, the definition of TM and talent were clarified at the beginning since each company might have different perspectives in this issue. Other parts including alignment with business strategy, and TM practices were then explored . After data collection, the researcher categorized and consolidated the results from different companies, and then generalized the practices of TM in FDI companies as well as local companies. Finally, the researcher developed the conclusions and suggestions based on the findings. The research framework is presented in figure 3.1.
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Research Method
The research adopted a qualitative method based on the in-depth interview . One of the main purposes of qualitative method is to do an interpretive understanding about the people’s experiences and social phenomenon, and put the truths or materials together to develop a complete work. It is also appropriate to do an overall exploration to one matter (Chen, 2009). A qualitative method can help researcher to understand the meaning of things, the particular context and the impact to the people who live in the context, the process by which events and actions take place, and develop causal explanation (Maxwell, 2005).
TM has no clear and shared definition (Lewis & Heckman, 2006), and is also not well-developed in both practical and academic areas in Taiwan. Besides, the practices vary from different companies. Therefore, it is appropriate to adopt a qualitative method to deeply explore the meaning, impact, and content of TM in different companies in Taiwan.
Figure 3.1 Research Framework
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Although qualitative method allows the researchers “touching” the first hand information by several ways such as observation, there are too many obstacles to prevent researchers from reaching the target. Compared to it, interview is an efficient way which can save time and resources. In qualitative theory, all the methods have no intrinsic inferior, and an appropriate method depends on the topic and the research design(Silverman, 2001).
An in-depth and semi-structured interview was the core method to collect the data in this research. The purpose of in-depth interview is to understand the interviewees’ deep thoughts. Researchers can initiate their willingness to provide information and opinion through entering and involving in their perspectives and the face to face opinion exchange (Fan, 2004). The interview questions were open to give interviewees spaces to represent their opinion (Chen, 2009; Fan, 2004). In order to prevent falling from direction during the interview, it was designed as semi-structured interview.
Data Collection
In order to get enough and meaningful information, the appropriate instruments were well prepared. Before the interview, the researcher ensured the interview outline was received by interviewees. The interview outline was developed according to the research question and literature review, and then invited two experts who have doctor degrees and rich experiences in qualitative research to check the rationality of interview questions. After validating the research questions, the researcher sent the interview questions to the interviewees. Receiving interview questions in advance can provide interviewees an opportunity to review and think about the answers in advance.
Furthermore, the interview outline can remind the researcher if there are some important questions missed during the interviews. During the interview, the research
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purpose and contents were presented to the interviewees first. All contents were recorded after the permission of the interviewees. Using recorder can be helpful for the data analysis in the future and also help researcher to release the burden from taking notes and then focusing on the interview (Chan, 2004). After each interview, the records were transcribed to verbatim scripts. All the interviews took place between March and May of 2012. The interview questions are presented in Appendix A
Research Participants
This research conducted interviews in companies respectively from both parties of companies. Researcher selected the companies which had TM practices according to journals or periodicals. The researcher selected seven interviewees who from FDI companies and eight from local companies through purposive sampling and snowball sampling. In order to get the critical information, the interviewees were asked to have sufficient understanding or involvement in TM. Therefore, the interviewees from the selected companies accorded with the following two criteria.
1. Interviewees need to be at managerial level in HR or have experiences in talent management.
2. Interviewees need to have at least 5-year working experiences and work for the HR department of current company at least 1 year.
The fifteen interviewees came from different industries including financial service, pharmacy, high technology, and logistics participated in this research. There are fourteen interviewees are at managerial level, and one interviewee is a training specialist but is responsible for critical talent development project now. Besides, all the interviewees are working in HR department now and have stayed in the current positions for at least one year. Total seniority is from seven years to thirty years. The following contents and table 3.1 are the background information of these 15
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interviewees Case A1 to A7 are from FDI companies and case B1 to B8 are from local companies.
Case A1
The interviewee represented a leading international bank, which has around 80,000 employees globally and 4,000 in Taiwan. The interviewee is responsible for the TM issues in the bank and titled as country head of talent. He has around twenty years working experiences and has worked for the bank for two years.
Case A2
A2 comes from the other international bank. The bank has branches in 85 countries and is one of the biggest banking groups worldwide. The interviewee is the vice president in learning and development team and has ten years working experience in banking, high technology and retail industry. So far he has already worked for the bank for 5 years.
Case A3
A3’s company belongs to pharmacy industry which has already cultivated the business in Taiwan for almost 30 years. Their nutrition products stand a leading place globally. The interviewee now is senior manager in HR department, and has devoted to HR function for 17 years.
Case A4
A4 represented the other company from pharmacy industry. This company is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies all over the world. So far they have almost 100,000 employees in 150 countries. The interviewee has worked for government,
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university, high technology industry, and consulting firm. His total seniority is thirty years and now is the vice president in HR function.
Case A5
A5 comes from a global leading semiconductor company which has two
thousand employees in Taiwan now. This branch has stayed in Taiwan for forty years and is regarded as one of the most important element supplier in Taiwan. This
company is also famous for planting many successful leaders all over the world. The interviewee has stayed in this company for twenty years and has rich experiences in each HR function. Now, she is the leader of a raw talent developing program.
Case A6
A6 is working for one of the biggest international express delivery companies in the world. The company provide services in almost two hundred and twenty countries and acquire the honor of the best brand in customers’ mind for several years. The company now has almost 100,000 employees all over the world and 1,000 employees in Taiwan. The interviewee now is the HR manager and has total seniority for 9 years in HR.
Case A7
Case A7 is working for a global leading financial service company and one of the biggest six insurance companies all over the world. Now it has almost 1,300
employees in Taiwan. The interviewee has worked in transportation industry, high technology industry and now stayed in financial service industry as a HR manager for 2.5 years.
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Case B1
The company B1 works for is one of the biggest financial holding companies in Taiwan. It has almost 400 branches and 20,000 employees in Taiwan. Their services include insurance, property insurance, bank, and stocks, etc. The interviewee now is an HR program manager in the company and has experiences in different financial services companies. His total seniority is 14 years and has stayed in the current company for 7 years.
Case B2
Case B2 now is the HR manager in one of the biggest leasing companies in Taiwan. Recently, his company put a lot of efforts in exploring the market in China. It provides a multiple leasing services which includes different phases and is regarded as the best partner of small and medium sized enterprise. So far the company has 850 employees in Taiwan. The interviewee had experiences in recruiting and selection, training and development and performance management. He also has one year expatriate experience in China. The total seniority is 9 years and stayed in current company for 9 years, too.
Case B3
The company case B3 works for was founded in 1987, c and is the first and biggest professional IC production service company in the world. The company provides advanced technology of IC production and possesses perfect databases, intellectual properties and design techniques for professional wafer foundry industry.
B3, now as HR manager, has 20 years working experience in human resource and 12 years of seniority in this company.
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Case B4
Case B4 is the head of talent recruitment department of one of the global leaders in a big range of electronic products. The company has provided continuous
innovation in electronic industry over 40 years and focused on green manufacturing processes and other environment-friendly policies recently. His total seniority is 18 years and has worked in the company for 1 year.
Case B5
Case B5 is the training specialist in HR department of the company which manufactures computer equipment. They provide services for many leading computer brands in the world. In the future, the company will focus on innovative research center, trying to become the leading company of computer industry. B5 has experience of 7 years in the company and had been responsible for key talent development program.
Case B6
The interviewee, B6, has worked for the company for 8 years and has total seniority of 8 years. The company base on motor manufacturing and now has transformed from traditional manufacturing industry to high technology industry.
Their businesses extend in 5 continents, and develop in more than 30 countries in the world.
Case B7
The interviewee is the HR assistant manager of the company which is a semiconductor company which develops one of the best IC designs in Taiwan. The
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company believes humanity. This belief has prompted the company’s improvement. In this case, She has 7 years of seniority in technology industry and been stayed in this company for 1 year.
Case B8
The interviewee had worked in two technology companies for a total of 18 years and has been working as HR manager in the current company for 4 years. The
company B8 works for is an integrated construction company which encompasses construction planning, designing, purchasing, manufacturing and constructing. Being international and multi-direction development has become the target of the company.
Table3.1
Background Information of Interviewees
Interviewee
A5 Semiconductor HR Program Manager 20.5 20.5
A6 Logistics HR Manager 9 9
A7 Insurance HR Manager 21 2.2
B1 Financial Services HR Program Manager 14 7
B2 Leasing HR Manager 9 9
B3 Semiconductor HR Manager 20 12
B4 Electronic components Head of Talent Recruitment 18 1 B5 Computer and peripheral
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Data Analysis
According to the suggestion from Maxwell (2005), if researchers want to understand the similarities and differences of, the categorizing analysis is more appropriate than contextualizing method. In order to fit the research purpose. The research adopted a categorizing method to do data analysis. In the data analysis stage, researcher first drew the important concepts from transcripts and then categorized them into different categories which belong to different themes. Finally, the findings and discussion are written based on literature reviews and the coding. The coding process are provided in Appendix B
In order to make the research more sophisticated, the researcher used the following methods to enhance reliability and validity during the research processes.
For enhancing the reliability of data collection and data analysis, the following items will be followed during the research processes. First, the interview skills are taught and reminded by advisor before each interview. Second, researcher kept discussing the content of the research in each step with peers and professors to make the research more rational. The professors and peers are all the experts of or major in human resources.
Validity means the authenticity and accuracy of a research. To enhance the validity of the research, first researcher asked two experts to review the research questions and interview questions. After their checking on the consistency and logic of research questions and interview questions, the interviews were conducted. During the data analysis process, parts of documents from website or interviewees’
companies were used as references. After finishing the coding step, two graduate students who are majoring in human resources development were invited doing peer review to check the correctness of coding.
Moreover, researcher used recorders to record the whole interview processes
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which can prevent from missing important words or incoherent memories of researcher.
Research Procedure
In this research, after determine the topic and research purpose, researcher did the literature review to understand the theoretical background and current status related to TM. And then designed the research process and decided using in-depth interview and categorizing analysis as the research method according to the current status and characteristics of TM. The interviewees were invited after the criteria were decided. After finishing all the in-depth interviews, researcher consolidated and categorized the research data according to the interview content, and then developed the conclusions and suggestions as the references of companies operation. See figure 3.2 for the procedure of research
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