Talent Management and the Quest for Effective Succession Management in the Knowledge-Based Economy

Abstract

The chaos and uncertainty of the actual global economy create a tremendous pressure on companies’ board of directors. In addition to this, there are other aggravating factors, such as the stakeholders’ attitude (who demand continuous improvement of the leadership’s capacity to increase the performance of the employees). There is also the growing demand for workers with specialized skills (given the influence of the Internet and IT revolution) and the increasing involuntary losses of high-performing workers or managers (because of the intensive headhunting initiatives that occur in the highly specialized personnel segments). The key to overcoming successfully such challenges is an active succession and knowledge-based talent management. A systematic effort to retain and develop the company’s intellectual capital for the future will be the only sustainable differentiation in the competition strives of the next years and it will be the way to unlock the potential of a certain business direction, which has to be fully in line with the strategic vision of a company. The chapter aims to demonstrate that an organization’s long-term performances depend—to a large extent—on the depth, breadth, and effectiveness of its Succession Management and that the efforts to ensure leadership continuity and proper retention of high-value talent are imperative in the attempt to outpace the competition. The chapter starts from revealing the main steps of effective human resource planning, among which succession planning plays an important role, and it continues with advancing a new knowledge-based leadership model that will increase the likelihood of obtaining sustainable business effects in the actual economy. The discussion leads to several study cases that are relevant for the importance of succession planning, namely: Aldis, Edy Spedition, Banca Transilvania, or Tarom.