While talent management is considered a top priority among practitioners and constitutes a major research area, the actual meaning of talent still remains largely undefined. In response to a lack of clarity and empirical basis regarding the notion of talent, various calls have been made for exploring how organizations conceptualize talent, particularly in the public sector context. This article answers these calls by adopting a qualitative in-depth case study to explore how senior Human Resources (HR) managers in public sector municipalities conceptualize talent in practice. The findings illustrate how HR managers use a variety of conceptualizations of talent. We analyze and theorize this variation and the ways of conceptualizing talent using two conceptualization categories: non-contextual conceptualizations, which are general and related to official practices (i.e. talent as future leaders and talent as a general commitment and drive forward), and contextual conceptualizations, which are specific and related to informal assumptions (i.e. talent as Trojans and specialists, talent as individual agility, and talent as public service awareness).

Points for practitioners

Human Resources (HR) managers use a variety of conceptualizations of talent in practice. Two conceptualization categories – that is, “non-contextual” (general and related to official practices) and “contextual” (specific and related to informal assumptions) – help us understand this variation and the ways of conceptualizing talent. HR managers are only partly shaped by the particularities of the public sector context, and some of the talent philosophies held by HR managers do not align with the existing and official talent management practices.

虽然人才管理被认为是从业者的重中之重，并构成了一个主要的研究领域，但人才的实际含义仍然很大程度上未定义。由于人才概念缺乏明确性和经验基础，人们提出了各种呼吁来探索组织如何对人才进行概念化，特别是在公共部门的背景下。本文通过采用定性的深入案例研究来回答这些呼吁，以探讨公共部门市政当局的高级人力资源 (HR) 经理如何在实践中概念化人才。调查结果说明了人力资源经理如何使用各种人才概念。我们使用两个概念化类别分析和理论化这种变化以及概念化人才的方式：非上下文概念化，

从业者的积分

人力资源 (HR) 经理在实践中使用各种人才概念。两个概念化类别——即“非语境”（一般且与官方实践相关）和“语境”（具体且与非正式假设相关）——帮助我们理解这种差异和概念化人才的方式。人力资源经理只是部分受公共部门环境的特殊性影响，人力资源经理所持有的一些人才理念与现有的和官方的人才管理实践不一致。