Abstract
Libyan economy is predominantly dependent on oil companies; for they contribute 95% of export earnings and 75% of public expenditure and support the livelihoods of over 70% of Libyans. Many of these companies are however facing performance gaps that threaten their ability to play this role, thereby posing a need for their management to devise strategies required to prevent them. HRM researchers have shown that Talent Development (TD) is one of the strategies that can create internal human resource capacity needed to achieve superior organisational performance. Subsequent research revealed that applying TD through the Resource -based view (RBV) theory yields even more superior, efficient and sustainable performance. Therefore, this study investigated whether and how these Libyan oil companies implemented TD to pursue their organisational performance following the RBV theory.This study adopted a descriptive research design guided by interpretivism to collect qualitative data through interviews administered to 31 managers and focus group discussions held with 10 employees selected purposively from two conveniently selected oil companies in Libya. The data was analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis steps. Findings indicate the concepts of talent and TD were not formally applied. The companies did not officially define, develop and use the employee talents they needed to pursue and achieve their organisational performance planned. Any TD that occurred through the staff training programmes the companies sponsored was inadvertent. The TD challenges the companies faced included strategic deficiencies (lack of TD policy and strategy), operational deficits (lack of top management support and operational teamwork, lack of standard criteria for selecting, placing and recognising talented employees, and discrimination) and employee drawbacks (indifference, animosity and resistance towards TD). Other challenges were economic (insufficient funding and unsupportive macro-monetary conditions) and political (insecurity). Therefore, manager and employee perception of TD was largely negative punctuated by low levels of positive appreciation.
The TD that informally occurred in the selected oil companies in Libya followed the RBV theory because it reflected the VRIN/O criteria. This TD featured goal-orientation as another vital criterion that suggested that the VRIN/O criteria proposed by the RBV theory were not enough to explain all the yardsticks these companies’ employees had to meet to optimise organisational performance. Based on these findings, the study developed a TD framework stressing the need for oil companies in Libya to conduct different strategic, tactical and operational talent building courses of action necessary to enable them to achieve their planned organisational performance in an efficient and competitive manner. The recommended strategic courses of action include recognition of employee talents and their development as an independent HRM function, and formulation and integration of a TD strategy in their overall business strategy. The recommended tactical courses of action include establishing a separate TD office in charge of designing annual TD plans and budgets, setting up criteria for identifying employees with the defined talents, setting up a talent identification committee, and developing evaluation standards for TD. The recommended operational courses of action are the roles that this office should carry out, including identification of employees who possess the defined talents, implementation of the designed annual talent plans, monitoring and appraising of the implemented TD plans, and recognition and rewarding of the talented employees according to the exhibited exceptional performance.
| Date of Award | 18 Jun 2021 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Xiaoxian Zhu (Supervisor) & Ewan Ingleby (Supervisor) |