| As heralded by researchers, the knowledge era and the new organization where work will be done by specialists in task-focused teams are now a reality. Established as that new organization, the professional services firms are inimitable but complex systems. Their uniqueness is best defined by their differentiating characteristics of knowledge intensity and a professionalized workforce where mastery of their craft and specialized knowledge serves as differentiators among competitors. The most critical assets in professional services firms are knowledge, expertise, and experience which reside in its human capital. The success of these firms rests in their ability to capitalize on its assets through service delivery that is more valuable to clients than the services of its competitors but not easily duplicated. To accomplish such success, it is of strategic imperative for the professional services firm to formulate and implement approaches that established an atmosphere within which the members of the firm's project teams worked to their highest levels of abilities to meet the needs of clients. To gain insight into this otherwise unexamined and varying process, it was necessary to examine how project-oriented companies across the intellect industry approached, implemented and advanced talent management to add value to the organization that led to competitive positioning. This study explored the talent management initiatives of eight professional services firms with the aim of identifying common components of talent management processes across multi-project systems. The findings of this study indicate that the professional services firms examined accepted that their success was dependent on their human capital's expert skills and specialized knowledge. In their efforts to capitalize on these assets for the achievement of sustainable competitive positioning, these firms have strategically developed and implemented an integrated and systematic talent management initiative designed to satisfy clients' demands while competing in the war for talent. The measure of effectiveness of these firm's talent management initiatives is retention -- of their clients and their specialized workforce alike. |
