Talent Management Challenges in a Knowledge Based Economy

Talent Management Challenges in a Knowledge Based –Economy: An analytical Study of Saudi Banks Alharbi, S. Hamed Assistant Professor, Tabuk University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Morsi, N. Mohamed Full Professor, Tabuk University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract �The current study focused on determining the challenges facing the application and human resources management functions of talent in a knowledge-based economy. �The current study focused on the employees' perceptions of the challenges and obstacles facing the implementation of talent management of Saudi banks. �The current study shows that talent management challenges are classified into bank level challenges and industry or sector level challenges.

1. Introduction Studies on Talent Management (TM) has been conducted heavily in developed countries. From other hand, developing small amount of research has been conducted in different context, especially in the Middle East and particularly in Saudi Arabia. The rapid changes in economic and social changes in Saudi market make it difficult to understand the exact TM challenges. The Saudi economy is transferring into knowledge-based economy.

2. Talent, Talent management and talent challenges � Al. Ruwaili, Naif (2013) indicate that "while talented people are those who have the energy and willingness to accept challenges, they also show their abilities in creating distinctive features for the organization" � when we reviewing the literature searching for definition of Talent Management TM, came up with many definitions. � Alamri (2016). Egerova, Dana (2013) indicated that the increased complexity and structural shifts of the economy and workplace create significant talent management challenges.

3. Literature review According to the comprehensive inventory of studies in this subject, especially the experimental ones, the researchers divided these studies in (Table 1). • Previous studies on talent management challenges have been conducted in several countries such as South Africa, Poland, Slovenia, UK, China and India, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iran. These studies have shown many sporadic and multiple challenges in several areas. •

4. Research Problem The research problem can be formulated in the following questions: 1 - What are the challenges and obstacles facing the application of talent and competency management in Saudi banks? 2. Do the challenges and obstacles facing the application of talent management vary across Saudi banks? 3. Are there statistical differences in the challenges of talent management depending on the personal, social and functional background?

5. Research Objectives � This research aims to explain the talent and talent management and their role on contributing to the development of the knowledge economy in the Kingdom. � The second objective is to determine the challenges and constraints facing the application of talent management in Saudi banks. � Finally, finding solutions to meet these challenges in order to achieve economic and social development in the Kingdom.

6. Hypotheses Development �(H 1): Positive correlations with significant statistical significance are expected between talent management challenges. �(H 2): Significant differences in talent management challenges are expected to occur in different banks. �(H 3): It is expected that there are significant statistical differences in talent management challenges depending on the personal, social and functional variables of study.

7. Research Methodology 7. 1. Sample composition and data collection: The current study focused on the banking sector as one of the most important economic sectors in the Kingdom. • A random sample of the employees of these banks were selected (140 employees, administrators, managers and various levels of management). • A carefully constructed questionnaire, which was originally developed in Arabic, was a research tool to collect data. •

7. Research Methodology 7. 2. Measurement of variables * The first group of variables, included 7 items such as age, current job title, current job, duration of experience, name of department that handles personnel and employees of the bank, number of training courses obtained in the field of human resources, and finally the level of education. * The second group of challenges questions for talent management in Saudi Banks and this part of the questionnaire included 18 questions to measure the challenges on the five-point Likert scale.

8. Results 8. 1. Descriptive Statistics Analysis: Table (3) summarizes the results of descriptive statistical analysis of averages and standard deviations of talent management challenges applied to Saudi banks under study.

8. Results 8. 2. Reliability and Validity of Scales The validity and reliability of the parameters used in the present study were analyzed using the correlation coefficients between the elements of the scale used (Table 4), the Alpha Cronbach analysis, the exploratory factor analysis (Table 5) and the Confirmatory factor analysis (Tables no. 6, 7).

8. 2. 1. Correlations Matrix �Table 4 presents correlation coefficients of eleven challenges items. The pairwise correlations were positive and significant at the 0. 01 level in all items. �Table 4 indicates that H 1, the first hypothesis of significant statistical correlations between talent management challenges in Saudi banks has been achieved.

8. 2. 2. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) �Ef. A with varimax rotation was performed on TM challenges in order to extract the dimensions of challenges construct for the full sample of respondents. Table 3 show the results of EFA for TM challenges. Table 5 indicates that the EFA on the full set of 11 TM challenges yielded two factors with eigen- values greater than 1. �Based on the item loading, these two factors were respectively labelled as bank level challenges (BLC), and banking sector/ industry level challenges (BIC)

8. 2. 3. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) *The results consistently supported the factor structure for challenges structure. *The confirmatory factor diagram using Amos is shown at figure 1. *The goodness of fit statistics for TM challenges are shown in Table 7. The values of CFI, IFI, NFI, RFI, and TLI are highly satisfactory, as they are very close to a value of 1. 0, which denotes a perfect fit.

8. 3. Variance Hypothesis testing To test hypothesis, H 2, H 3, ANOVA analysis was used and it showed that: � (1) There are significant differences in the challenges of talent management across the studied banks. � (2) There are significant differences in the challenges of talent management according to the current function of the respondents (top management, middle administration, first supervisory level), with a significant level of 0. 011, and zero.

9. Discussion and conclusion �The current study showed two main types of factors that represent the challenges facing banks in applying talent management. The first type of challenges and is internal elements of the bank and the second type is external elements related to the nature of the banking industry or the banking sector itself. �As for the study hypotheses, differences were found in the challenges of talent management with significant statistical significance across the studied banks.

9. 1. Implications for practice The community and organizational cultures play a major role in shaping the practices and challenges of talent management in developing societies. Saudi society is conservative and traditional practices are applied to human resources management. Talent management is something new and requires changing the culture of Saudi banks related to traditional human resource management practices and switching to talent management practices.

9. 2. Limitations and further research �The present study was conducted only on Saudi banks operating in the Tabuk region. �This research focused only on talent management challenges. �Further studies are needed to investigate the talent management practices and benefits in the same banking sector.