Talent management in public science funding organizations: institutional logics, paradoxical tensions and HR actor responses

Drawing on a study of three public science funding organizations in Ireland, Finland and New Zealand, we investigate the implementation of talent management (TM) through the lens of institutional complexity and paradox theory. Multiple institutional logics and institutional complexity create tensions, which TM actors must respond to and manage. We identify an important interplay of four institutional logics with the dominance of the professional logic acting as a unifying function to respond to tensions in TM implementation. We add to the emerging literature on day-to-day responses to competing institutional logics and public sector TM.