ABSTRACT Facing challenges such as the aging population, globalization trends, and intense talent competition, companies operating internationally must develop and implement effective talent management (TM) strategies. In the evolving context of China, assessing TM effectiveness has become vital, particularly for foreign companies competing with local enterprises for talent. This paper contributes to the understanding of how TM effectiveness is conceptualized and assessed in China by examining both what constitutes effective TM and the indicators used to evaluate it. Through an exploratory field study based on 42 interviews conducted across organizational levels in German multinational companies in China, we identify both shared and divergent understandings of TM effectiveness between headquarters and subsidiaries and document a set of TM effectiveness indicators used in practice. Drawing on a contextualized TM perspective and applying a value‐based analytical lens, the study shows how TM effectiveness is constructed and evaluated in cross‐border contexts and offers insights for Western multinational companies seeking to develop more coherent and context‐sensitive approaches for establishing their TM strategies.
Koeppe et al. (Sun,) studied this question.