Talent inside the diamond: a fluid, trifaceted framework for managing employees in knowledge-intensive workplaces

Purpose This paper aims to introduce the Trifaceted Framework, which integrates ethical congruence, expertise and motivation as an interdependent system for managing talent in knowledge-intensive organizations. The framework demonstrates that expertise and motivation alone cannot sustain performance without explicit ethical alignment. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper. Conceptual synthesis extending the ability–motivation tradition (Hammond et al., 2004) into an expertise–motivation architecture with the addition of an ethics axis grounded in behavioral-ethics literature, mapping adaptive leadership behaviors (situational leadership theory) to dynamic employee profiles, and providing propositions linking ethical congruence to developmental transitions. Findings Ethical congruence functions as a conditioning dimension that stabilizes movement across expertise–motivation quadrants and reduces ethical drift. Leadership mechanisms – transparent accountability, developmental feedback and psychological safety – transform a static diagnostic typology into a dynamic developmental system enabling restorative interventions. Practical implications Provides managers a portfolio-management style framework: diagnose employee profiles across three axes, align incentives with organizational values, use HR-analytics dashboards to flag grey-zone risk and deploy restorative rather than punitive development pathways. Originality/value Repositions ethics from implicit organizational climate to an explicit conditioning variable; integrates situational leadership theory, the expertise–motivation architecture and behavioral-ethics research into an actionable talent-management system for sustainable performance and stakeholder trust in knowledge-intensive contexts.