Are local companies and multinational corporations equally equipped to struggle for talents in Russia?

Abstract

Firms increasingly adopt various talent attraction practices in order to hire the most talented employees and outperform competitors. Although talent attraction is considered critical for the firm success, there is little information on how specifically local firms and multinational corporations strive to win the “war” for talented employees in Russia. To bridge this gap, this study aims to explore talent attraction systems of Russian firms and their foreign counterparts, which they use in order to increase a competitive advantage. The research is based on a qualitative methodology, the data was collected using thirty three in-depth interviews with HR managers and further analyzed with the help of NVivo 12 software. The study reveals that both local firms and multinational corporations apply the same set of talent attraction practices at the operational level. However, only a few foreign companies use a strategic approach for the creation of external and internal talent pools which help them to quickly react to disruptive changes. The article contributes to existing research in two ways. First, it develops the resource-based view on talent management using the HR architecture framework and shows how talent attraction systems enable companies to acquire various talent groups in order to improve the competitive advantage. Second, this study explores talent attraction as a system on the strategic, policy and practices levels, describing their similarities and differences in local companies and multinational corporations.