THE CURVILINEAR EFFECT OF TALENT MANAGEMENT ON FINANCIAL AND INNOVATION PERFORMANCE OF SMES

Prior research has stressed the positive effects of talent management on firm performance. However, this research has so far paid little attention to the effects of talent management on the performance of small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the resource-based view, we argue that because of the particular characteristics of SMEs, the positive performance effects of talent management are likely to decline with increasing use of talent management practices in SMEs. Our analysis of data from 144 Malaysian SMEs support the existence of the suggested “too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect of talent management in SMEs.