Can organizations that utilize HR practices that focus on talent management, knowledge management, or high-performance work systems achieve and sustain a competitive advantage over their competition in a global environment?

Talent management (TM), knowledge management (KM), and high-performance work systems (HPWS) are all HR practices, which if used effectively, can help an organization achieve a competitive advantage. To avoid any confusion, you should distinguish between the first two, which are often seen as related concepts. TM practices are those used by an organization to identify, acquire, and generate the talented human capital needed to reach HR and strategic goals. They are aimed at acquiring “talent.” The central idea behind TM is that an organization can achieve a competitive advantage by developing and maintaining a set of unique talents throughout the organization.

TM is related to, yet distinct from, KM practices. KM practices are used to create and share knowledge throughout the organization, which often impacts the organization’s performance. The idea behind KM is to focus on how to leverage an employee’s or a manager’s knowledge (or human capital) to collectively add to the organizational knowledge. Then the organization can achieve a competitive advantage.

HPWS impact the performance of the organization through people. In particular, these systems impact productivity levels, quality, levels of customer service, and, ultimately, financial indicators of performance. Bundled systems of recruitment, selection, training and development, performance management, and incentive pay are all part of what is termed as HPWS. The primary goal of HPWS is to achieve a competitive advantage through the performance of people, by designing work and reward systems that motivate employees to achieve high levels of performance and facilitate employee engagement and skill enhancement.

Many of these HR practices are bundled to effectively provide a competitive advantage through the acquisition or development of people within the organization. The set of practices ultimately must be aligned to the context of the HR and organizational strategies and be bundled in a way to complement one another. In this Discussion, you analyze a few of these HR practices more in depth.

Write a cohesive and scholarly response based on your readings and research this week that addresses the following:

• Can organizations that utilize HR practices that focus on talent management, knowledge management, or high-performance work systems achieve and sustain a competitive advantage over their competition in a global environment? Why or why not? Be specific and provide references/examples from the literature.
• Which HR practice do you believe is the most critical for organizations to focus on to achieve or sustain a competitive advantage over their competition in a global environment and why? Be specific and provide examples.

All work must be original and in APA format. Please include an introduction, a conclusion and use at least 3 reference