Design characteristics of virtual talent communities: a cross-national, talent-focused, exploratory requirements analysis

Following the debate on ́war for talent ́ and ́talent on demand ́, the adequate design of applications which supports the development and deployment of talents is of major interest to individuals and organisations. The innovative concept of a comprehensive virtual talent community (VTC) offers an approach for multi-actor, talent-relevant interaction. As the development and acquisition of highly qualified talents is performed with a global perspective, this paper aims at eliciting and evaluating cross-national design characteristics (DC) to support successful development, implementation, and improvement of VTC. Based on DeLone and McLean ́s IS success model (ISSM), the study employs a cross-national, talent-focused Delphi study to elicit and evaluate VTC-relevant DC, respectively VTC requirements for the first time. As the study is highly exploratory, the weighting of participants ́ national contexts is out of scope. Even though the surveyed groups are drawn from different national contexts (Chinese, German, Russian) the study reveals favourable rather homogenous system-, information-, and service-related requirements of potential VTC. The participants ranked almost concordantly secure, structured, current, credible, low-cost, and responsible as the most important VTC-DC. Hence, the paper extends the already existing body of research on DC in the human resource management (HRM) context and especially here in the context of Virtual Learning Environments, and provides practical insights for cross-national/global VTC development, implementation, and improvement endeavours.