Managing High-potential Employees in MNCs: The Mediating Role of Socialization Mechanisms

We study what is more decisive in predicting high-potential employees’ attitudes – talent identification or organizational identification, and investigate whether corporate socialization mechanisms influence these relationships. Our analysis of 439 high- potential employees in 11 Nordic MNCs reveals the importance of both talent identification and organizational identification in predicting commitment to building relevant competences and acceptance of increasing performance demands. Our results also show that the maintenance of corporate socialization mechanisms increases the likelihood of high-potential employees to accept increasing performance demands, which in turn may have a positive effect on the overall business performance of MNCs.