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  • Razaz Waheeb Attar1,*,
  • Amal Alanazi2 and
  • Amal Hassan Alhazmi1

Reviewer 1: Anonymous Reviewer 2: Anonymous

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, thank you for the opportunity to review your article. A lot of effort has been put into this article.

Here are a few suggestions from me.

First of all, I would suggest including a brief historical overview of the development of the concept of talent. Source, f.e.:

DOI: 10.15611/aoe.2023.2.14


It would also be worthwhile to attempt to define talent. As this is a problem in management science, the article, in its current form, contributes to the existing confusion.

Finally, the negative aspects (examples) of talent management should be highlighted (e.g. in the limitations section).

https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000105


Furthermore, I do not have access to the questionnaire, so it is difficult for me to assess its accuracy. However, other studies indicate that the proportion of talented people in organisations is sometimes lower than the statistical error (below 3%) and that focusing solely on talent is not entirely appropriate – although it is theoretically possible to create an organisation consisting solely of talented people, in organisational practice this is a utopia. Ergo, the article in its current form can be perceived as lacking scientific objectivity.
The research sample, although large, meets the requirement of representativeness only for the sector, country and district selected by the authors – too little to make generalisations or inductions about other industries, which are the requirements for scientific articles. The penultimate sentence in subsection 3.2 is incomprehensible to me – I would quote the disputed part verbatim, but the document is copy-protected and I do not have time to transcribe it.

The study would benefit from an analysis of time series, showing how the opinions of those involved in talent management practices change over the length of their employment (point 4.1), especially since as many as 47% of respondents fall into the lowest experience bracket.

The authors have made a number of unjustified claims in their work, which is particularly evident and striking in chapter 5. I would suggest a more neutral approach. However, if the authors wish to give their statements a more assertive tone, I suggest supporting them with bibliographical sources. This also applies to the theory adopted – every theory has its limitations and it does not seem justified to believe in its correctness without reflection.

Finally, the last doubt: where is the novelty of this article? All aspects described by the authors have already been explained in detail in over 4,000 works dedicated to talent management, indexed in the most important scientific databases. I would suggest emphasising the novelty of the work more.

Disclaimer
The suggested sources are intended to help the authors save time and enrich the article. The reviewer does not require them to be cited.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer  for their valuable comments, which greatly helped improve the quality of the article. Below, we provide detailed responses to each point, explaining the changes made in the attached files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I thank the editorial board for the opportunity to review this important research paper, which examines the impact of talent management practices on sustainable competitive advantage in private sector organizations in Saudi Arabia. The topic is of high practical and scientific value and aligns with academic discussions on human resource strategies and their role in innovation and sustainability.

  1. Abstract: The abstract needs to be more tightly worded. It lacks a clear focus on the research gap the study addresses, in addition to reducing repetition (especially the repetition of the word entrepreneurship). It would also be preferable to directly link the findings to the hypotheses to ensure methodological consistency.
  2. Introduction: The introduction is rich in references and provides a good framework, but it is lengthy and contains some repetition. It is recommended to highlight the research gap earlier and explain how the study distinguishes itself from previous studies, especially in the post-pandemic context in Saudi Arabia. Some sentences also require proofreading to reduce grammatical and linguistic errors.
  3. Literature Review: This section is rich and appropriately based on the Resource Values ​​(RBV) theory, but it needs clearer organization of the paragraphs and a more detailed explanation of the relationship between each variable (talent management, innovation, organizational agility, and competitive advantage). There is some repetition in the "Talent Management and Employee Innovation" section, which should be shortened.
  4. Methodology: This section is clear and presents the quantitative design and survey instrument, but there are points that need improvement:
    • The use of convenience sampling should be more strongly justified, with an explanation of its impact on the generalizability of the results.
    • The fact that the sample is from a single company (Aramco) warrants a clear warning about the limitations of generalizability.
    • More details on validity and reliability testing (e.g., why were low-loading items removed?).
  5. Findings: The CFA and SEM results are well presented in tables and figures, but the report lacks a deeper explanation of the statistical results beyond simply presenting numerical values. For example, why was the impact of talent management on "competitive advantage" weaker than innovation and agility? The authors need to expand the discussion here.
  6. Discussion: This section adequately links the findings to previous literature, but it is relatively long and contains repetitions of ideas. It is useful to focus on the new contributions the study makes compared to previous studies. Furthermore, the connection to the Saudi context could be further strengthened to highlight its practical value.
  7. Practical Implications: This section is good, but it needs more specific wording. For example, what are the concrete recommendations for executives or HR professionals? Suggested technological applications (such as AI systems in recruitment) could also be mentioned to support the findings.
  8. Conclusion & Limitations and Future Reserch: The conclusion summarizes the findings, but lacks a strong sentence highlighting the unique contribution of the research. The limitations are appropriate, but lack practical research suggestions (e.g., comparative studies between the public and private sectors, or the use of mixed methods).
  9. References: The list is comprehensive and relatively up-to-date, but there is some duplication (e.g., Jibril & Yeşiltaş 2022a and 2022b are cited with almost the same title). The journal's guidelines for in-text and final references should be followed.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer  for their valuable comments, which greatly helped improve the quality of the article. Below, we provide detailed responses to each point, explaining the changes made in the attached files.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors. I accept your changes - take it as a credit for a future. Yet, I still perceive the novelty of this paper as very limited.

Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All the key suggestions and issues have been well addressed.
The paper has become clearer and more in-depth. The paper is now ready for publication.

Good luck.