Regional talent-management research exemplified by students at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Pécs

Abstract

The effectiveness of regional talent management – the planned attracting, retention, motivation and improvement of best human resources – has a significant impact on regions and national economies. The individual competence supply is connected to both the competence demand of the labour market (talent market) and by the development function of higher education. The finding of the study is that a systematic and integrated approach is very important in managing talents by linking individual and organisational questions to their regional effects. If the graduates of the University of Pécs cannot sell their competences in the region of Southern Transdanubia, they will migrate to a place where they can do, typically to Budapest or abroad. This process is called brain drain, and because of its poor economic conditions Southern Transdanubia this region cannot offer appropriate job opportunities for graduates, therefore they leave the area. Here we find a higher unemployment rate (especially among young people), a lower standard of living, a lower employment rate and lower salaries, too, compared to the capital and Central Hungary. In any depressed area there is a vicious cycle: There are no young intellectuals, it produces less innovation and consequently this leads to fewer jobs and a recession, and the new graduates do not find a job and leave.

The study presents the regional preferences of talents identified by a special threedimensional evaluation method among students of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Pécs (UP FBE). The empirical study is based on questionnaires referring to experiences in professional practice (2005–2014). The database contains a total of 5,186 questionnaires from students (self-evaluation about their own competencies) and their tutors who also evaluate their competencies. These data were completed with learning results. The study aims to explore spatial characteristics of students of UP FBE and regional differences in competency requirements for tutors in Hungary. With the help of SPSS, clusters were created to identify talents, and a hypothesis was formulated. The research question deals with the differences in employer expectation in terms of varying talent definitions in the regions. The findings corroborate that the talent-concept composition differs by region. It was examined whether talented people preferred the central regions and the capital city over rural areas. In Central Hungary, employers require a good command of foreign languages, methodological skills, IT skills, conflict-management skills, rapid integration and stress tolerance. These expectations are higher in central regions than in Southern Transdanubia. An important additional result is that the talents of UP FBE are overrepresented in the central regions and capital when compared to the other regions.