Chapter 15: Talent Management Practices and Product Differentiation as Resilience Strategies in Africa

The challenge of weak product among other issues confronting resilience strategies of an organization has been attributed to insufficient investment in talent management. This study investigated talent management practices as resilience strategies from a product differentiation perspective among selected deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted, and the population was 2,169 senior employees and managers. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted, and a sample size of 425 respondents was determined using Rao soft online sample calculator. A validated structured and adapted questionnaire was used in gathering data while Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for the constructs ranged from 0.929 to 0.942 with a response rate of 85.6%. Findings indicated that talent management components had a significant effect on product differentiation (adjusted R² = 0.779, F(5, 366) = 261.564, p < 0.05). The conclusion was that talent management practices significantly affect product differentiation. It was recommended to the management of the DMBs in Nigeria particularly and Africa in general to prioritize talent management practices as resilience strategies to advance product differentiation in their various units of operations.