Facilitating talent selection decisions in the music industry

Purpose – This article seeks to provide a theoretical framework for facilitating talent management decisions in the music industry. Design/methodology/approach – Strategic decision‐making theory and the resource‐based view of strategy are used to identify the talent‐selection process as a core capability in the entertainment industry. Their original combination leads to the introduction of a framework aimed at facilitating the selection and development of core competencies and capabilities in music companies, and thus at increasing their likelihood of creating and sustaining a competitive advantage based on their artist selection processes. Findings – The integration of both theories in the music sector leads to the need for the organisation's ability to “improvise” and develop “skilled decision makers”. The industry is identified as an atypical high velocity environment, in which incremental approaches may not be sufficient to adopt by managers, because artist investments usually represent long‐term commitments for the firm. Three different existing types of talent valuation techniques are identified, which can be facilitated by complementing resource‐based and decision‐making perspectives. Research limitations/implications – The paper does not discuss differences in the types of music organisations such as publishers, record companies, labels etc. Moreover, it focuses on popular music in general only. Empirical testing of the proposed findings is needed to further validate the capability framework. Practical implications – The framework provides a managerial guideline for implementing decision models in the music industry and increasing the success rate of artist selection. Originality/value – The paper uses the specific context of the music industry to introduce a methodology of how organisational decision processes may eventually lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. It provides a starting point for linking resource‐based and strategic decision‐making theory, since it indicates how decision models should be developed from a core capability perspective.