A podcast of France Culture on talent.
What is "talent management" and how does it fit into the "heart of a change of scale and influence" today?
By Pierre-Michel Menger, Chair of "Sociology of Creative Work" Which enigmas raises the notion of talent that has invaded society for 20 years? What situation of perplexity can create the semantics of talents asks the sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger. Why does no one know exactly how to define the talent that appears in Antiquity & the parable of talents?
"Perumpamaan talenta", John S. Abbott C. in Jacob Abbott, 1878
"Perumpamaan talenta", John S. Abbott C. Jacob Abbott, 1878 • Credits: wikicommons / John Abbott S. Jacob Abbott.
What is "talent management" and how does it fit into the "heart of a change of scale and influence" today?
Pierre-Michel Menger, holder of the "Sociology of Creative Work" chair, will take us on several weeks in a great and exciting investigation as part of the series of courses he initiated in 2017 at the Collège de France, under the title " What is talent? Elements of Social Physics of Differences and Inequalities ", a series he will continue in 2018." We have entered an economy of knowledge, "says the sociologist in the introductory course that opens today where" the human capital is more valuable than material capital. " It is in this mutation that the success of the notion of talent unfolds.
To present the stakes of the inaugural lecture of Pierre-Michel Menger, the great physicist Serge Haroche, recalled in 2014, in a mixture of experience and analysis, drawn from the work of the sociologist.
"We often consider talent, not to speak of genius, as a notion that is largely inexplicable, if not ineffable. But we can not retrench completely behind this ineffability. The artist must have his works recognized by his peers and be able to sell them in an art market obeying rules that are often opaque, but that he has an interest in deciphering. The researcher must undergo a permanent evaluation not only to justify his salary, but also to obtain the credits he needs for his research. And these activities, both scientific and artistic, are taking place in a global world, where the financial stakes of the publications and communication market are becoming increasingly important, in a context of ever more intense international competition. Pierre-Michel Menger (...) studies in depth these complex and fascinating questions. "
The sociologist, who went through philosophy, and Normale Sup, who led a research group at the CNRS devoted to the comparative analysis of artistic value in sociology and economics, between 1988 and 1995, explains that
"His activity became resolutely multidisciplinary in the late 1980s, when it seemed fruitful to bring sociology to the economy, law and history to seek to renew the theoretical and empirical analysis of work, markets and role models in the social sciences, notably from research on activities and employment systems that exacerbate innovation bets and trigger considerable inequalities in achievement. "
The exploration of the notion of talent is rich, you will discover, this multi-disciplinarity to question the paradoxes and precisely the issues around the inequalities that are created and the place of merit.