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How talent management practices influence employee performance is an important issue in strategic human resource management and organizational behavior research.Using a systematic literature review approach, this study examines the relationships among talent management practices, work engagement, and employee performance by retrieving, verifying, and thematically synthesizing classic theoretical literature, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and recent empirical studies.The findings indicate that talent management practices do not improve employee performance through a single pathway.On-the-job training and career development mainly strengthen the foundation for performance by improving employees’ knowledge, skills, career competencies, and transfer of learning.Idiosyncratic deals and employee incentives, by contrast, exert greater influence by conveying signals of organizational support, recognition, fairness, and individualized investment, thereby shaping employees’ reciprocal responses to the organization.Work engagement plays a critical connecting role in this process, transforming employees’ acquired competence resources, development opportunities, individualized support, and incentive signals into vigor, dedication, absorption, and sustained effort at work.Drawing on human capital theory and social exchange theory, this study develops an integrated explanatory framework of “talent management practices–work engagement–employee performance.”The conclusions suggest that talent management practices are more likely to produce sustained improvements in employee performance only when employees perceive them as fair, supportive, development-oriented, and relevant to job demands.This study provides a theoretical basis for optimizing talent management practices, improving employee performance, and developing models for future empirical research.
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