Challenges in Transforming Traditional HR to Talent Management: Evidence from Karachi’s Pharmaceutical Sector

Abstract

The international shift from traditional personnel management to strategic talent management has become an urgent necessity for the competitiveness of organizations worldwide, but firms in developing economies face unique contextual barriers that remain poorly understood. This paper set out to name and discuss the obstacles that prevent the transformation of traditional HR practices to modern talent management in the Karachi pharmaceutical industry, and to propose effective mitigation strategies that can be used to effect this change. Data were gathered using a semi-structured interview method with 35 corporate employees working in multinational and local pharmaceutical companies, and subsequently focus group interviews with HR professionals to validate results, using the content analysis method of data synthesis. The analysis revealed four major barriers: structural rigidity characterized by hierarchical decision-making and centralized authority; resource scarcity, including financial constraints, technological deficits, and skill gaps; cultural resistance manifested as entrenched administrative mindsets and change aversion; operational inefficiency evident in fragmented processes and poor communication. These predicaments stem from archaic tradition, including administrative orientation, poor communication, and the absence of strategic orientation. According to these findings, the study recommends four corresponding mitigation strategies: agile restructuring to overcome structural rigidity, resource optimization to overcome resource scarcity, cultural alignment to overcome cultural resistance, and process streamlining to overcome the occurrence of operational inefficiency, all supported by transformational leadership. These results are highly useful and practical, offering a framework to bridge global HR models and the local realities of emerging economies.