Organizational communication and human talent management in higher education institutions

Abstract

Organizational communication and human talent management were studied for years as separate fields within universities, even though both operate on the same academic and administrative staff. This study examined how research published between 2021 and 2025 connects the two fields in higher education institutions. A qualitative approach was applied through a documentary review with a systematized procedure. The search covered Scopus, SciELO, DOAJ and Crossref using descriptors in Spanish and English, and produced a final corpus of ten documents, which were processed through an analysis matrix and open categorial coding. Six categories emerged from the analysis. Internal communication linked to organizational climate and job satisfaction appeared in seven of the ten documents; communicative leadership, professional development and retention appeared in five each. Four documents connected the digitalization of communication channels with operational continuity during and after the pandemic. Latin American output in the corpus concentrated on institutional diagnoses of local scope, with little cross-country comparison. Findings suggest that internal communication works as a mediator between formal talent management practices and their effects on academic staff retention.