The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India

by Gi-Wook Shin

Overview

The Asia-Pacific region has seen extraordinary economic achievements. Japan's post-World War II transformation into an economic powerhouse challenging US dominance by the late 1980s was miraculous. China's rise as the world's second-largest economy is one of the 21st century's most stunning stories. India, now a top-five economy by GDP, is rapidly ascending. Despite its small population, Australia ranked among the top ten GDP nations in 1960 and has remained resilient. While cultivating, attracting, and leveraging talent has been crucial to growth in these countries, their approaches have varied widely, reflecting significant cultural, historical, and institutional differences.

In this sweeping analysis of talent development strategies, Gi-Wook Shin investigates how these four "talent giants'' achieved economic power and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions. This book offers invaluable insights for policymakers and is essential for scholars, students, and readers interested in understanding the dynamics of talent and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781503643024
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2025
Series:	Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in Sociology and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, as well as the director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He also runs the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab. Shin is the author or editor of twenty-five books, including Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022) and Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (Stanford, 2016).

Table of Contents

Tables and Figures
Preface
1. Talent in the Asia-Pacific Century
2. A New Framework: Talent Portfolio Theory
3. Japan: Of Ours, by Ours, for Ours
4. Australia: A Land of Expats
5. China: Returning to Serve the Country
6. India: Banking on Overseas Talent
7. Talent Portfolios: No "One-Size-Fits-All" Path
8. Lessons and Policy Implications for Talent Portfolios
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The Four Talent Giants is a wonderful book, full of new ideas and, especially, comparative empirical research. Gi-Wook Shin's ambitious treatment of the topic of human capital, or 'talent,' in the context of a globalized economy is very important and reading it will be a rewarding exercise for scholars, politicians, corporate leaders, and many others." —Nirvikar Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz

"The current scholarly literature offers multiple country-specific talent formation studies, including those on the transformative role of skilled migration. However, few authors have dared to attempt a thorough cross-national analysis, comparing the nature and impact of policies across highly variable geopolitical contexts. The Four Talent Giants achieves this goal triumphantly, and accessibly, assessing the global implications of national experimentation for effective talent portfolio management." —Lesleyanne Hawthorne, University of Melbourne

From the Publisher