Abstract
Introduction: Talent management is increasingly relevant to nursing workforce sustainability, yet limited evidence has examined how nurses simultaneously perceive talent-related factors, organisational practices, and attraction and retention outcomes. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between talent-management factors, organisational talent-management practices and perceived attraction and retention outcomes, while examining differences according to nurses’ sociodemographic and professional characteristics. Methodology: A multicentre, descriptive-correlational cross-sectional study was conducted with 1004 nurses from 29 public and private hospital organisations across Portugal. Talent management was assessed using the 87-item Talent Attitudes Questionnaire, comprising 12 subdimensions across factors, practices and organisational indicators. Results: Nurses reported favourable perceptions of talent-management factors (M = 3.34), particularly leadership competencies, but less favourable organisational practices (M = 3.02). Attraction (M = 2.27) and retention (M = 2.31) had the lowest scores, whereas perceived consequences of talent management were high (M = 3.49), indicating a discrepancy between talent recognition and perceived organisational capacity to attract and retain nurses. Attraction and retention were strongly correlated (r = 0.77), while organisational facilitators showed moderate associations with both outcomes. Sector-related differences were observed for turnover and inhibiting factors. Discussion: The findings suggest a potential talent-management translation gap, an interpretive, descriptive framing rather than a directly tested construct, whereby recognition of talent and its organisational consequences coexists with limited perceived capacity to attract and retain nurses. Conclusions: Nursing workforce sustainability requires translating talent recognition into organisational conditions that support professional development, attraction, and retention. These findings provide an integrated organisational perspective on talent management and nurse retention.