. Talent management is considered to be one of the most popular management topics, both in theory and in practice. The term "talent" dates back to ancient times, while the term "talent management" was first mentioned in 1998, when a group of McKinsey consultants published a study titled "The War for Talent", which highlighted the positive impact of talent on organizational excellence. Both talent and talent management can be defined in numerous ways. Simply stated, talents represent the "right people", which refers to individuals who have key competencies a company needs, while talent management can be defined as getting the right people in the right roles at the right time. According to the survey conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the terms "talent" and "talent management" are familiar to most respondents. Additionally, most respondents believe that talent management improves employee motivation and performance, as well as the performance of the entire enterprise. The research also showed that in most Bosnian companies, talent management practices are not implemented, and this applies to special programs for talented employees as well. The majority of survey respondents also expressed that they would appreciate working in talent focused organizations.

Doing business in different cultural environments present a challenge for today’s managers, where culture affects almost every aspect of companies’ management, including employees’ motivation. As many authors argue, in a multicultural environment, one of the key factors influencing motivation is national culture. Employee leaning towards different techniques of motivation considerably depends on their national culture and the dimensions that are connected to that national culture. This paper addresses the question of employee motivation from perspective of joint ventures in foreign ownership doing business in transitional country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The empirical research has been conducted on a stratified sample, where the collection of the primary data was made by the structured questionnaire, filled in by the top level managers as well as employees who work on different workplaces in companies. The questionnaire was created to collect attitudes and opinions of current business practice of companies related to the different motivational techniques. The results of the research show that national culture does determine the impact of certain motivational technique on the level of employee motivation and that motivational programs that are synchronized with the national culture of employees give better results in employee motivation..