Talent management is a relatively new concept that emerged in the 1990s. In fact, talent management is defined as the process of talent identification, talent development and maintaining talent (Mank & Aguer, 2014). Of course, organizations should apply talent management according to their structure and culture (Lewis & Hackman, 2006). Talent management is also very important for the field of sports (Munk and Aguer, 2014). And it is the most important competitive advantage for today's organizations (Rezaian & Soltani, 2009).
Naushad Alamian's third place in table tennis at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games shows the existence of talent in Iran's table tennis, which, if invested in talent, can bring pride, national pride, and vision to Iran in international sports events, bring international Considering the importance of talent management in Iranian table tennis, in this research, the second part of talent management, i.e. talent development in Iranian table tennis, was discussed.
Mixed research method and data collection tool was interview and questionnaire. The questionnaire was analyzed through structural equations using the partial least squares (PLS) method. In the qualitative part, it includes a statistical population from three scientific fields (researchers who had expertise in the field of talent management in sports), executive (people who had executive experience at the highest level of the table tennis federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran) and sports (former and current players). The women's and men's national table tennis team of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the international judges of the Islamic Republic of Iran (women and men) were selected. In the qualitative part, sampling was done by non-probability method and in two ways, targeted and snowball. A total of 12 people were interviewed. In the quantitative part, the statistical population included the players, coaches and supervisors of the Iranian women's and men's senior table tennis league teams. Considering that the sample size was small, the sampling method at this stage was the total number. The results showed that the development factor of Iran's tennis talent has 27 indicators. Therefore, for the development of Iranian table tennis talents, it can be said that all the stakeholders mentioned in the identified indicators must perform their duties in the best way so that synergy can take place and in this way, a brighter future Iran’s table tennis.