This thesis investigates talent management challenges in public and private organizations in Saudi Arabia. The lack of studies into talent management challenges has motivated the researcher’s work, in particular focusing on whether talent management challenges are applicable to both private and public organizations. In order to answer the research questions, the researcher reviews previous research related to talent management in general and talent management challenges in particular. A list of talent management challenges was provided and then those challenges were linked to institutional theory. The researcher used semi-structured interviews to collect primary data. 18 human resource managers, 8 private organizations, and 8 public organisations were interviewed. The researcher after that transcribed the interview one by one. This was followed by applying manual coding. The researcher’s findings suggest that there are three types of challenges, firstly, challenges those can be found in private and public organizations, secondly, talent management challenges that can be found in public organizations, thirdly, talent management challenges that can be found in private organizations.