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E-HRM innovation adoption in an emerging economy: an actor perspective

Henze, Mirco (2013) E-HRM innovation adoption in an emerging economy: an actor perspective.

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Abstract:In recent years, the topic of electronic human resources management (e-HRM) has received increased attention within the scholarly debate. E-HRM, has been defined as “an umbrella term covering all possible integration mechanisms and contents between HRM and Information Technologies aiming at creating value within and across organizations for targeted employees and management“ (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2009, p. 507). It has been postulated that companies which utilise information technology (IT) for the management of their HR function, are likely to gain benefits such as a less bureaucratic workload and an increased level of efficiency. The increased usage of IT is said to allocate a more strategic position to the HR function within a company. Since the discussion of e-HRM is still in its infancy, there is not much empirical research available glancing at the factors that foster the application of e-HRM, especially in the context of emerging economies; the implementation of e-HRM can thus be seen as an innovation. This research has been carried out in order to explore the reasons behind companies’ decisions to adopt certain e-HRM systems. Hence, the question of what factors are likely to influence the e-HRM adoption decision has been addressed. This has been put into practice through employing a qualitative research design drawing on semi-structured and in-depth interviews as the main method of data collection. In total, eleven representatives of Indonesian subsidiaries of multinational companies have been questioned. Drawing from the analysis of the interview data, we created a model that comprises the most conspicuous characteristics about the sample population of Indonesian companies. On the basis of these characteristics as well as the narrations of the interviewees, we come to the following conclusions: First, because characteristics such as communication, external influences, organisational culture as well as skills & knowledge did not appear to have a strong presence in the companies investigated, we derive that they did not play an important role in the company’s decision to adopt e-HRM. This was against our expectations, because the literature review, that has been conducted in the first place, attributed a stronger influence of the latter factors. Second, we found that, despite the characteristics management support and resources available having an moderate to strong presence in the companies investigated, their total influence on the e-HRM adoption process can be classified as rather weak. This is because the presence of headquarter influence and efficiency calculations was very characteristic for the entire sample population. We therefore assume that the latter characteristics are also the factors being of the strongest influence on the e-HRM adoption process in the emerging economy context. Additionally, it became apparent that companies that adopted very basic forms of e-HRM at an early stage in time, tended to have very sophisticated e-HRM systems today. However, companies which implemented e-HRM systems at a later point in time did so with a higher degree of sophistication compared the innovators of the sample, yet not reaching the innovators’ level of sophistication as of today. Companies in the emerging economy context are advised to embrace e-HRM innovations through rallying their respective headquarters to free resources as soon as possible to reap long-term benefits at a later stage.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/64323
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