An interdisciplinary review of AI and HRM: Challenges and future directions

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change the future of human resource management (HRM). Scholars from different disciplines have contributed to the field of AI in HRM but with rather insufficient cross-fertilization, thus leading to a fragmented body of knowledge. In response, we conducted a systematic, interdisciplinary review of 184 articles to provide a comprehensive overview. We grouped prior research into four categories based on discipline: management and economics, computer science, engineering and operations, and others. The findings reveal that studies in different disciplines had different research foci and utilized different methods. While studies in the technical disciplines tended to focus on the development of AI for specific HRM functions, studies from the other disciplines tended to focus on the consequences of AI on HRM, jobs, and labor markets. Most studies in all categories were relatively weak in theoretical development. We therefore offer recommendations for interdisciplinary collaborations, propose a unified definition of AI, and provide implications for research and practice.     

HRM and Indian epistemologies: A review and avenues for future research

India is emerging as a super power, slated to be among the world's five largest economies and viewed by international investors, business conglomerates and tertiary education providers as a land of opportunity. A database search since the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991 reveals a slowly increasing number of scholarly articles on HRM, with a steep rise from the year 2000 onwards. While it is acknowledged that the field of HRM is a broad area, there is currently a dearth of research in specific HRM practices and policies in India to warrant a focus on only one area. Hence the primary objective of this article is to present a scholarly survey of important research literatures in the area of HRM in India, and to offer avenues for future research. To this end this article garners, integrates and discusses research on HRM in India with a focus primarily on the past fifteen years. It is within this complexity that research on India and its workforce is presented by illuminating HRM as embedded in the Indian environment with its intricate epistemologies and transitions in a period of dynamic change.     

The norm of norms in HRM research: A review and suggestions for future studies

This article presents a systematic literature review of how norms are used in a sample of 436 articles in the human resource management (HRM) field. In exploring how norms are theorized, applied, and operationalized, the article identifies four main thematic fields in which norms are commonly used: culture, diversity, labor market, and work–life. The article makes three main contributions to the existing literature. First, it reveals a pervasive inconsistency in the use of norms across HRM research such that any assumption of a “norm of norms”—that is, consensus on the meaning of norms in HRM—is erroneous and in need of critical reflection. Second, the review offers a typology that outlines four similarities and differences in how HRM research employs norms. Finally, the authors propose a norm-critical research agenda as a relevant basis for future critical and reflexive enquiry into norms in both HRM theory and practice.     

Change agency in occupational context: lessons for HRM

Change agency is seen as a key route to reducing the occupational vulnerability of human resource management (HRM). However, few look outside of the HRM context to consider change agency more broadly in organisations. Drawing on a study of change agency units in British organisations, we argue that challenges to occupational credibility and competing jurisdictional claims have wider implications for the role of HR practitioners. In particular, change agency is better seen as replaying rather than resolving the ambiguity of HRM's role and identity in organisations.     

Digital transformation: a review,synthesis and opportunities for future research

Management Review Quarterly - In the last years, scholarly attention was on a steady rise leading to a significant increase in the number of papers addressing different technological and...     

The competitive advantage of nations: the role of HRM and its socio-cultural context

This study focuses on the links between human resource management practices and the socio-cultural characteristics of nations, on the one hand, and their competitive advantage in the international market, on the other. The particularly important conclusion is that some nations' cultures offer their managers a higher repertoire of modes of management practices than some others. In high repertoire nations, organizations appear to be better equipped to compete internationally than their counterparts in low repertoire nations.     

A retrospective and prospective analysis of HRM research in Chinese firms: Implications and directions for future study

Based on an extensive review and analysis of 182 articles published in the field of human resource management that focus on China since its economic reform, this article discusses the major reasons for the growth in this area of research. We identify five major categories spanning research and practice, ownership type, and research method. Further, we examine issues and deficiencies in the research literature. Based on our analysis of each research category, we present a substantial series of research questions and implications for future research on HRM in China. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Sustainability and customer relationship management: current state of research and future research opportunities

As recent years have seen an on-going discussion in science and industry about customer relationship management on the one hand and sustainability on the other hand, the synthesis of both trends sustainability and customer relationship management is gaining increasing importance. Within the multiplicity of scientific publications exploring sustainability in customer-related areas, this paper providfes an overview on the current state of research on sustainability-oriented customer relationship management. We analyse the present literature predominately with regard to the core areas of CRM, i.e. marketing, sales and service. It becomes evident that almost no research takes an integrated perspective on what shapes sustainability activities targeted at the customer and analyses how customers and sustainability interdigitate. As hardly any research has dealt with the comprehensive concept of sustainability and customer relationship management we furthermore deduce future research opportunities. Thereby, we analyse what enables and empowers sustainability and customer relationship management initiatives and how these can be further advanced and improved.     

Work-home interface in a cross-cultural context: a framework for future research and practice

Abstract

With dual-income families on the increase, combining work and family obligations is a daily reality for many individuals. Unsatisfactory combinations of work and home duties can result in various unfavourable individual and organisational outcomes. Therefore, its proper understanding is essential in order to create adequate recommendations for interventions and prevention. There is a need for the development of theoretical frameworks that take cultural context into account in relation to work-home interface (WHI). In this paper a new framework is proposed; ‘the pyramid of intersecting domains of WHI’ that incorporates cultural context and other important work-life interface aspects. It builds on empirical findings of the intersectionality and work/family border theories. The pyramid consists of the following domains: the domain of work and home characteristics, the roles domain and the cultural domain, which intersect to determine the fourth side of the pyramid, that is, the observed WHI. Based on the pyramid several research propositions can be formulated. Implications for researchers and HR professionals are provided.     

Organizational commitment in the context of multinational corporations: a critical review and directions for future research

Abstract

The antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment (OC) have been studied extensively over the last three decades. While the majority of research has focused on the OC of employees working in organizations based in a single country or region, studies have also emerged examining the OC of employees working in multinational corporations (MNCs). However, there has been no attempt to comprehensively review and synthesize the literature in this area, limiting our understanding on how to effectively manage OC in MNCs. The present study conducts a systematic review of empirical literature on OC in the MNC context. We review literature on the theoretical foundations, antecedents and outcomes of OC in MNCs, and evaluate empirical papers that expand our understanding of the nomological network of constructs to which OC is related in the MNC context. Building on the review, we then present a future research agenda, which targets opportunities for empirical and theoretical advancement of research on OC in the MNC setting.     

A framework for comparative institutional research on HRM

Abstract

This article argues that awareness of institutional context has been singularly lacking in the most influential areas of HRM. This lack of attention to external context has resulted in findings that fail to reflect reality. We offer a layered contextual framework embedded in economic institutional theory. We propose that it forms the basis of a comparative research agenda for HRM. We validate the framework using extant publications on institutionally based comparative HRM, drawing on findings from the Cranet research network published in the decade 2007–2017.     

Editorial: Trust and HRM: Current insights and future directions

Over the last 20 years, HRM has been identified as one of the most influential organisational contexts in which to explore trust, and yet scholars have been slow to look systematically at both the systems and practices that underlie this assertion. Organisations make choices regarding both the design and implementation of HRM policies and practices, with research considering the impact on trust for both key single policy areas and bundles of policies. We outline the previous dominance on teleological approaches compared with a dearth of more deontological perspectives which would highlight moral and ethical considerations implicit in definitions of trustworthiness. We review the contribution of five new articles to further our understanding of trust and HRM and identify future research and practice agendas.     

Introduction: service work and its implications for HRM

This article draws on our four case studies to examine the nature of the relationships between ABB and its Canadian subsidiaries. Starting from a critical review of the literature, it develops a framework that is sensitive to three levels of analysis: the factors that shape the parent corporation's strategies, the characteristics of the host countries in which the MNC operates and the characteristics of the local subsidiaries themselves. The empirical material illustrates how innovation is generated by a two-way process, in which the initiative of corporate leaders challenges the ‘interpretation’ of local actors. In doing so, we point to a number of key omissions in the influential attempt by Bartlett and Ghoshal to use ABB to develop a managerial theory of the firm. This research also leads to broader considerations regarding the interface between markets and organizations. As distinct from the orthodox view, a transnational corporation may be conceived as a mediator between the market and a local subsidiary. In many ways, the global corporation channels and mediates the impact of external market forces on internal organizational actors, through a process involving the exercise of politics and power. The article has significant implications for decision making on human resource management. In particular it stresses that local managers, local unions, and employees can think and act strategically only in as far as they properly assess the limits of their respective sphere of organizational autonomy within the corporation.     

Dynamic and customer-oriented workplaces: implications for HRM practice and research

Changes in competitive environments are resulting in changes to the nature of work. We present job structure changes and a heightened customer orientation as two primary examples of changes that necessitate adaptation of human resource management (HRM) practices. The level of success in light of these organizational changes will largely be determined by how effectively people are managed in the new organizational environments. HRM practices that adapt to the new organizational conditions can add tremendously to the business and be a key to long-term competitiveness. We examine the implications of these changes for HRM practice and research, with particular attention to psychological contracts, job analysis, selection, and performance appraisal. The thrust of the article is to identify and describe research directions that have the potential for contributing to the future relevance and success of HRM.     

Measuring HRM effectiveness: Considering multiple stakeholders in a global context

Strategic human resource management research has mostly gravitated towards financial measures of performance in order to assess the effectiveness of human resource management initiatives. In this paper, we argue that focusing on organizational performance mainly from financial stakeholders' perspective is no longer sufficient. We discuss the implications of globalization, changing nature of work and the need to satisfy multiple stakeholders on how we measure the effectiveness of human resource management systems. We provide examples from several reach streams that focus on stakeholders other than shareholders as their main outcome of interest.     

The determinants of startup valuation in the venture capital context: a systematic review and avenues for future research

Startup valuation in the venture capital (VC) context is often said to be more art than science. In view of this, it is particularly important to be aware of and understand the different underlying determinants that affect the valuation of startups. This paper conducts a systematic review of the existing empirical literature to illustrate the determinants of startup valuations in the VC context. Beyond that, the paper seeks to provide an organizing structure to the current literature as well as to detect academic voids and directions for future research. To achieve these goals, it develops an integrative framework for the factors determining startup valuations in the VC environment, which should be of use to both practitioners and researchers. That framework illustrates how startup valuations in the VC context are shaped by a three-sided interplay of factors related to startups, venture capitalists, and the external environment.     

Beating the advertising drum for the employer: How legal context translates into good HRM practice

The legal context is constitutive for the legitimacy of HRM practices. In this paper, we use an institutional work approach to investigate how a legal mandate requiring employers to state the minimum pay in job advertisements in Austria was translated into a legitimate HRM practice over time. In this process, HR practitioners translated the law into an HRM practice going well beyond the legal requirements. In contrast to merely constraining HRM practice, we find HR practitioners actively engaging with the legal context. In the discursive struggle over a legitimate translation of the law into practice, actors speaking ‘for HRM’ were mostly HRM consultants and service providers building on an individualist and unitarist frame of reference for employment relations. Our findings contribute to a contextualized understanding of HRM practices by considering the interaction of HR practitioners and legal context.     

HRM and Performance: A Plea for Reflexivity in HRM Studies

abstract    In this Counterpoint, we build on Paauwe's suggestions to take the field of HRM and Performance further. Rather than aiming for a synthesis or proposing a radical alternative, we argue that R(econstructive)-reflexivity is needed for theorizing HRM. In particular, we bring in insights from critical studies on the notion of HRM, on the notion of performance, and on the theoretical relationship between them as a way to open up new research avenues and lines of interpretation. For each of these three aspects, we indicate how studying the employment relationship can be reframed. In particular, we emphasize practice-oriented research as one possible research path for the field of HRM as it allows for an examination of HRM as a set of practices, embedded in a global economical, political and socio-cultural context. We end our counterpoint by reflecting on reflexivity, proposing three practices that can guide HRM scholars in becoming reflexive in the ways they study HRM.     

Menopause and the workplace: New directions in HRM research and HR practice

This paper offers two key arguments. The first is that HRM scholars and HR practitioners need to pay a good deal more attention to the bi‐directional relationship between menopause and the workplace—how menopausal symptoms can affect women's experience of work and how work can exacerbate a woman's symptoms. We outline the social responsibility, demographic, legal and business cases which explain the urgency of more research and more concerted practice in this area. Our second argument concerns the importance of future research and practice adopting an intersectional political economy approach, in order to better understand the considerable differences between how women going through menopause transition experience work. Here, we offer arguments ranging from the macro‐ through the meso‐ down to the micro‐level of these differences, in so doing setting an agenda for the work to come on this very significant issue.     

Closing the gap between scholarly knowledge and practice: Guidelines for HRM action research

In this paper we review the current use of action research in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM), and assess its potential contribution to the field. We show that action research is very suitable for theory development and excels in developing scholarly knowledge that informs practitioners and is relevant for specific contexts. Although only a handful of HRM papers label their research as action research (from our review of nine journals between 2000 and 2019), they substantially contribute to HRM by explaining the role of context and the dynamic nature of HRM design, implementation and evaluation and by showing the effectiveness of systemic interventions. We offer guidelines for conducting HRM action research projects, emphasizing the importance of involving relevant stakeholders, rigorously making field notes of the research process and reflexivity on the interests of both researchers and practitioners.