‘We can only request what's in our protocol’: technology and work autonomy in healthcare

This article explores the tension between standardization and autonomy raised by the implementation of new technology in healthcare organizations. The theoretical frame of this study is grounded in the impact of new technologies on work organization, routinization and autonomy across settings. Empirically it presents evidence from two NHS Trusts in England that implemented a national Electronic Patient Record (EPR). The paper aims to reinvigorate the debate on the tension between standardization and autonomy in professional workplaces such as healthcare. It argues that the implication of technology in professional work conditions processes of task routinization that constrain autonomy, and enables reallocation of discretion between professional groups. We argue that routinization is not restricted to low‐skill work but may travel across contexts and be evidenced in high‐skill work environments. The interplay between routinization and autonomy is also useful in drawing insights concerning the dynamics of change that occur in professional work.     

Employee experience –the missing link for engaging employees: Insights from an MNE's AI-based HR ecosystem

Analyzing multiple data sources from a global information technology (IT) consulting multinational enterprise (MNE), this research unpacks the configuration of a digitalized HR ecosystem of artificial intelligence(AI)-assisted human resource management (HRM) applications and HR platforms. This study develops a novel theoretical framework mapping the nature and purpose of a digitalized AI-assisted HR ecosystem for delivering exceptional employee experience (EX), an antecedent to employee engagement (EE). Employing the theoretical lenses of EX, EE, AI-mediated social exchange, and engagement platforms, this study's overarching aim of this article is to establish how AI-assisted HRM fits into an organization's ecosystem and, second, how it impacts EX and EE. Our findings show that AI-assisted applications for HRM enhance EX and, thus, EE. We also see increases in employee productivity and HR function's effectiveness. Implications for research and practice are also discussed.     

Dynamism and realignment in the HR architecture: Online labor platform ecosystems and the key role of contractors

Given the widespread contribution of independent contractors to organizational innovation and competitive advantage, it is timely to reassess assumptions about the HRM practices appropriate to their management and the rationale for organizations to work with them. In the original and highly influential HR architecture model of Lepak and Snell (1999), contractor status is viewed as an outcome of the low value and/or low uniqueness of human capital resulting in the proposition to externalize and manage them using either none or minimal compliance-based HRM practices. Developments in digital technologies and algorithmic management epitomized by online labor platforms prompt us to reconsider these assumptions and to challenge the proposed links between value/uniqueness of human capital, employment mode and HRM practices that are assumed by the HR architecture model. Using insights from online labor platforms, we argue that the significant benefits to firms of working with contractors, coupled with the possibilities offered by algorithmic management to efficiently monitor and regulate their behavior, provide a compelling reason for organizations to choose external employment modes even when workers are key to value creation. We challenge the alignment and stability of the relationships proposed by the HR architecture model, and offer propositions to extend the model by reconsidering the rationale for, and nature of, HRM practices associated with contractors. This reassessment is both timely and relevant given the growing prominence of business models where externalizing workers is central alongside the development of new forms of algorithmic human resource management to control them.     

Best friend or broken tool? Exploring the co-existence of humans and artificial intelligence in the workplace ecosystem

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an important topic in business literature and strategy talk. Yet, much of this literature is normative and conceptual in nature. How organizational members perceive AI and the job role changes that come with it is, so far, largely unknown territory for both HR scholars and practitioners. We sought to investigate the relationship between humans and AI and conducted an in-depth exploratory study into the co-existence of humans and two early-stage AI-solutions, one for “low-status” automation and another for “high-status”; augmentation. We suggest that different organizational groups may engage in distinctly different sensemaking processes regarding AI, an important insight for successful HRM strategies when AI is being introduced into the workplace. Moreover, contrary to recent conceptual work, our findings indicate that AI-enabled automation and augmentation solutions may not be detached from nor exist in tension with each other. They are deeply embedded in organizational processes and workflows for which people who co-exist with the technologies must take ownership. Our findings, in part, go against discussions on AI “taking over” jobs or deskilling humans. We describe a more nuanced version of reality fluctuating around the various ways different organizational groups encounter different AI-solutions in their daily work. Finally, our study warns against unconditional technological enthusiasm, managerial ignorance of the nature of work that employees undertake in different organizational groups, and a neglect of the time and effort required to successfully implement AI-solutions that affect not only the home organization but also members of the broader ecosystem.     

Work transformation and the HR ecosystem dynamics: A longitudinal case study of HRM disruption in the era of the 4th industrial revolution

Disruption in human resource management (HRM) practices necessitates processes of mutual adjustment within the organization that seeks to address these changes properly, overcome tensions, and fit strategic needs. In our single longitudinal case study of a new HRM practice development concerning blue-collar worker talent management, we examine how HR professionals and managers interact and develop new HRM practices as a response to disruptive work transformation. Considering these interactions from the perspective of HR ecosystem alignment dynamics, we find that both managers and HR professionals engaged in fruitful collaboration processes along three differentiated steps to provide value for the whole organization. We propose a grounded theorizing of HR ecosystem alignment that is based on the progression of successive convergent and divergent phases and introducing collaborative spaces of work.     

Employees' experience of human resource practices under plural form franchising: The impact of front-line managerial capability

The franchising business model has received scant attention within the field of human resource management (HRM). Data tracking workers' experience of this format are more elusive still. This study draws on comparative, qualitative data derived from discussions with 82 respondents working within the corporate and franchised divisions of a market leading, fast food multinational company (MNC). Extant analyses of franchised operations point to shortcomings in franchisees' treatment of staff. This outcome is typically asserted to be the result of the opportunism that flows from the desire to maximise revenues and minimise costs. This emphasis on structural pressures ignores the micro-level influences and the complexity of the day-to-day dynamics of the employment relationship. Specifically, the impact of the leadership skills and competence of front-line managers (FLMs) is overlooked. The study highlights that differences in FLM capability significantly affect the work climate, further aggravating poor HR activities in the franchised units, while offsetting some of the repressive task features associated with routinised work in the corporate division.     

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.     

The HR ecosystem: Emerging trends and a future research agenda

Human resource leaders are experimenting with new approaches to organizing and utilizing workers that are not limited to the traditional boundaries of the firm, but rather expand to an ecosystem of work and organization. This special issue introduction article introduces a set of papers from management scholars discussing the ecosystem of work and organization and offers a roadmap for future research on HR ecosystems. An ecosystem perspective invites us to rethink our current frameworks to better link theory to practice. It also challenges us to shift our level of analysis from the organization to the ecosystem, asking: how is work organized and conducted within this complex and evolving context? These papers uncover trends related to (1) technological mediation, (2) impermanence and adaptation, and (3) shared governance. Our hope is that by framing these trends found within the research in this special issue that scholars will be provided a better road map in moving forward with their own research on the role of HR within the ecosystem of work and organization.     

The HR ecosystem framework: Examining strategic HRM tensions in knowledge-intensive organizations with boundary-crossing professionals

In this article, we use Snell & Morris' (2021) new HR ecosystem framework to empirically examine strategic fit and alignment tensions for knowledge-intensive organizations and professional knowledge workers. Rich data were collected through in-depth interviews with 75 members of faculty engaged in knowledge-intensive work for Business and Management Schools (B&M), and the analysis of strategy documents. The application of the framework enables us to contribute to dynamic capabilities theory and SHRM in four ways. Firstly, drawing on the findings, we propose an adapted HR Ecosystem framework for analyzing knowledge-intensive organizations, which incorporates tensions across the four subsystems of an HR ecosystem (strategy, capabilities, composition, and cultures). These tensions are shaped by interactions within and between levels (meso, macro and micro) and ecosystems. Secondly, our findings underscore the need for knowledge-intensive organizations to engage with a plurality of collaborative and competing internal and external stakeholder interests, including those of knowledge workers who constitute key organizational stakeholders. Thirdly, our analysis shows how the views and behaviors of internal organizational stakeholders are affected by ecosystem dynamics within and beyond the physical boundaries of an organization. Fourthly, we reveal how conflicting organizational cultures connect with other HR ecosystem subsystems to constrain collegialism and cohesion. By evidencing how knowledge-intensive organizations are in a constant flux of alignment and misalignment, the article demonstrates the value of the HR ecosystem framework in examining and informing SHRM in organizations in other industries.