E-HRM IN THE NEW ERA—A COMPARISON STUDY BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL HRM AND E-HRM

0608563

BUSINESS SCHOOL

BRUNEL UNIVERSITY

7th SEPTEMBER 2007

II

Acknowledgement

Firstly I would like to thank my supervisor, Kevin Lu.

With his patient guide all the time, I could complete

this dissertation and learn a lot. Additionally, I would

like to take this opportunity to thank my parents and my

friends who have been fully supportive throughout this

study, and all the teachers who have taught and inspired

me over the last year at Brunel University. Thank you.

I

Abstract

II

With the development of information technology e-HRM

becomes available and will be expected replace the old

ways of HRM gradually to meet the requirements of IT era.

This dissertation attempts to examine the historical and

mainly current e-HRM application through comparing with

conventional HRM in four main HRM functional areas. The

aim of this dissertation is helping people to understand

e-HRM, providing new information for corporations which

intend to transform conventional HRM to e-HRM to catch on

the pace of the new era, as well as the companies

III

providing e-HRM solutions. Finally this dissertation

gives some advices for further research and the

development of e-HRM. In order to achieve the aim, the

primary research, ten semi-structured interviews were

undertaken at Yitai group and Erdos Electric Power

Corporation in China and another observation of e-HRM

software exhibition was conducted. The findings shows the

features and advantages of e-HRM and demonstrated that

implementation of e-HRM indeed contributes to HRM

effectiveness and corporate performance.

IV

Key words: E-HRM, conventional HRM, Effectiveness

V

Contents

Acknowledgement......................................I

Abstract............................................II

Contents.............................................1

Chapter 1: Introduction..............................4

1.1..............................Background and motivation

4

1.2..............Aims, objectives and research questions

6

1.3................................................Structure

8

2.1 Introduction....................................11

2.2 Understanding of HRM............................11

1

2.2.1 Emergence and definition of HRM...............11

2.2.2. The HRM functions............................15

2.2.3......The linkage between HRM and firm performance

19

2.3The Introduction of E-HRM........................20

2.3.1 Definition and aims of e-HRM..................20

2.3.2 The Evolution of E-HRM........................22

2.3.3 Features of e-HRM.............................25

2.3.4 The relationship between conventional HRM and e-

HRM 29

2.4 E-HRM in Practice and its effectiveness.........30

2.4.1 Cases of e-HRM in practice....................30

2.4.2 Controversies in practice.....................34

2.5 Research Question Revisited.....................35

2

Chapter 3: Methodology..............................36

3.1 Introduction....................................36

3.2 Research strategy and research design...........36

3.3 Secondary data collection.......................38

3.4 Primary data collection.........................42

3.4.1 Primary data from the exhibition..............43

3.4.2 Interviews....................................45

3.5 Limitation......................................47

Chapter 4: Findings.................................48

4.1 Introduction....................................48

4.2 Findings of the exhibition......................48

4.2.1 What do we currently know about e-HRM? --- The

status of e-HRM in current business world...........48

4.2.2 What is the main difference between conventional

3

HRM and e-HRM? --- E-HRM software is the corn of the

e-HRM...............................................51

4.3 Interview findings..............................53

4.3.1 Managers’ and employees’ insight of conventional

HRM and e-HRM in general and the contribution of e-HRM

to HRM effectiveness................................54

4.3.2 The relationship between HRM and corporate

performance.........................................59

4.3.3 The differences between conventional HRM and e-

HRM in daily practice from both managers’ and

employees’ perspectives.............................60

4.3.4 The future of HRM.............................61

4

4.3.5 The practice of e-HRM.........................62

Chapter 5: Discussion and suggestions...............65

5.1 Introduction....................................65

5.2 Comparing conventional HRM and e-HRM to understand

e-HRM...............................................65

5.2.1 Differences between conventional HRM and e-HRM 65

5.2.2 Features and advantages of e-HRM..............67

5.2.3 Understand of e-HRM...........................68

5.3 Contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness and

corporate performance...............................69

5.3.1 The contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness 69

5.3.2 The contribution of e-HRM to corporate

performance.........................................70

5

5.4 The controversy and future of e-HRM practice....72

5.4.1 The problems and controversy of e-HRM practice 72

5.4.2 The future and development of e-HRM...........73

5.5 Suggestions.....................................74

Chapter 6: Conclusion and limitations...............77

6.1 Conclusion of the study.........................77

6.2 Contribution and beneficiaries of this

dissertation........................................79

6.3 Limitations.....................................80

Bibliography........................................82

Appendix A..........................................89

Appendix B..........................................90

Appendix C ………………………………………………………………………..92

Chapter 1: Introduction

6

This dissertation will discuss e-HRM advantages and

implementation in the new IT era through comparison

between conventional HRM and e-HRM. The findings of this

dissertation will contribute to corporate managers, e-HR

system producers and anyone who is doing research on e-

HRM. The motivation and background of this dissertation

will be introduced. Moreover in this part, the main aims,

objectives and research questions of this dissertation

will be listed, and the structure of this dissertation

will be given.

7

1.1 Background and motivation

Nowadays Human Resource Management plays a more and more

important role in business administration. (Elias and

Scarbrough, 2004) Upon the development of information

technology, e-HRM becomes available and will be expected

to replace the conventional HRM gradually. This

dissertation will explore what the features and

advantages of implementing e-HRM by comparing with the

conventional way and why it is preferable. Furthermore,

whether e-HRM could facilitate the corporation makes

8

superior performance will be found out though interviews

and observation. Due to the advantages of e-HRM and the

usage of e-HRM software, some suggestions on

implementation of e-HRM will be offered.

The conventional HRM encompasses several activities designed to

arrange and coordinate human resources within an organization in order

to create even much profit. (Byars & Rue, 2004; Storey, 2001) It has

several main functions such as recruitment, selection, training and

development. Sometimes it is saying personnel management instead.

However, HRM is a more integrated way of implementing the different

9

functions, covering a wider business strategy inside the corporation.

(Storey, 1992) The process of this kind of HRM needs a large number of

HR managers and assistants. Accordingly, it costs highly but works

inefficiently in current society which requires more efficiency and

effectiveness.

E-HRM is the new style of HRM with the overlap between information

technology and human resource management. (Ruel, Bondarouk and

Velde, 2007) It is short for electronic human resource management. Or it

can be said that using information technology (IT) in HRM is called e-

HRM. (Zhang & Wang, 2006) It is a new HRM concept based on the

10

advanced software and hardware to accomplish the targets of cost

reduction, efficiency, improvement of the employment relationship,

automatic information management, and self-support system for

employees and information sharing. (Panayotopoulou, Vakola, and

Galanaki, 2007) Operating e-HRM with the existing network of the

corporations could help administrators to ensure their HRM is well-

developed.

Comparing with the old style or the conventional HRM, e-HRM introduces

much more information technology such as HRIS (human resource

management information system), into the management process,

11

helping to integrate the human resource and other resources both

inside and outside of the organization and set up strategic HRM system

for considering much of the corporation in microscope. Finally it could

help corporation to create the competitive advantages. (Ruel,

Bondarouk, and Velde, 2007)

The previous research introduced e-HRM practice mainly

according to case study in different countries, but

neither compared it with the old way of HRM, nor

generalized the general features, advantages and problems

in e-HRM practice. (Panayotopoulou et al., 2007; Ruel,

12

Bondarouk, and Velde, 2007; Zhang and Wang, 2006) This

dissertation will adopt the comparison study to find out

the essential differences between e-HRM and conventional

HRM which reflects the features, advantages and problems

of e-HRM. E-HRM is not only simply uses of IT in HRM, but

also focus on B2B and B2C of HRM through software usage,

so that e-HRM achieves the connection of HRM and the

resource outside and viewing employees as inside

customers. This might be the most remarkable difference

between conventional HRM and e-HRM and what e-HRM really

means.

13

1.2 Aims, objectives and research questions

The purpose of this study, by exploring historical and

current e-HRM application, is to help people to

understand e-HRM and provide new information for

corporations which intend to transform conventional HRM

to e-HRM to catch on the pace of the new era, so are the

companies producing e-HRM solutions. Meanwhile it makes

contribution to e-HRM research and the development of e-

HRM.

14

This dissertation has several objectives as followed through comparing

e-HRM and the traditional HRM.

1. To provide a comprehensive explain of e-HRM based on finding out

the features and advantages of e-HRM.

2. To investigate the contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness and

corporate performance.

3. To explore the usage of up to date HR software and suggest on

development of e-HRM.

The primary research questions of this dissertation are

listed as followed.

1. What are the advantages of implementing e-HRM compared

15

with the conventional HRM, and why is it preferable?

This dissertation will seek the answer by comparing them

from different perspectives of implementary process,

function and effectiveness. At the same time, the reasons

why it is preferable will be investigated.

2. Whether e-HRM contribute to the HRM effectiveness and

facilitate the corporate performance and how?

Through the interviews and secondary data collection,

this study intends to find out the qualitative answers to

this question. In spite of the absence of the

quantitative data to test the reality of the findings, it

could explain the facts of e-HRM practice to some extent.

16

Taking the classic HRM theories and research method

theories as the foundation of this study, data collection

combined secondary data from books, journals and websites

and primary data from observation of exhibition and

interviews with two corporations conducting conventional

HRM and e-HRM respectively. According to this

information, the differences between e-HRM and

conventional HRM, the features and advantages of e-HRM

will be found out. In addition, the contribution of e-HRM

to HRM effective and corporate performance, and the

17

problems and controversies of e-HRM practice will be

investigated and evidences will be given through

conducting interview. Thus those managers who want to

transform their HRM might get some benefit from this

study and those who produce e-HRM software could

reference the information. In a word, it intends to

convince people that e-HRM brings transformation and

becomes the mainstream of HRM in the IT era. Moreover

this study will be helpful to anyone who works in HRM.

1.3 Structure

18

This study will follow the structure as below:

Chapter 1: introduction part will introduce motivation

and background, research questions, as well as aims and

objectives of this study.

Chapter 2: literature review will show the theory of HRM

and the existed research on e-HRM, to help understanding

of conventional HRM and e-HRM and to be the foundation of

this research. In addition, previous research findings

will be discussed.

19

Chapter 3: methodology used in this study will be

discussed. Based on the research method theories,

interview and exhibition observation has been chosen to

collect the primary data. Combined with all kinds of ways

to collect secondary data, the data collection of this

research is accomplished.

Chapter 4: findings of the exhibition and interviews are

listed and prepared for the discussion following.

Chapter 5: discussion part will focus on the

understanding of e-HRM upon comparison. The contribution

20

of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness and corporate performance,

and the controversies and future of e-HRM in terms of the

literatures and primary findings will be discussed, so

that the research questions could be answered and

objectives could be achieved further. Finally some

suggestions will be given for implementing e-HRM.

Chapter 6: conclusion and limitation will summarize this

study and list the limitations in doing the research.

21

22

Chapter 2: Literature review

2.1 Introduction

The previous chapter has set out the aims and objectives

of this study. Based on it, this chapter will review the

relevant literature for the study and discuss some key

issues from the secondary data. Firstly, the concept,

theories and practices of HRM will be reviewed to

understand conventional HRM and the background on which

23

e-HRM depend to develop and become more advanced. Then

the concept, evolution and practices of e-HRM will be

presented. Finally it will revisit the research

questions.

2.2 Understanding of HRM

2.2.1 Emergence and definition of HRM

In the last two decades, as the business competition changed to the

competition of talents, the value of people in an organization is upgrade

and became significant. Since people are considered as the most

24

valuable assets in the organization, human resource management

frequently becomes evident and at the heart of the business

management to respond to new types and levels of competition.

At the beginning, management of people emerged with the

development of industry and then turned into mature with

the theory of human resource was built. There are three

phases in general, personnel management, human resource

management (HRM) and strategic human resource management

(SHRM) which is more preferable recently.

At personnel management stage which is before 1980s, it

25

was only a marginal task which was separate and

subsidiary in corporate plan (Storey, 1993). It was

limited in some insignificant tasks including

recruitment, selection, assignment, payment and file

management. All these activities were short-term oriented

and implemented within the personnel management

department that never related to corporate strategies or

higher management. Managing people is just makes them

work in order and always comply with the manager or

organization. In early 1980s, strategists recognized that

employees are not only the factor of production as land

26

and capital, but more as the valuable assets (Odiorne,

1985 cited in Storey, 1993, p.29), so the term “human

resource management” flourished and personnel management

increasingly given way to human resource management.

Moreover managers paid more attention on the integration

of the separate functions. Afterward, in the mid 1980s,

in order to achieve competitive advantage, mere

integration within the HR department is not sufficient.

Employees should be better regarded and involved into the

corporate strategy to seek commitment, retain them and

make them contribute to the corporate performance more

27

directly (Boxall & Purcell, 2000). Therefore, the term

strategic human resource management which is a linkage of

HR functions with strategic goal and organizational

culture that fosters innovation and flexibility (Mabey,

1998) replaces HRM. Since then, SHRM became the key task

which at the central to the corporate plan and was

integrated with other parts of the organization in

forming the corporate strategies (Storey, 1993). It

facilitates the corporate to achieve more and better.

Scholars defined HRM from different points of view. US

28

scholars gave the explanation that the new HRM model “is

composed of policies that promote mutuality – mutual

goals, mutual influence, mutual respect, mutual rewards,

and mutual responsibility. The theory is that policies of

mutuality will elicit commitment which in turn will yield

both better economic performance and grater human

development.” (Walton, 1985 cited in Legge, 2005, p.102)

Foulkes (1986) suggested that “Effective human resources

management does not exist in a vacuum but must be related

to the overall strategy of organization.” Most personnel

managers are tending to operate HRM in their own little

29

worlds, but forgetting that their primary value is

supporting top managers to achieve the goals of the

organization.

Storey (2001) defined that “HRM is a distinctive approach

to employment management which seeks to achieve

competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of

a highly committed and capable workforce using an array

of culture, structural and personnel techniques.” He also

summarized the meaning of HRM compared with personnel

management. Firstly in the broadest scopes, it was used

30

as a synonym of personnel management. Furthermore, it

integrated the separate functions of personnel management

such as selection, appraisal and reward into a unitary

system and it is more business-oriented and takes people

as resources of the organization which alongside of other

factors of production. Finally it is more focused and

specific in managing people in the organization, but not

simply links the personnel management with the

organizational strategy (Storey, 1993). According to

these four positions of HRM, Storey (1993) indicated that

HRM has its “hard” and “soft” versions. The hard version

31

focuses on the “resource” while the soft version puts the

stress on the term ‘human’. This ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ theory

of HRM has an extensive impact on the HRM research and

practice that how to treat employees has been the crucial

issue.

These scholars argued that HRM is a specific and minority

form of approach to employment management and it has some

particularity.

While two other American scholars Byars and Rue (2004)

simply defined HRM is “those activities designed to

32

provide for and coordinate the human resources of an

organization”. They stressed that HRM encompasses a

several functions as personnel management and explained

HRM by the model of Human Resource Wheel which contains a

consecutive activities of HRM such as HR planning,

recruitment, selection, development, compensation and

benefit, labour relation, and safety and health. They

consider HRM as a generic term that simply denoting any

approach to employment management.

Although there were some controversies about the meaning

of HRM, all the definitions above believed that HRM is

33

not as narrow as personnel management. The Storey’s

definition is more popular and most of the scholars and

managers accepted the most significant feature of HRM in

the last two decades and at present is that it is

involved in the corporate strategic management and is

considered as a key part which is the source of profit

and any success. Hence the value of HRM in the

organizations and management system has been upgraded

greatly.

2.2.2. The HRM functions

34

HRM functions are the tasks and duties human resource

managers perform and they constitute the distinctive

approach of HRM. The four major functions which are

acknowledged by most of the literatures are HR planning,

recruitment and selection, training and development,

performance and rewards. On the one hand, they reflect

the way it evolutes from personnel management which has

the similar components, on the other hand, they are

integrated to make a full use of human capital to

contribute to the better performance.

35

HR planning is the process of “getting the right number

of qualified people in the right jobs at the right time”

(Byars and Rue, 2004). Put another way, it is a system of

matching people with what the organization expect to

carry out the organization’s goal. First of all, it

requires translating the corporate mission and objectives

into a schedule of people requirement. This is not only

in the number and position but more important the quality

and how could make them work effectively that contribute

to themselves and the organization (Dowling, 1999).

Obviously it links to the HRM strategy or even corporate

36

strategy tightly. In the detail, it should define the

skills and expertise required to meet the demand and

determine additional requirements in light of current HR

situation. Finally develop the action plan to implement

other HR functions. The key point here is that HR

planning and organization planning and strategy are

closely connected-- they interact circularly.

Recruitment and selection is the essentials of HR

strategy and practice after planning. Recruitment is the

process of seeking, attracting and generating a pool of

37

capable people to apply for employment to an organization

(Hussain, Wallace and Cornelius, 2006). Selection is the

process by which managers and others choose from among

available applicants the individuals who are most likely

to successfully perform a job (Hussain, Wallace and

Cornelius, 2006). The typical recruitment steps are

advertising of a position vacancy, preliminary contact

with potential job candidates and screening to obtain a

pool of candidates. There are two main recruitment

sources: internal and external. The organization may fill

a job vacancy with someone already employed by the

38

organization, this is the internal recruitment. Or else

seek someone outside of the organization which is

external source. Next is to select using some reliable

and validity tools including interview, in-tray exercise,

psychometric testing, aptitude testing and presentation.

To be successful in recruitment and selection step, it is

important to have a good design of the process. Nieto

(2006) suggested an integrated approach that firstly it

should involve HR staff and any advisers in the strategic

planning and under the recognition of the organizational

culture. Moreover the use of external providers and

39

consultancies may help. Another crucial prerequisite is

the job analysis and evaluation which decide what kind of

candidates should be hired and the efficiency after

employment.

Training and development is one of the value adding

processes due to its content of knowledge management.

Training is a process which improves employee performance

through skills, concepts, rules and attitude learning

(Byars and Rue, 2004). Development is a continuous

process by which employees enhance their knowledge and

40

skills to meet the potential opportunities and new

challenges (Nieto, 2006). After this stage, the capable

employees will be trained to adapt to the corporate

environment and fit for the particular job much better.

The basic types of training consist of on-the-job

training and off-the –job training. Some commonly used

training methods are classroom training and job rotation

which trains individuals to learn several different jobs

within a department. Nowadays web-based training

increasingly turn to hot. It provides self-service

training courses and long-distance courses which cater to

41

the advanced requirement of the social development. The

personal development program is always designed according

to individual aspirations and interests as well as the

corporate needs (Nieto, 2006). There should be some

options for different employees. Although this might

increase the difficulty, complexity and cost of HRM,

organizations need this investment to ensure that these

valuable human resources are well trained and effectively

developed to contribute to the organization. This is

because the organization is the sum of the knowledge and

skills that its people have.

42

Performance and reward are another point that combines

HRM with organizational strategy and performance.

Traditionally, HR performance focused on individual

performance which was evaluated through employee

appraisal and then determined the reward. However this

long established area within HRM system is now changing

because of the changes of management and control

practice. It focuses on the overall performance and the

achievement of the organization which consists of

individual and team performance (Hussain, Wallace and

43

Cornelius, 2006). At this stage, the major work of HRM is

appraisal. The performance will be appraised in many ways

and then the relevant reward will be given. Some of the

classic appraisal methods are listed: management by

objectives (MBO), 360-dgree feedback, upward appraisal,

custom appraisal, team-based appraisal and competency-

based appraisal and so on (Hussain, Wallace and

Cornelius, 2006 and Byars and Rue, 2004). An excellent

performance and reward system depends on an appropriate

appraisal technique, while a successful HRM and great

corporate performance depends on the excellent

44

performance and reward system to motivate and retain

valuable employees.

These main HRM functions are interacted and all link to

organizational strategy that make HRM turn into strategic

and integrated approach that never be separated and will

be effective in business management.

The linkage between HRM and firm performance

As the status of HRM in organizational management has

been enhanced, most of the emphasis has been given to the

question whether HRM really relates to corporate

45

performance and if it is how it affects the performance.

Guest (1997) introduced a ‘box model’ which shows the

linkage between HRM and performance. Leede and Looise

(2005) translated this as shows in Figure 1. It is a

sequence system that organization strategy is reflected

through HRM practices, while HRM behavior and performance

outcomes influence the organization’s financial outcomes.

Figure 1

Organization strategy

DifferentiationFocusCost

HRMpractice

HRplanning

Recruitment&select

ionTraining&

HRMoutcomes

MotivationCommitmentCooperationInvolvementFlexibility

Organization outcomes

ProductivityQualityProfitReturn on

investment

Customer

46

Source: Leede and Looise, 2005

Hoque (1999) researched on the relationship between HRM

and performance in the UK hotel industry and show the

result that it is dependent upon the strategy. When HRM

practices and functions are took as an integrated and

coherent package that relates to the organization’s

strategy, it contributes to competitive success more

evidently. Though this research tested the relationship

between HRM and firm performance only in one industry, it

demonstrated a common phenomenon in the whole economy to

a large extent.

47

Some other literatures show the similar outcomes that

this relationship indeed exists, but always depends on

some variables. For example, Chang and Huang (2005)

reported that product market strategy will moderate the

relationship between SHRM and firm performance. In this

innovation oriented market environment firms which

implement SHRM may perform better because in this

situation SHRM promotes team work, incentive reward, and

flexible workforce and so on. All of these promote

innovation in organizations. Thus any innovation

48

including product and market innovation will lead to

better performance.

The linkage between HRM and firm performance has been

acknowledged according to many research based on test and

analysis as well as evidence from practices. Nieto (2006)

drew a conclusion from HR professionals’ report that 70%

of them showed that CEOs consider HRM as the key to

achieve corporate goals and performance.

2.3The Introduction of E-HRM

2.3.1 Definition and aims of e-HRM

49

As the popular term of e-commerce and e-business, e-HRM

is short for electric human resource management. Just as

its name implies using electronic techniques in HRM is

called e-HRM (Zhang & Wang, 2006). Or it refers to

conducting HRM transactions using the internet and

intranet along with other technologies (Lengnick-Hall and

Moritz, 2003; Roberts, 2006). Some other exact

definitions are available. Singapore researchers defines

e-HRM as ‘the use of electronic media and active

participation of employees to provide technology that

50

helps to lower administration costs, improve employee

communication, provide quicker access to information and

reduce processing time’. (Osman and Hashim, 2003) Hooi

(2006) indicated that ‘e-HRM is basically connecting

staff and managers with the HR department electronically

through the HR portal’. (Hooi, 2006) All of them

described the key features of e-HRM in the definitions.

The aim of e-HRM is making information of each HRM

functions available to everybody from top executive to

line managers and employees at any time and any where

51

(Panayotopoulou, Vakola and Galanaki, 2007). At the same

time, it could provide connections with external resource

such as the recruitment information to applicants. By

extensive using of computers, IT and network, it achieves

self-service management that allows employees to control

their own personal data, communicate both upward and

downward instantly, analyze their situation and make

decisions, without bothering the HR department

(Panayotopoulou, Vakola and Galanaki, 2007).

Simultaneously it helps people work without any paper. To

accomplish these great achievements, an important medium

52

is the e-HRM software or e-HRM system which evolutes with

the HRM demands increasing.

2.3.2 The Evolution of E-HRM

The term e-HRM was first used in 1990s (Panayotopoulou,

Vakola and Galanaki, 2007). This is an era marked by the

increased globalization and intensification of

competition which facilitated by the speeding up of

worldwide communication and the emergence of

multinational companies on account of the extensive using

of IT. (Eplee et al., 2002; Farndale and Brewster, 2005)

53

As a result, the international division of labour asked

for better HRM solution (Legge, 2005; Frauenheim, 2006)

and HRM faced a challenge that it was required new

competencies to adapt to the new information age (Ulrich,

1997; Spanos et al, 2002).

Using of computer in business management was the first

step that management evolutes from conventional style to

the e-style. Firstly, the role of management should be

understood, according to classical management scientists

such as Taylor and Mintzberg, managers have to fulfill

54

interpersonal roles as a leader, informational roles as

monitor and disseminator, and decisional roles as

entrepreneur and resource allocator (Barnatt, 1994). To

help managers in accomplishing these roles, primary

computer-based information system emerged with the

naissance of computers. Then with the popularity of

internet, the web-based information system appeared.

These advantaged information systems may make managers

easier to achieve their goals in management. (Gupta and

Kohli, 2006) When the strategic HRM has expanded,

researchers and practitioners began to interest in

55

operating information system to enhance the efficiency of

strategic management (Powell and Dent, 1997; Manley,

1996). Thus information systems have been broadly

employed in management.

Here Barnatt (1994) defined information system as a set

of interdependent, interacting elements which are united

to perform some functions by using the data that has been

processed into a useful form. He classified information

system as well into five types: data processing systems,

management information system, decision support systems,

56

executive information systems, and office automation

systems. A data processing system (DP) is the lowest

level which could used to keep records. Its usage in

management was the personnel record system. A management

information system (MIS) is ground on a data processing

system, in addition it allows managers to extract and

summarize information. It has been applied in many fields

when the computers are widely used and was used as a

control and decision assistant. A decision support system

(DSS) based on MIS with an additional function of

analysis and modeling to assist in making decisions. It

57

is commonly used in strategic planning, and upgrade and

flexible than MIS in supporting the decision process. An

executive information system (EIS) is considered as a

specialized form of DSS. It provides access to both

internal and external information to support the needs of

senior executives. An office automation system (OAS)

refers to a computer based applications package which

makes the office activities easier for both managers and

employees. It could be downsized into simple DP, MIS or

DSS.

58

Watson (2004) listed the eras of computing according to

Harvard lecture series on IT as in figure 2. It displays

the IT focus, the generic systems primary IT and their

different purposes in different decades.

Figure 2

Era IT focus Genericsystems

Purpose Primary IT

1960s-1970s Organization MIS Efficiency Mainframes1970s-1980s Individual DSS Effectivenes

sMinicomputers

1980s-1990s Intra-industry

EIS CRS(Customerreservati

onsystem)

Strategic/competitivesystems

Proprietarynetwork

connections

1990s-present

Inter-industryUltimateConsumers

BrowsersWWWPage

application

Marketpenetration,

newmarketingchannels,integrated

andstrategicmanagement

InternetserversClientsoftware

Source: Watson (2004)

59

As management gradually becoming specialized, different

information systems appeared to meet particular needs. In

1990s, specific human resource management information

system (HRIS) was introduced to companies (Linden &

Parker, 1998). It contains all the functions of MIS, DSS

and OAS, and takes HRM software as its central feature

(Bocij, al., 2003). The use of HRIS make HRM changed a

lot that HR professional became a strategic player and

much more functional (Hussain, Wallace & Cornelius,

2006). Nevertheless, some HRIS have not connected all the

HR functions together and most of the companies just buy

60

the off-the-shelf package of HRIS (Bocij, al., 2003). As

a result, it could not fully achieve the strategic

purpose and might not fit for the actual situation and

demand.

To accomplish the integrated strategic goal of

corporations and provide flexible solution, the trend of

HRIS was to do a lot all at once (HR focus, 2005). The

driver of technology and sourcing choices could promote

HRIS to be successful in improving processes,

communication and cost, and meeting the majority of

61

corporation goals. Under this circumstance, advanced HRIS

and the term e-HRM emerges as the times require based on

popularization of internet that optimizes HRIS greatly.

It is more specialized while furthermore is more

integrated with the strategy of the corporation. It makes

HR available to put in additional strategic value to the

organization (HR focus, 2007).

Now it can be said that all kinds of information systems

used for HRM is e-HRM. The upgrade cycle of e-HRM

evolution, on the on hand, is due to the continuously

62

enhanced demands for HR role in management, on the other

hand, is as a result of rapidly renewed IT and widely

used internet.

2.3.3 Features of e-HRM

Literatures of research and practices demonstrated the

features of e-HRM. Depending on the research of Lengnick-

Hall and Moriz (2003) and Walker (2001), Panayotopoulou,

Vakola and Galanaki, (2007) identified three levels of e-

HRM and the features. The primary level is publishing of

information which helps managers to communicate with

63

employees by delivering information through intranet. The

second level is automation of transactions with integration of

workflow. This combines the intranet and extranet to

accomplish integration of different parts of HRM as well

as the whole management of the organization. Meanwhile

electronic input substitutes for paperwork. The highest

level is transformation of the HR function. E-HRM promotes the

functions of HRM from operational to strategic level that

makes the role of HRM turn to a partner, creator and

administration supporter. They also defined that e-HRM

aims to make information of each HRM functions available

64

to everybody from top executive to line managers and

employees at any time and any where. Employees could

manage their personal information, training plan, holiday

and some other daily affair, and managers and employees

could communicate with each other directly and instantly.

These release the burden of HR department and increase

management efficiency.

Moreover, Runy (2006) has the same opinion that e-HRM

helps to eliminate much administrative burden and makes

managers and employees focus on more important tasks.

65

This not only reduces the cost but also enhance the

employee satisfaction and financial performance.

Li and Wu (2002) pointed out that e-HRM system could

build an objective norm for appraisal and performance in

order to reduce the subjective and unfair factors in

evaluating. Hence the complexity of HRM in today’s

society has been simplified and turns to more

standardization, more efficiency, high transparence and

more participation.

Another important characteristic of e-HRM as Lengnick-

66

Hall and Moritz (2003) noted is that e-HRM will involve

more strategic and managerial purposes. At the meantime,

to adopt it requires large investment both in money and

intangible rebuild of management concept within the

organization. This is a great challenge because e-HRM is

based on the popularity of computer and internet, and

intent to make the work system become whole. Therefore to

implement e-HRM needs more courage to change the whole

system in the organization (Barnatt, 1994; Safran, 2006).

Besides Ruel et al. (2007) indicated that e-HRM could help

67

to moderate employment relationship. The changing of

labour market such as supply shortage, individualization

and higher educational level, causes the shift of power

from employer to employee. E-HRM offers the better

service for employees who are the internal customers by

which increase the satisfaction of employees and their

commitment.

Integrating all these features, implementation of e-HRM

contributes a lot to gain corporate competitive

advantages. Researchers suggested that organizations

68

could acquire or increasing competitive advantage via IT

implementation. For instance Porter (1985) and

Hoppszallern (2005) recommended that corporations should

have a comprehensive understanding of all technologies

which could be used in value adding process, so that

information technology could be applied to improve

performance and enforce competitive advantages. In

today’s knowledge economy environment, to gain

competitive advantages from IT systems is in the

mainstream. This is also depends on the attitude changes

across the organization which is really a big challenge

69

for any corporations. However this is the trend that

sooner or later it will be accepted by all kinds of

corporations (Barnatt, 1994).

To sum up these notions, the typical features of e-HRM

are as below:

Based on internet and intranet

Strategic involved

Self-serviced

Electronic input replaced paperwork

Expedite and speedy communication channel

Objective appraisal system

Enhancing the employee satisfaction through higher

70

level of internal service

Improving employment relationship

Cost reduction

Changing the centre of HRM from operational management

to strategic management.

Reducing unfairness and dissatisfaction in performance

appraisal

Meeting the requirement of IT era

Achieving more competitive advantages

2.3.4 The relationship between conventional HRM and e-HRM

The nature of HRM decided the status of HRM in an

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organization became more important and the emergence of

SHRM indicated that HRM is one of the strategic partners

of the organizational management. At the same time with

the development of the internet and IT industry, the

usage of network and information system in management is

popular and the introduction of e-HRM is just meet the

requirement in the new era. (Legge, 2005)

The shift from conventional HRM which focuses on the

operation of HRM functions with paper-based manual

processes, to e-HRM which emphasizes more on strategic,

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integrated, and automatic approaches based on IT to

increase the efficiency and effectiveness of HRM, could

be seen as a sequential phenomenon of two general phases

of HRM or two types of HRM. Conventional HRM refers to

those ways of HR management without IT or just a little

using of simple DP, while e-HRM bases on IT, depends on

internet and intranet and relates more to strategic

management. Nevertheless their foundation is the same,

which are the functions of HRM. Both of them achieve

their goals and value through operating these functions.

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2.4 E-HRM in Practice and its effectiveness

The evidences from several organizations of different

countries show the operation of e-HRM in practice and how

effective it is. However there is still controversy about

whether the e-style of HRM relates to corporate size.

2.4.1 Cases of e-HRM in practice

2.4.1.1 Evidence from Northeast Health in UK

Runy (2006) did a case study about using of e-HRM systems

in three hospitals. Northeast Health, a three-hospital

74

system with 4,000 employees is one of the successful

cases. It used HRIS in the late 1990s. At first, it

operated three distinct systems to manage scheduling,

benefits, payroll and other HR functions. But this was

not that efficient. In 2000, Medi Solution provided it

software that could integrate all HR functions and added

online recruiting, salary modeling and training. (Runy,

2006)

Prior to implementation of this system, when a manager

wants to know some information, he has to call human

75

resource department to request the data. Then HR

department would print the data and manually deliver it

to the manager or send it through interoffice mail. By

the time these data reached to the manager, it would be

late and sometimes even weeks late. The manager said that

they reached the glass ceiling and were not meeting HR

need in an efficient way, but after implementation of the

HR software in 2000, both employees and managers felt it

easier to do their jobs. They enter self-service site

which allows them to update personal information and sign

up for training programs and so on. For managers, the

76

software provides up-to-date details about employees,

tracks work history and display new requirement of

employees, and evaluates their performance. It can

analyze the data as well that aid to decision making. As

what the vice president of corporate HR said, e-HRM helps

them to assemble a large, multidisciplinary team to

achieve more.

2.4.1.2 Evidence from a Dutch Ministry

A qualitative research on e-HRM operation based on the

data from a Dutch Ministry by Ruel, Bondarouk and Velde

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(2007) tested whether e-HRM contributes to HRM

effectiveness. They found that “only the quality of the

e-HRM application was positively related to technical and

strategic HRM effectiveness” (Ruel, Bondarouk and Velde,

2007, p.288). Therefore they listed the factors influence

the assessment of e-HRM quality, including the support by

employees and managers and their judgments of the

information provided.

The conclusion is that the assessment of e-HRM

applications has positive relationship with technical and

78

strategic HRM effectiveness. When managers and employees

perceive higher quality of an e-HRM application, there

will be an increasing of HRM effectiveness. But they do

not relate their ease of use and the linkage between e-

HRM and their job to HRM effectiveness. For these

reasons, to make e-HRM more effective, organizations

should obtain good support from colleagues and managers,

and better information provision. This research is

helpful to HR practitioners to implement e-HRM and once

more illustrates that to operate e-HRM is a big challenge

for organizations that they need build new concept or

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even new culture within the organization.

2.4.1.3 Evidence from a Chinese corporation

Another case from Chinese state-owned factory (Zhang and

Wang, 2006) revealed several common problems in

implementing e-HRM. Plant A is one of the top 500

industrial enterprises in China and has over 10000

employees. In the early 2002 a managerial revolution is

needed due to its rapid development, so it started from

innovation in HRM. A consulting team helped it to figure

out the problems to be solved in Plant A and what should

80

be done to implement successfully in e-HRM. The biggest

problem was the failure of Plant A to consider HRM at a

strategic level, because its HRM model is outdated. There

was a lack of job analysis and standardized

specifications and no standards and plan in recruiting

and training. Consequently employees do not satisfy with

the management especially the wage standards and the

performance assessment. In addition the channel of

communication is not expedited. As a result the turnover

rate is high, the old HRM system of Plant A unable to

meet the demands of development.

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According to this investigation, the consulting team

provided the solution for Plant A and began to implement

the e-HRM system. They summarized four general criteria

to implement the e-HRM system: first is to build up the

concept and principle of HRM in the modern time to help

managers to understand the essence of HRM. Secondly, set

up a clear goal and manage well to reach the goal step by

step. Thirdly the procedures should be manageable and be

optimized to achieve transformation smoothly. Fourth,

there should be clear regulations to make sure HRM

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normalized and applicable. Lastly is to develop the

software modules which are the core of e-HRM.

Based on these problems and criteria they listed the

tasks to be done and corresponding software systems. It

includes HR planning system, intelligent job management

system, recruitment system, talent quality system,

training and development management system, performance

management system, wage and welfare management system,

policy management system and staff information management

system. All of these systems compose the e-HRM system. To

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implement the system, Plant A operated four steps. First

step is HRM which rebuilds HRM systems to fulfill the

functions of HRM. Next is organizational transformation

and structural regrouping which make sure that the

organization is ready to accept the new system. Third is

enterprise training which ensure the correct use of the

new system. Last step is providing user instructions and

collecting feedback for future maintenance.

Implementation of the e-HRM system brought great value

for Plant A. It helps strengthen the cooperation in Plant

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A, brings down costs and raises productivity, and it

grounds for a better development of Plant A.

2.4.2 Controversies in practice

From these cases, it can be seen that the use of e-HRM

system has numbers of advantages for organizations.

Nevertheless some researchers pointed out that the

advantages and effectiveness of e-HRM depends on the size

of organizations. As Ball (2001) indicated that use of

HRIS in HRM process like recruitment, training and HR

planning or even appraisal seems “sophisticated” but it

85

depends on the size of the company and the human

resources strategy.

However Hussain, Wallace and Cornelius (2006) pointed out

that there is no difference in using HRIS between small

companies and large companies. Their research shows that

in more than 40% cases HRIS is used in the areas of HRM,

such as HR planning, salary advice, and training for non-

strategic purpose. Whilst approximately 44.5% of all

companies make the strategic HR tasks were supported by

HRIS. The rest of them were still performing some HR

86

tasks manually. There were no obvious differences depend

on the size of the organizations. They concluded that

strategic use of HRIS is the future trend, and it has

conduced to the value-add for corporations by HRM.

Indeed, HRM practices are changing with the size of the

firm increases (Kotey and Sheridan, 2004). From the cases

above, using HRIS in HRM and implementing e-HRM which is

totally digitization could facilitate effectiveness and

efficiency of HRM in macro organizations, but there is

limited literature on small sized organizations using e-

87

HRM. Nowadays, e-HRM is till at its infant stage that

organizational size determines whether an organization

operates e-HRM (Ball, 2001). However the trend of

digitization in management might decrease the differences

in using e-HRM between small and large companies.

2.5 Research Question Revisited

Based on these literatures about HRM, the use of HRIS and

e-HRM, this study will explore the features and

advantages of e-HRM compare with conventional HRM to help

people to understand e-HRM better and show why it is

88

preferable in the future. In addition, this study will

investigate whether e-HRM could make HRM more effective

and facilitate the corporation makes superior performance

than conventional HRM did. The application of the up to

date e-HRM software will be examined as the core of e-HRM

operation. The findings will demonstrate e-HRM from every

aspect to make it more legible for managers who are

seeking a better solution of HRM.

Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1 Introduction

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This chapter will describe the methodology’s strategy

used in this study and how the study was designed. In

order to answer the research questions, the most

appropriate methods are used to collect data, through

both secondary research and primary research. The reasons

for the methods selected and how the research was

conducted will be explained. Inevitably there will be

some limitations in this research, and it will be

mentioned in the end of this chapter.

3.2 Research strategy and research design

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To conduct a research, there are some typical strategies

and types of different designs as the references.

Research is a methodical study on a particular subject

using facts investigation and information collection

(Anon, 1989). There are two main strategies of research,

quantitative and qualitative. This study conducted

qualitative strategy, because qualitative study is

concerned with words rather than numbers, which is the

most obvious difference from quantitative research

(Bryman & Bell, 2003). As multiple research methods are

91

suggested to be used in empirical qualitative research,

(Silverman, 2005) this study will combine observation and

interviewing together to get the general conclusion

through induction.

“The process of induction involves drawing generalizable

inferences out of observations” (Bryman & Bell, 2003,

p.12). In other words, inductive theory indicates that

theory is the outcome of research. This is different from

deductive theory which believes research is testing of

theory. Qualitative research is based on the principal of

92

inductive theory which claims the relationship between

theory and research is that research is generation of

theory (Bryman & Bell, 2003).

There are five prominent research designs, experimental

design, cross-sectional design, longitudinal design, case

study design and comparative design (Bryman & Bell,

2003). This study adopted the comparative design, based

on the plenty of secondary data, using more or less

identical standards in comparing two contrasting

situations, conventional HRM and e-HRM.

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Finally, bringing together the research strategy and

research design, according to Bryman and Bell (2003),

there is a typical form associated with the combination

of qualitative strategy and comparative design. It always

adopts qualitative interview on two cases. In this study,

observation and qualitative interviews are implemented on

the situations of both conventional HRM and e-HRM

practices which conducted by two different corporations.

3.3 Secondary data collection

Secondary data is gathered through secondary research

94

which is an important qualitative technique. Secondary

research is obtaining information from some material or

documents which has been written or printed by somebody

else (William, 2003). Therefore secondary data is the

information from others’ research and exists in

literature material or documents such as academic

research papers, corporate annual reports, transcripts of

chief executives speeches, advertisements, and statements

and so on. It could be accessed though reading books,

journals, and surf on the internet.

95

For this study, author used books, journals available at

Brunel University library and also some other relevant

books privately owned. In addition, internet is another

helpful source of information. Some corporate website and

special or professional website on HRM and e-HRM provide

a plenty of information.

Books are the main source of knowledge and one of the

main sources of information. The text books provide basic

theories and definitions. Although different authors have

various different points of view on the particular issue,

96

there is always a main stream of theory on the issues and

after evaluating and critical analyzing this theory

became the classic one which is acknowledged by most of

scholars. There are also many other books which provide

all kinds of support of those theories, such as cases and

experience evidences.

The author used two text books on HRM wrote by Storey,

“Developments of managing human resources” and “Human

resource management: a critical text”. Storey is the one

of the most famous precursor of HRM and these books

presented the fundamental theory and definitions of HRM.

97

Some other scholars’ books about HRM theories and

practices are also used to demonstrate the system of

conventional HRM. As to e-HRM, it is a new concept in

resent years, so that it is hardly find a canonical book

on it. However, it is developed from HRIS, hence there

are a plenty of books on the development of using

computer in business management, management information

system and HRIS. This kind of information is very useful

as the theory base to investigate the evolution of e-HRM

and to find out its features and differences from

conventional HRM.

98

The major concern of using books is that some information

might be outdated. Absolutely, the classic theories could

be retained for a long time and useful even though they

are old. Nevertheless some brand new concepts or theories

could not be published as soon as they emerge. It needs

some time to test, argue, evaluate, and make it perfect,

then finally be systematically written into a book. So

books could only provide the essential theories for the

study but not up to date information.

However journals are comparatively contains more new

99

concepts and ideas, and up to date information. As for

researchers, the academic journals are the most important

source to get new opinions and to explain their own new

research findings. Brunel University library provides not

only Journals but also Athens account to access to e-

journals which is the most easiest and efficient way to

find the useful articles from hundreds of academic

journals among which Expert system, International journal

of human resource management, Information and management

and so on are the normal used journals on HRM. There are

critical evaluating on classical theories, the

100

development of the theories and new concepts and

practices in HRM. Additionally some information about

using the information technology in management and its

development could be found in the journals, and the most

of e-HRM research theory of this study are from the

articles of these journals.

Although this concept was appeared in the early 90s, most

of the studies on e-HRM are published after 2000

(Panayotopoulou, Vakola and Galanaki, 2007). Thus it can

be seen that the e-HRM concept and theories became mature

101

and rapid developed in the 21st century. From these

journals, the up to date data about adopting e-HRM were

found. These secondary data help the author to collect

some information in using e-HRM. The practices,

experienced report and some other research on e-HRM

operation establish the foundation of this study.

Whatever the nature, feature or the problems of e-HRM

form these priors research, provide this study a

precondition and a reason to continue a even

comprehensive research on it.

102

Website is another important tool to collect secondary

data and it is the best source of up-to-the-minute

information. The websites of professional HRM provides

articles, and reports of HRM trend, a plenty of cases and

practices research of e-HRM operation. Some websites of

professional software corporations have many solution of

e-HRM which is the useful information for this study to

investigate how e-HRM could be efficiently operated. All

the data from these websites are the most up-to-date

information and this is the most notable advantage of

referencing websites.

103

Firstly, the author access to the e-journal via the

internet and the website of the library of Brunel

University. Besides, the China human resource management

development network and the website www.hroot.com have

the professional site for e-HRM which provide the new

ideas, practices, cases and forecast as well. Some

another useful website are the websites of e-HRM software

corporations such as ASR and KCS, and www.softworld.co.uk

offered a great many dependable information of e-HRM

practices and how to extend the use of e-HRM.

104

The only problem of using websites is that the reliable

and validity of the information. Most of the articles on

the websites aim to deliver the most newest information

to readers, so it lacks of research and validate that

might not reliable to some extent.

Based on the secondary research there is a clear frame

work and elementary information for the study. However

reliable and validity are the common concern of all these

secondary data collection. To make sure the outcome of

the research is valuable, the study needs more primary

105

research to collect data to support and complement these

secondary data.

3.4 Primary data collection

Primary data and information are collected first hand by

the author (William, 2003). Therefore it is original and

should be the first time to use in the study.

The primary research is the same crucial in qualitative

as in quantitative research. There are a range of methods

of primary research, for instance observation,

106

questionnaires and interviews. This study adopted

observation from the exhibition, semi-structured

interview. The author attended the HR software exhibition

held by Softworld to collect a plenty information on the

actuality of e-HRM and the e-HRM software practices which

are quite valuable data. The interviewees including some

from UK companies the author met in the exhibition and

primarily from Yitai Group (company A) and Erdos Electric

Power Corporation (company B). In order to collect more

extensive information and to find the support of the

findings, the interviewees include managers, designers,

107

scholars, HR director and employees.

Nevertheless there are two concerns in conducting primary

research. One is the cost, including money and time. The

other is the value of the information. It is not that

easy to get access to the corporation which would like to

accept the interview or questionnaire. Many corporations

don not like to disclose their own particular methods or

experience. Even if they would like to support the

research, the respondent might not that serious, honest

or not just what the investigator want.

Though there is a little inconvenience in the procedure

108

of primary research, the data collected finally is far

more reliable than secondary data due to the nature of

the primary data. It is the first hand, actual and is

checked by practice.

3.4.1 Primary data from the exhibition

The author attended the HR software exhibition held by

Softword on 21st February at Hamersmith in London. As an

important source of the primary research for this study

comparing the conventional HRM and e-HRM, this exhibition

provided a great chance to know the state of e-HRM, the

109

situation those corporations adopting e-HRM and how e-HRM

is operated through different kinds of e-HRM software.

Hence observation and unstructured interviews are applied

to gather the primary data from this exhibition to

support the semi-structured interview later on.

There were almost 100 software companies exhibiting their

products on e-HRM and BASDA (Business application

software developers association) as well. Some of the

suppliers are very famous in software, such as the ASR,

Topaz, ICS, Safe computing and so on, and also AVCO which

110

is based in Brunel University. Each of these companies

has their own specialty. For example, some are good at

payroll, while some others are particular in training or

appraisal. Of course there are several of them provided

the whole system of e-HRM including the section of

personnel management, recruitment and selection, training

and development, performance and rewards, and HR

planning. It combines all the functions of HRM and adds

the self-service module which is the most distinct

feature of e-HRM. To illustrate the effectiveness of

their products these companies show many cases such as

111

National express, Rotherham. The experiences from the

cases

BASDA is a UK-based, not-for-profit association which

represents almost 200 of the world’s leading business

software suppliers. It offers a bridge for buyers and

supplier. Buyers could get help form BASDA to know how to

choose fit software, and suppliers could display their

products to more buyers and compete reasonably.

The exhibition invited some researchers on e-HRM as well

to give some lectures. For instance, Martin and

112

Reddington from University of Glasgow show their research

on linking e-HRM and strategic HRM which is a framework

based on a case of a mobile phone company. The author

communicated with the scholar to know the more in-depth

information and findings from the survey and the

reflection of managers and employees in mobile companies

to e-HRM adoption.

In a word, from this exhibition the author know the e-HRM

in practice and know how e-HRM is conducted after the

explanation and demonstration by the sellers. Through

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interview some buyers, suppliers and researchers, more

primary data are collected to compare the conventional

HRM and the e-HRM. In addition, from some handout of the

research and magazines published by the companies, some

more secondary data are collected at the same time.

3.4.2 Interviews

According to Saunders et al (2003, p.245), “an interview

is a purposeful discussion between two or more people.

The use of interviews can help you to gather valid and

reliable data that are relevant to your research

114

questions and objectives.”

The interview is used probably the most widely research

method in qualitative research, and is used sometimes in

quantitative research as well. (Bryman & Bell, 2003)

However the qualitative interview is different from

interviews in quantitative research in several ways. The

qualitative interview is less structured than that in

quantitative research. Moreover, it stresses the

interviewee’s point of view, not only reflects the

interviewer’s concerns. “Rambling” is encouraged in

115

qualitative interview that in order to show what

interviewees see as important and relevant. While in

quantitative research, the interview is always structured

to maximize the validity and reliability with the clearly

specified questions, and just to answer the questions not

emphasis on the interviewee’s own perspective. (Bryman &

Bell, 2003) As a result, taking the aim of collecting

rich and detailed answers, the qualitative interview is

flexible and is responding to the trend in which the

interviewees take. It contains several kinds of

interviews, unstructured and semi-structured interviewing

116

are the two major types. The unstructured interview is

almost a free conversation that the interviewer just asks

a simple question to which the interviewee answers

freely, and being carried on through interviewer

responding to the points that worthy for the research

(Bryman & Bell, 2003). In the semi-structured interview,

the interviewer gives a list of questions about the

topics that will be covered. With this guide the

interviewee replies freely with any relevant issues and

there might be some unexpected questions, but basically

it carries as the interviewer wants (Bryman & Bell,

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2003).

This study adopted the semi-structured interview, because

it has a guide or a direction and could be deployed

comparatively free with the interviewee’s interests. In

order to obtain reliable data, the interviewees are

mainly chosen from the HR managers and employees of Yitai

Group and Erdos Electric Power Corporation. Most of the

interviews are set up over the telephone. Additionally,

the author interviewed two HR managers from UK companies

and several designers, sellers and researchers on the

118

software exhibition which are mentioned above.

There are several points need to be noticed in conducting

the interviews. First, it needs to eliminate the inimical

or unfriendly attitude of the interviewee to ensure the

interview is conducted in a better atmosphere and

sufficient data could be collected. Second, the questions

should be designed reasonably that lead the interviewee

talk more about the related issue. Finally, the

confidentiality could be ensured.

There must be some difficulties to do interviews in those

119

corporations. For instance, some of the managers disliked

to supply the in-depth information. Even though from the

semi-structured qualitative interview, more actual data

are gathered, it is not sufficient to show the influence

of the e-HRM. Hence the secondary data are used to

support and complement the findings.

3.5 Limitation

To sum up the secondary and primary research methods

listed above, on the one hand they are the most

appropriate ways to collect data, and on the other hand

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some limitations still exist. Firstly, secondary data

lacks reliability and validity that could only be used to

support the primary findings to some extent. Secondly, in

the primary research, the interviewees were not chosen

from a very broad area that might not represent all the

situations.

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Chapter 4: Findings

4.1 Introduction

This chapter will show the findings of the primary

research and some will be supported by the secondary

data. It will begin with the findings of the exhibition,

which generally introduces the status of e-HRM currently

in the business world and provide some opinions from two

managers, several suppliers of the e-HRM software and

several scholars. They are summarized into quantitative

data. In addition, a Report of Customer Investigation in

Using E-HRM Software provided by a professional HR

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website in China supported the findings greatly. The

second part will be the findings of interviews with the

corporate HR managers and employees in two corporations.

It will be grouped into qualitative data in accordance to

the relevant research questions.

4.2 Findings of the exhibition

4.2.1 What do we currently know about e-HRM? --- The

status of e-HRM in current business world

The HR Software Exhibition is held twice a year in

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London. It is a great opportunity for companies to seek

better HR solutions and provides suppliers a good

environment to introduce their products. Additionally the

lectures given by the scholars from famous universities

could make more people know the development of the IT in

HRM. At the beginning, there was just some software for

individual part of HRM, such as payroll solution and

taxation solution. Gradually, with the development of IT

and the higher requirement of management, the e-HRM

system appeared, which contains e-organizer, e-staff, e-

payroll, e-recruiting, e-learning, e-analyzer, e-feedback

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360 and e-ESSA(employee satisfaction survey and analysis

system). From this exhibition the status of e-HRM in

current business world is reflected through the opinions

of the managers from different corporations, the

suppliers from software companies and the scholars who

are researching the e-HRM.

A director of a big corporation said the e-HRM could help

them to achieve the aim of speed and he gave a

formulation of speed: Speed = data + software + HR +

finance. The e-HRM could make the human resource of the

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corporation use the software to deal with the data that

get efficiency and cost reduced. It could be seen that e-

HRM is the trend of the HRM in today’s society.

A designer from ICS computing represented the suppliers

to provide their opinion of what e-HRM is: “internet and

intranet based HR software for manager and employee

access; may be part of core HR system or layer on top –

either way access to specific HR functionality or

information; provides access to HR specific information

e.g. policies; mechanism for collection of data from the

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coal face and devolving transactional HR – particularity

important in decentralized or distributed organizations.”

It shows the broad applicability of e-HRM. Although it

has been adopted mostly by the big companies or multi-

national corporations at present, it could be accepted by

most of the companies in the near future due to its

benefit.

Dr John Myerscough from The University of Manchester

narrated the implementation of an e-HRM system in Higher

Education. There are 10000 staffs in the university. The

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requirement gathering drove it tend to employ the e-HRM

system. One is the conflicts between business

requirements and local usability. The local practicality

could not cater to the senior management vision any more.

The other is that the priorities between HR, payroll,

finance and technical lead to conflict, so that the

overall cost is much higher. These reasons reflect the

general reasons to employ e-HRM that the HR system which

only applies a single system within the overall HR system

might cause the unbalance and conflicts, and high cost as

well. It could not meet the requirement of the business

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development.

He listed several points that need to be noticed after

using the new system. It needs long time to change the

business processes and corporate culture. The managers

should know that the new system is used to seek business

benefit but not only IT solutions for the problems, and

the benefits require investment in resources.

It is obvious that status of e-HRM in current business

world becomes increasingly outstanding and tends to take

the place of the conventional HRM one day. It could bring

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huge benefit for big corporations and has great potential

to benefit all of the companies. With the growing of e-

HRM in business world, a plenty of e-HRM software

appeared to meet the demands.

4.2.2 What is the main difference between conventional

HRM and e-HRM? --- E-HRM software is the corn of the e-

HRM

When asking about the main difference between

conventional HRM and e-HRM, managers, designers and

researchers are all referred to the new solution for HR

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issues which reflected by e-HRM software. Through the

software, all of the HR functions could be integrated

into a whole system which provides both managers and

employees an instant access to the information and self-

management. It makes e-HRM different from conventional

HRM essentially. Although the designers said that the

software is just a small part of what the company gets.

With the development of IT and advanced demands of

management appears the software of HR became integrated.

Nowadays most of the large corporations especially the

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multi-national and multi-business corporations applying

the wholly e-HRM software, while other medium

corporations and some of the small sized companies just

adopting several single software to deal with the

particular HR affair.

Taking one typical e-HRM software system of ASR as

example to introduced the features of the e-HRM software

which largely identical but with minor differences

between the different software of different producers. It

is a leading supplier of innovative HR software solutions

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for major issues HR department face, and helps them add

real value to the business by making information more

accessible and manageable. Its customer contains a wide

range of industries and all sizes of companies.

Its products mainly include personnel software, training

software, recruitment software, self service module and

payroll software. If the corporation adopts these

separate modules, they combine to form an entire e-HRM

system and could fulfill all the HR functions, this is

called HR professional. Personnel software helps HR

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department to handle the trivial day-to-day functions,

such as holiday and sickness entitlements, training

history and career progression. Training software

provides course scheduling, automated correspondence and

reporting. With the self-service system it also channels

training requests and evaluating. Recruitment software

handles every step of recruitment, from creating the

vacancy through to issuing the contracts, and also allows

staff to know the vacancy information and to apply. Self

service module aims for the staff accessing to HR

information. It makes HR software become much more

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perfect in reducing cost, raising efficiency and

integrating. Payroll software is the most widely used

one, which includes calculating payroll for employees

with different agreements, printing pay slips, forms and

report, making automatic payments and handling of year

end procedures.

In addition, according to the managers and the designers

the e-HRM development so far is : The system now

provides: absence reporting on-line, staff personal files

on-line, first-rate management information, on-line

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recruitment, live web structure chart and contact

directory and employee self-service.

Development focus from now on should be on the area as

below:

National e-HRM standards

Management information – especially for new equalities

duties

Learning and development

Supporting home and remote workers

Improving the recruitment system

4.3 Interview findings

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The author conducted other ten semi-structured interviews

with one HR manager, two HR department staff and two

employees in each of the two corporations, so that the

data collected could be much more reliable and widely

represented. The interviewees are contacted individually

under the permission of the HR directors. The

interviewees’ identities will not be disclosed and

confidentiality is assured.

From these semi-structured interviews, the findings and

critical review are presented as following. A copy of the

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blank semi-structured interview questions are attached in

the appendix A.

Interviewees are asked 6 to 7 questions due to their

different backgrounds. The interviewees from the

corporation which is still operating conventional HRM are

required to answer the questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6

within which question 5 is only for the manager, while

the interviewees of the company which already applied e-

HRM are asked the questions 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

According to different subjects and objectives, the

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answers of the questions directly or indirectly and some

related information were grouped in five general areas:

managers’ and employees’ insight of conventional HRM and

e-HRM in genera, the relationship between HRM and

corporate performance, the differences between

conventional HRM and e-HRM in daily practice from both

managers’ and employees’ perspectives, the future of HRM,

the practice of e-HRM.

4.3.1 Managers’ and employees’ insight of conventional

HRM and e-HRM in general and the contribution of e-HRM to

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HRM effectiveness

At the beginning of the interview, the question 1, 2 and

3 intended to obtain some general information about the

background of the corporate HRM and interviewees’

understanding and opinions on the current HRM system.

Question 1: What kind of HRM is your company conducting

currently, Conventional HRM or e-HRM? How many employees

does this company have and how many staffs are there in

HR department?

This question as the opening question tends to know the

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background of interviewees’ company and their HRM. In

addition, it could help to confirm a direction and

extension of the interviews. 50% of interviewees are from

the company B which is conducting conventional HRM and

others comes from the company A which is implementing e-

HRM. Although company B is applying MIS, its HRM is still

in the conventional way.

There are 3000 employees in company A and only 14 staffs

in HR department. In company B, there are about 1500

employees while 11 in HR department.

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Question 2: To company A: What were the reasons for

updating your HR system?

To both company A and B: What do you think about its

contribution to HRM effectiveness or the main advantages

and disadvantages of conducting this kind of HRM?

The first question for company A enquired the reasons for

adopting e-HRM and it was followed by the main question

which is a general question about practices of the two

ways of HRM, mainly about the advantages and

disadvantages.

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As to the first question, interviewees from company A

gave several reasons which are summarized as below:

Restructure – amalgamation of payroll and personnel

services

Growing need for management information

Improved access to information needs an integrated

system and self-service portals

Growth in business requires to achieve greater

flexibility, commercial advantage, and improve office

efficiency and reduce costs

Raising manager expectations

To the second question, the interviewees from company A

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mainly talked about the advantages of e-HRM, and two form

company B also show their understanding of e-HRM and

expressed their opinions on the advantage of e-HRM.

They listed three aspects that e-HRM contributes to HRM

effectiveness: manage people, enforce policy and control

processes. According to the interviewees from company A,

the flexible system features rich functionality,

watertight security, and in-built reporting and its

scalability means you can run any number of users, from a

few key people in HR to hundreds of worldwide users. It

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enables managers to pay more attention to the higher

level strategic planning instead of other specific works.

In a word, the key features are saving time and money

while enhancing the flexibility, effectiveness and

efficiency. It offers HR department the tool to achieve

the effective and efficient management of their most

valuable resource – people, and helps HR department to

function as a more strategic, value-enhancing part of the

business.

To summarize their opinions the advantages of e-HRM are:

Building efficient HRM processes

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Enhancing the employee satisfaction through higher

level of internal service

Strategic contribution

Improving employment relationship

Cost reduction

Saving money

Changing the centre of HRM from operational management

to strategic management.

Reducing unfairness and dissatisfaction in performance

appraisal

Meeting the requirement of higher management in the IT

era

Achieving more competitive advantages

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The interviewees of company B listed both advantages and

disadvantages of conventional HRM. The only advantage for

company B is that it adapts to the current corporate

culture and do not need any restructure or change. The HR

manager said that it might better fit for the small sized

company with less than 50 employees. Thus it dose not

need to invest much more in the software which is as

efficient as conventional way. Hence it is a plan to

improve the HRM one day.

While the disadvantages of conventional HRM compared to

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e-HRM are:

It needs more people and cost highly in a long run

It needs more time to deal with the data and

communicate

It could not support corporate MIS to work even more

effective

Question 3: To company B: Do you think this system needs

to be improved and how?

Question 3 enquired the desires of changing in company B.

In the answer of question 2, three interviewees show

their dissatisfaction of the HRM system, so that this

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question just in the sequence to explore their opinions

on changing. As to the other two interviewees, although

they did not dissatisfy with the present system, they

said they would like to improve it to be more efficient.

80% (four) of the interviewees said the improvement

should concern the employee more firstly. The HRM should

be not only manage the human resources but also make all

the human resources involve in the management to

accomplish a better effectiveness. To study from other

corporations is a good way to improve. The rest 20% (one)

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interviewees answered that the management today should

achieve that using the lowest cost to make the highest

income. Therefore the efficient is the goal of

improvement.

4.3.2 The relationship between HRM and corporate

performance

Question 4 and 8 aimed to seek the relationship between

HRM and corporate performance, because the performance is

always used as the scale in management.

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Question 4: To company B: Does this system could still

meet the requirements of development and facilitate the

corporation make even better performance?

60% (three) of the interviewees considered that HR

department directly contributes little to the performance

of the corporation. It could just provide some talents

who are valuable for the corporation through effective

recruitment and training to contribute to the performance

indirectly. Whilst other 40% (two) interviewees agreed

that HRM is crucial for the corporation and if the HRM

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turned more efficient and effective, it should be

directly contribute to the performance by reducing the

cost.

Question 8: To company A: Does it facilitate the

corporation makes superior performance than before and

how?

To this question, all (100%) interviewees answered “yes”.

They believe that the utilization of new technology

brought plenty of benefits for the corporation, such as

using fewer people to do more work and accelerating the

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speed of communication and information transfer. It means

saving time and reducing costs. The manager said it

provides possibilities for supporting workplace leaning

and offering flexible training. In another word, it

facilitates corporate HRD (human resource development)

which is an important portion for good performance. All

of these are achieved by using the completely e-HRM

system to cooperate with the ERP system. It has two ways

to obtain the appropriate system, internal exploration

combines with cooperated exploit or purchase. Company A

conducted internal exploration combines with cooperated

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exploit, because in this way the system could cater for

the company demands furthest and facilitate performance

most.

4.3.3 The differences between conventional HRM and e-HRM

in daily practice from both managers’ and employees’

perspectives

Question 7: To company A: Did it make big different in

your company and had some impact on your work? Do you

much satisfy with it?

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This question intends to explore the effect of using e-

HRM, and find out the differences between e-HRM and

conventional HRM father based on the question 2. All

(100%) the interviewees agreed that the application of e-

HRM system brought many differences and satisfied with

it.

To the employees, it always reflected on some daily

affair. For example, the absence control and e-HRM

calendars could not only enable managers to identify and

address issues promptly by highlighting of absence, but

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also help staffs to automate absent applying and holiday

booking. They are satisfying with the easy accession of

information and online self-management.

The manager and HR staff said it provided easy access to

employee information, and enabled managers to automate

and enforce HR processes, analyze trends, record

feedback, and meet legislative changes, all of which

facilitates decision-making and gives the managers more

time for strategic planning. It reduces the workload and

increases efficiency and accuracy. The previous system

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was just a static data base, but the new system is

dynamic to meet the demands of HRM reformation. Therefore

e-HRM helps the company to build a more productive

working environment and contribute to create a stronger,

better-informed and more highly skilled organization

which keeps pace with the rapid change and increased

complexity of the new era.

4.3.4 The future of HRM

Question 5: To manager of company B: If it is possible,

how do you want to change the HRM in your company?

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This question is set to ask the conventional HR managers’

thought of their future plan of HRM.

The manager of company B answered that adoption of e-HRM

will be definitely come true one day in this company, but

it needs a long way. There are some resistance now

because of the policy and organizational environment.

More important is that there are risks in transforming.

Indeed, the current system is obviously out of date. He

planned to change the system gradually to enable the

company meet the requirements.

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Question 6: How do you think e-HRM would be the trend of

HRM in the IT era?

This is a question to know opinions of the HRM trend and

how they look on e-HRM in today’s society.

70% (seven) of interviewees show their confidence in the

future of e-HRM. The IT on HR is changing overtime, and

the developments always benefit someone which means it

meets the dire need of customers. E-HRM is emerged with

the demands of efficiency and IT solution of HRM. These

demands will be sustained in the near future, so that the

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great prospect of e-HRM is indubitable. However the other

30% (three) interviewees were not sure about that e-HRM

would be the only future of HRM. They thought it depended

on the nature of companies. Conventional HRM with simple

HRIS could still be valuable and suitable for some

special companies.

4.3.5 The practice of e-HRM

Question 9: To company A: How do you choose the

appropriate software or what should be noticed if you

need to choose the software?

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The question 9 aims to investigate how to choose the e-

HRM software, and also the important points need to be

noticed and the conditions need to be considered.

To managers this is a practical question but to employees

this is just an imaginative question under their

reasonable inductive from the users’ perspectives.

However the finding shows that the answers from managers

and employees are almost the same in some crucial points.

According to the manager, the main principle in choosing

the software is “easy to use, practical to use and

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sufficient to use” and the starting point need to be in

the particular organization, and it needs consult users,

or else there might be some improper problems. This also

includes functions, prices and after sale service.

Besides, there is another important point is that the

expansibility of the software. It needs to change and

develop with the changing of management practice.

Question 10: To company A: Is there any problem and

crucial points that should be noticed in conducting e-HRM

in your point of view?

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Through this question, the author intends to understand

the e-HRM practice deeply and find out the problems exist

at present.

The manager and HR staffs said that buying the system was

just the start, much more work need to do to cooperate

conducting it, because development needs people and

money. Therefore more training and investment are

required, or else the effectiveness of the system could

not be fulfilled. Currently the main problem is that it

is difficult and needs long time to build the corporate

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culture which encourages everyone to catch up with the

pace of reform and take full advantage of the system.

Otherwise, the other interviewees had another opinion

that the system is just the mean, the data and analysis

is the end. The attention should be on the outcome of

adopting the system and make it contribute more to the

overall performance. At present, the company A emphasizes

the system itself and the fact rather that its outcome.

Although the advantages and effectiveness of e-HRM is

unexceptionable, there are some problems in the process

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of carrying it out. Those above are from company A, but

are representative to some extent.

Chapter 5: Discussion and suggestions

5.1 Introduction

This part will analyze the findings critically with

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reference to the literature reviewed in chapter 2. Ground

on the literature, research objectives, research

questions and the grouped findings, the discussion will

progress in three aspects: how to understand e-HRM after

comparing it with conventional HRM, the contribution of

e-HRM to HRM effectiveness and corporate performance, and

the controversy and future of e-HRM. After this

discussion, the e-HRM in the new era will be explained

incisively and vividly.

5.2 Comparing conventional HRM and e-HRM to

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understand e-HRM

5.2.1 Differences between conventional HRM and e-HRM

Through the observation in the exhibition and interviews

the differences between conventional HRM and e-HRM based

on the application of e-HRM software could be explained

in terms of the four main functions of HRM, HR planning,

recruitment and selection, training and development, and

rewards.

In conventional HRM, HR planning is simply to comply with

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the order of the superior managers and cooperate with the

needs of the corporation, while e-HRM emphasizes that the

HR planning participates the strategic management of the

corporation actively and connects with outside source to

set up the reserve pool of people. In addition it helps

existing employees do career planning strategically.

In the recruitment and selection process, e-HRM achieves

efficiency much greatly than conventional HRM. It could

provide a more instant channel for both those who are

hunting a job and corporate recruiters to access to the

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information easily. Due to the usage of software,

hundreds of applications could be sorted into a shortlist

of candidates in a second using any conditions. Therefore

e-HRM saves a plenty of time and money compared with

conventional ways.

Training and development became more flexible and could

satisfy more people using e-HRM software. The self-

service choice creates more opportunities for employees

to attend any training. Besides all the programs could be

harmonized under the control of the system to make it not

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only cater to everyone’s taste, but also assist to the

strategic development of the corporation.

As to the performance and rewards, the payroll software

before e-HRM software has already given the solutions.

Now in the e-HRM systems, the performance and rewards

part is similar with payroll system. It makes all the

payment process to be automatically and much open to

employees than it does in conventional way.

Hence the core differences between conventional HRM and

e-HRM, which due to the application of software could be

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seen from these four functions much clearer. E-HRM views

employees as the internal customer. The achievement of

both B2B and B2C communication makes HRM become more

effectiveness and easy to acceptable for employees.

5.2.2 Features and advantages of e-HRM

According to the differences above, and to sum up what

the literatures listed and primary research findings, the

features of e-HRM are acknowledged as below:

Flexible in customizable work flow

Capable to access control and multi site

Capability of self-service such as online leave

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application, auto routing and approval

Integrated with time management system and strategic

plan of the whole corporation

Integrated with recruitment system, training system

and payroll system

Web reporting features

These are contained by the three levels feature of e-HRM

just as Panayotopoulou, Vakola and Galanaki, (2007)

summarized, publishing of information, automation of

transactions with integration of workflow, and

transformation of the HR function.

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Based on these features the advantages in implementing e-

HRM are:

Building efficient HRM processes

Enhancing the employee satisfaction through higher

level of internal service

Strategic contribution

Improving employment relationship

Cost reduction

Changing the centre of HRM from operational management

to strategic management.

Reducing unfairness and dissatisfaction in performance

appraisal

Meeting the requirement of IT era

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Achieving more competitive advantages

5.2.3 Understand of e-HRM

Through comparing the differences between conventional

HRM and e-HRM, the features and advantages of e-HRM are

obviously. To summarize, e-HRM could be understand from

four main aspects. First is the change of HR department’s

role and goal. Second is providing better service for

internal customers – employees. Third is reformation of

management concepts. Lastly is reducing cost through

applying new technology. Hence the “e” in term e-HRM

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could not stand for “electronic”, but also for

“efficiency”. Efficiency is the ultimate goal of HRM or

management, while electronic is only the mean.

5.3 Contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness

and corporate performance

5.3.1 The contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness

Through the three cases study in the literature review

and the interviews conducted in two different types of

corporations, the contribution of e-HRM to HRM

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effectiveness are obvious. The literatures indicated that

e-HRM helped the company became more efficient and

effective and it attributes not only to the application

of new technology, but also to the acknowledgement and

high estimate of e-HRM system by employees. (Runy, 2006;

Ruel, Bondarouk and Velde, 2007; Zhang and Wang, 2006;

Ford, 2006; Cronin, 2006)

In addition, from the interview questions on managers’

and employees’ insight of conventional HRM and e-HRM in

general and their opinions of the contribution of e-HRM

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to HRM effectiveness, it can be found that the judgments

of e-HRM are positive. In company B, even if it still

conducting conventional HRM, HR managers and most of the

employees could understand the trend of e-HRM, because

the limitation of conventional HRM are evident in the IT

era.

There is some other evidence from the exhibition. The

cases showed there illustrated the effectiveness of e-HRM

further. For example National express said “all HR

systems basically do the same job but we need a fully

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integrated system that is quick to deploy, minimizes

manual input, copes with our unusual company structure

and employee shift patterns and, importantly, includes a

really flexible reporting tool. KCS offers all of these.”

(Order story, 2007) e-HRM just combines all of the HR

partial systems together to integrate into a whole which

accomplishes huge HRM effectiveness.

5.3.2 The contribution of e-HRM to corporate performance

Corporate performance is influenced by many factors.

Commonly, the product, marketing, investment and

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executive management could contribute to the performance

as everyone knows. Moreover, the corporate culture,

organizational commitment, corporate branding and

reputation, leaders, managers and staff, organizational

learning and the management of all the departments could

impact on the financial or other performance of the

corporation. (Harris & Chernatony, 2001; Inglis, Morley &

Sammut, 2006; Lee & Yu, 2004; Rashid, Sambasivan &

Johari, 2003; Liyanage and Poon, 2003)

The traditional dimensions of corporate performance are

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profitability, productivity and market valuation, as well

as the corporate social responsibility is considered as a

part of the performance nowadays. Firer and Williams

(2003) found out that under these dimensions, the

corporate performance heavily relies on the intellectual

capital or human resources of the corporation. As a

result, the corporate performance is evidently related

with the management of human resources. Guest (1997)’s

‘box model’ also shows the linkage between HRM and

performance. It could be explained in this way:

organization strategy is reflected through HRM practices,

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while HRM behavior and performance outcomes influence the

organization’s financial outcomes. Thus how to manage HR

effectively to make them contribute more to the

corporation becomes an important question in order to

make a better performance. The application of e-HRM

strengthens the HRM effectiveness that could contribute

to corporate performance further.

A survey indicated that the goal to make HR to be more

strategic has been achieved by using of technology in 75%

of the respondents. The self-service brought by

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technology providing operational efficiency in particular

and it enables HR possess much more additional strategic

value, such as gathering metrics for proactive budget,

offering strategic consulting to line managers and

improving revenue growth. (HR Focus, 2007)

The interviews with company A and B show that the

contribution of e-HRM to corporate performance is

acknowledged by both managers and employees. Although

some of them could only see the direct effect and

understand it through their own experience, the fact that

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e-HRM affects performance is indubitable.

5.4 The controversy and future of e-HRM practice

5.4.1 The problems and controversy of e-HRM practice

Literatures indicated that e-HRM is still at the infant

stage that there must be problems in practice. (Zhang and

Wang, 2006; Turnbull, 2005) Some scholars and managers in

the exhibition said that the functions and integrity of

the e-HRM system has been much better than before.

However it does not mean that it has already done the

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best. There will be more preferable functions or features

should be achieved in the future. For instance, the most

of the software currently are designed for big companies

and its effectiveness and efficiency could only be

accomplished in big sized corporations. The sellers

agreed this sentence that their target customers are

mostly the large companies, because it might not that

helpful for small-sized companies. Just as some

researchers pointed out that the effectiveness of e-HRM

system depends on the size of the corporation. (Ball,

2001)

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Although some other scholars believed that the size of

corporations could not influence the effectiveness of e-

HRM (Hussain, Wallace and Cornelius, 2006), the evidences

from both sellers and customers of e-HRM software at

least demonstrate that the e-HRM software is not suitable

and popular for small-sized companies at present. The

software companies should notice this controversy on the

size of the corporation and the e-HRM application. The e-

HRM software should also try to meet the requirements of

small companies.

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Some other problems in e-HRM practice are listed by the

interviewees from company A, as well as by Turnbull

(2005). The corporations which is implementing or will

implement e-HRM should conceive that it not a simple

process of change the IT system of HRM, but involves the

culture changing, the strategic management and continuous

learning.

5.4.2 The future and development of e-HRM

Most of people recognized that the future of e-HRM is

186

optimistic. It would be the trend of HRM in IT era. (HR

focus, 2004) As the literature on e-HRM turned into

flourishing, it can be said that the implementation of e-

HRM became popular, and it is proved by the primary

interviews. Either the company which has applied e-HRM or

the company which is still in the conventional HRM stage,

they preferred e-HRM because its outstanding advantages

displayed in today’s IT environment.

With the higher requirement of business and technology,

the future e-HRM system would be more perfect an even

187

developed. As the author knows from the exhibition,

development of e-HRM system focus from now on should be

on the area of national e-HRM standards, management

information – especially for new equalities duties,

learning and development, and supporting home and remote

workers. Another Report of Customer Investigation in

Using E-HRM Software provided by a professional HR

website in China supported the findings greatly. It

investigated the situation of using e-HRM software in 524

corporations. It tested the software from nine aspects.

First is the basic functions, the result is that the

188

producers of e-HRM software currently emphasizes

technology more than the HRM functions of the software.

Second is that whether it is easy to use. It shows most

of them are easy for staff to understand and use. Third

is its expansibility which is evaluated on the low side.

Fourth is after-sale service. All most all the informants

are satisfy with the currently after-sale service of the

software companies. Fifth is the price of the software.

Most of the customers considered the price are

reasonable. Last one is the satisfaction of the software.

Only half of the customers are satisfy with the software

189

in general, so that the unitary appraisal of e-HRM

software is still low. (Chinahrd, 2007)

Therefore, on the one hand, with the number of companies

which applies e-HRM increasing, e-HRM would be stressed

by more corporations to enhance their management level,

on the other hand, in the future e-HRM has a long way to

become developed and satisfied most of the customers in

all aspects.

5.5 Suggestions

190

After understanding of e-HRM compared with conventional

HRM, some suggestions will be given for the producers of

e-HRM software and the corporation which intends to

implement e-HRM at the end of this study.

For the producers of e-HRM software, they should pay

attention that e-HRM is not simply change traditional way

of HRM practices into the electronic way, but is to

achieve the cooperation of IT and HR functions that

contribute to the effectiveness of HRM and corporate

management. Therefore more attention is needed to know

191

what the managers and employees really want.

For the companies which will implement e-HRM, they should

know that the e-HRM is not a simple use of software, but

is a system project, needs to meet the fact of the

corporation and transform in many aspects continuously,

so that the applying of e-HRM could improve the

management of HR and facilitate the corporate

development. In addition, to choose an experienced

producer and appropriate software package is crucial to

be successful.

192

How to select a package? The most important are: software

Author, product, functionality, look and feel,

flexibility, technology and cost. Firstly the software

author needs to meet several standards, company

stability, existing customers and financial requirement.

As to the product, there should be a stable version and

many successful live users. Third is functionality, means

the system could grow and change with the business and

fulfill all the requirements. Lastly, the cost including

that how easy and quick it could be implemented, the

training, consultancy and configuration cost, ongoing

193

support cost, and life cycle cost.

194

Chapter 6: Conclusion and limitations

6.1 Conclusion of the study

This dissertation will gave an introduction of e-HRM and

adopts comparison in many aspects to demonstrate e-HRM

actually which is different from most of the pervious

studies. It includes the comparison between two

195

corporations currently conducting different HRM style, as

well as the comparison between the previous system and

new e-HRM system in one corporation. Based on these

comparisons this dissertation examined the facts of e-HRM

both in theory and in practice through comparison study

between conventional HRM and e-HRM in the purpose of

contributing to advancing e-HRM research. Taking the

essential theories of HRM as the foundation which

promoted by several famous researchers such as Storey,

this study learned the previous research on both

conventional HRM and e-HRM and found out how is the e-HRM

196

developed and its relationship with conventional HRM.

Furthermore the features and advantages of e-HRM are

generalized according to all kinds of research papers.

Therefore the reasons for adoption of e-HRM were educed.

In general, e-HRM is developed from HRIS and shares the

same basic theory with conventional HRM, whereas the

efficiency and effectiveness of e-HRM are much higher

than conventional HRM because of the adoption of

technology in e-HRM. Thus the performance of e-HRM mainly

depend on the application of software or even larger

management system, including self-service capability

197

based on internet and intranet, integrated capability,

and shaking off the inefficient work flow. Moreover

contribution of e-HRM to strategic HRM is distinct. The

cases and evidences from literatures illustrated better

that the application of e-HRM could bring a great many

benefits in the long term. (Runy, 2006; Ruel, Bondarouk

and Velde, 2007; Zhang and Wang, 2006)

In order to investigate more about the up to date usage

of e-HRM in practice, this dissertation mainly conducted

interviews with two different corporations which

198

implement conventional HRM and e-HRM respectively.

Supported by observation of the e-HRM software

exhibition, the actuality of e-HRM and the effect of e-

HRM adoption as well as problems associated with it have

been discussed among managers, employees, scholars,

designers and sellers. The findings show that adoption of

e-HRM could build efficient HRM processes, enhance the

employee satisfaction through higher level of internal

service, improve employment relationship, reduce cost,

change the centre of HRM from operational management to

strategic management, as well as reduce unfairness and

199

dissatisfaction in performance appraisal. It really

brings plenty of benefits for effective HRM and corporate

performance. Moreover the interviews show that e-HRM has

been accepted by most of managers and employees, though

there are still some problems in implementing. The

culture problem is the most important problem one, any

corporation wants to change the style of HRM should do

more on the improvement of their corporate culture and

system first. It means the acceptable culture among

employees and managers could lead to the success of e-

HRM.

200

Considering the controversies of the relationship between

the corporate size and e-HRM practices, the findings show

that it indeed existed. On the one hand, the producers of

e-HRM software could not consider more about the small-

sized companies’ needs. On the other hand, the e-HRM is

not that popular in most of the companies, especially in

small-sized companies. Therefore the effectiveness of e-

HR for small companies won’t be achieved unless much

effort from both providers of software and companies

themselves.

201

6.2 Contribution and beneficiaries of this

dissertation

After discussing the findings of the primary research and

data from secondary research, the aims and objectives of

this dissertation are achieved and the research questions

are answered. The explanation of advantages of e-HRM

answered why it is preferable and provides managers

useful information when they intend to adopt e-HRM.

Moreover the findings show that due to the HR software

usage e-HRM facilitates effective HRM and better

202

performance of corporations. Therefore these findings

could help more managers to consider about the

transformation of HRM. The effectiveness of e-HRM also

reminds managers to focus more on B2C communication,

which views employees as the internal customers.

According to the exhibition observation and interviews,

the exploration of using HR software and suggestions

offered information for managers and providers to know

each other better. Managers could learn how to choose the

HR software while providers could know what kinds of

products should be provided and they could understand

203

better about HRM. These suggestions to both customers and

producers of e-HRM software provided a valuable

consultation for them to develop.

For other researchers on HRM, this comparison study

provides a comprehensive explanation of e-HRM from

another point of view. It introduced e-HRM compared with

conventional HRM and explained the relationship between

them, so that the inevitable trend of e-HRM popularity is

obviously. This dissertation also examined the actuality

of e-HRM more detailed in practice according to the

204

interviews and observation. It could help people to

understand e-HRM deeply and have clear cognition of e-HRM

application after identifying critical factors in e-HRM

adoption, and discussing the manner in which e-HRM shapes

the role of HRM in the new economy. People will perceive

the effect of e-HRM in the future.

6.3 Limitations

Finally it has to be explained that there were some

limitations in conducting this research. Firstly, the

interview did not involve a broad range of interviewees,

205

thus the findings might not be comprehensive

representatively. The reason is that this topic might

relate to some corporate secret and most of the

corporations did not like to communicate with the author

about their management affair. The future research should

try to cover more corporations. Secondly, most of the

interviewees are employees and their responds to the

interviews were simply based on their perception. Further

studies needs to interview as many managers as employees.

Therefore, it must be cautious to use the findings in

other research.

206

207

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Appendix A

Letter used in Semi-structured interviews

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Yanbo Hao. I am a postgraduate in the major of

MSc Human Resource and Employment Relations at Brunel

University. Currently, I am required to undertake a

dissertation about comparison between conventional HRM

and e-HRM.

For my primary research, I would like to interview you to

find out opinions about the conventional HRM practices

and e-HRM conducting on management perspective or

223

application perspective.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could assist me by

providing some information, which will help me to

complete the dissertation. I promise that the information

you provide would not be disclosed to anyone else so that

confidentiality is assured.

I much appreciate of your help and thank you very much

for your participation.

Yours sincerely,

Yanbo Hao

23rd July 2007

224

Appendix B

Interview questions

1. What kind of HRM is your company conducting currently,

Conventional HRM or e-HRM? How many employees does this

company have and how many staffs are there in HR

department?

2: To company A: What were the reasons for updating your

HR system?

225

To both company A and B: What do you think about its

contribution to HRM effectiveness or the main advantages

and disadvantages of conducting this kind of HRM?

3. To company B: Do you think this system needs to be

improved and how?

4. To company B: Does this system could still meet the

requirements of development and facilitate the

corporation make even better performance?

Question 5: To manager of company B: If it is possible,

how do you want to change the HRM in your company?

6. To company B: How do you think e-HRM would be the

trend of HRM in the IT era?

7. To company A: Did it make big different in your

company and had some impact on your work? Do you much

satisfy with it?

226

8. To company A: Does it facilitate the corporation

makes superior performance than before and how?

Question 9: To company A: How do you choose the

appropriate software or what should be noticed if you

need to choose the software?

Question 10: To company A: Is there any problem and

crucial points that should be noticed in conducting e-HRM

in your point of view?

Appendix C

Interview examples

1. Company A Yitai Group, HR department staff

(2nd Aug. 2007)

227

2. Company B: Erdos Electric Power Corporation,

HR manager (25th July 2007)

228

229

230

231

232

233