 RESEARCH AT CRANFIELD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
DESIRED GOALS AND ACTUAL OUTCOMES OF E-HRM AND AN EXAMINATION OF
E-HRM AS A MEANS TO INCREASE THE VALUE OF THE HR FUNCTION
Emma Parry
Principal Research Fellow
Organisations are using e-HRM in order to redeploy HR practitioners from transactional work
to more strategic and value-added activities.
.
The use of e-HRM has increased greatly over
recent years with most large organisations
now using technology to some extent in their
management of human resources. The two
articles summarised examine e-HRM: Parry
focuses on the potential use of e-HRM as a
means to increase the value of the HR
function and Parry and Tyson investigate the
desired goals and actual outcomes of e-HRM.
Past research has suggested that e-HRM may
support the HR function in becoming more
efficient, improving service delivery and
adopting a greater role in delivering the firm’s
business strategy. The results from a largescale survey across 12 countries showed that
e-HRM may help HR to increase its value by
becoming more strategic, but found no
evidence of cost savings due to reductions in
HR headcount. This suggests that
organisations are using e-HRM in order to
redeploy HR practitioners from transactional
work to more strategic and value-added
activities.
While cost reduction mentioned above is one
of the outcomes of e-HRM, many potential
goals of e-HRM are highlighted in the second
article. However, few scholars have looked at
whether these goals are actually realised and
what factors have an impact on this. Parry and
Tyson explicitly examined the goals stated by
organisations for the introduction of e-HRM,
whether these goals were actually achieved,
and the factors affecting this through ten case
studies in a range of UK organisations.
The results of this study demonstrated that eHRM is introduced in order to improve
efficiency, service delivery, standardisation
and organisational image, to empower
managers and transform HR into a more
strategic function. Efficiency, service delivery
and standardisation goals were commonly
realised. Some evidence of a transformational
RESEARCH AT CRANFIELD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
impact of e-HRM was found, as the HR staff
had more time and information to support the
organisation in achieving its business strategy.
However, no evidence was found of an actual
increased involvement of HR in business
decision making.
These two studies suggest that organisations
are using e-HRM in order to redeploy HR
practitioners from transactional work to more
strategic and value-added activities.
Parry, E. & Tyson, S. (2011) Desired goals
and actual outcomes of e-HRM, Human
Resource Management Journal, vol. 21, no. 3,
pp. 335–354
&
Parry, E. (2011) An examination of e-HRM as
a means to increase the value of the HR
Function, International Journal of Human
Resource Management, vol. 22, no. 5, pp.
1146–1162
For further details on these research papers
please contact: emma.parry@cranfield.ac.uk
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