E-Human Resources Management: Managing Knowledge People

Book Preface

e-HRM: Managing Knowledge People responds to the challenge of documenting recognizable, innovative, and creative approaches to e-HRM. Its aim is to define and carry forward the debate in a complex and versatile matter.

Future research will continue the process of clarifying and documenting the evolution of e-HRM. In the meantime, however, human resources management researchers, faculty, practitioners, and consultants may find the ideas and experiences offered in this book genuinely helpful and illuminating.

This book is presented in four sections — the first intended to be more general in nature, the following three devoted to specific aspects of the HRM field in the new information era. Section I, The Cutting-Edge in HRM, presents an overview of how ITCs are modifying general HRM processes and functions. This is the aim of the first three contributions.

In the first chapter, Web-Based Organizing in Traditional Brick-and-Mortar Companies: The Impact on HR, Jaap Paauwe, Elaine Farndale, and Roger Williams, based mostly on their personal experience, focus on how old economy organizations are developing new business models. These models are changing both customers’ and suppliers’ relationships with the organization and, of course, e-commerce strategy as a whole. With these new models being implemented, the potential implications for HRM need to be explored. The effects of Web-based organizing in HRM, including workers’ selection, training and development, learning, trust-building within an organization, and knowledge sharing, among others, are discussed. One relevant conclusion of their analysis is that “internal improvements, necessary for the successful transference of business to the Internet, will enable the HR function to justify its existence in financial terms.”

Scott A. Davis and Robert F. Calderón, in their chapter Integrating Handheld Computer Technology into HR Research and Practice, present potential applications of handheld computers for HR practice and research. They anticipate major improvements and widespread implementation of wireless networks with resulting implications for worker mobility, availability, and communication.

These factors will impact work planning, schedules, conducting meetings, organizational data sharing, and an optimum balance between work and life. Their model, which integrates empirical research and practical knowledge, will be useful for those researchers and practitioners eager to explore handheld computer technology applied to strategic HR planning and management.