New e-HRM Typology: From Broadcasting towards
Supply Chain Support
Tanya Bondarouk
1
and Marco Maatman
2
1
University of Twente, School of Management and Governance, OOHR Department
P.O. Box 217 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Abstract. We argue that an existing classification of e-HRM, known as a
division between transactional, relational, and transformational (based on a
canonical work of Lepak and Snell [11]), doesn’t meet all expectations of the
multidisciplinary character of e-HRM and Human Resource Information
Systems. Built mainly on the ideas from the HRM field, it lacks attention to
such properties as coordination of information and its exchange, capturing
knowledge domain, and communication languages. We propose to broaden
existing typology by inclusion insights from the field of information
technologies. In the suggested typology, e-HRM / HRIS is classified along
ontological, coordination, user-interface, adaptation, and HR function impact
blocks; allowing for distinguishing five types of e-HRM: static and customized
informational, pooled and sequential transactional, and supply chain delivery
support. We see several advantages in using this typology for the practitioners,
the most important is that it helps to evaluate the stage of e-HRM / HRIS
development and foresee horizons for improvements.
1 Introduction
It was more than a decade ago when Lepak and Snell [11] announced that, in response
to external and internal environmental pressures and extensive differentiation,
Information Technologies (IT) offered to Human Resource Management structural
integration through implementing Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) are
Electronic Human Resource Management (e-HRM). Three channels for IT-based
structural integration of HRM were proposed. First, IT was considered as influencing
operational aspects of HRM by helping to overcome the administrative burdens and
streamlining operations. Second, IT was considered as influencing relational aspects
of HRM, by enabling remote access to data bases, enhancing abilities to connect with
different parts within dispersed organizations, and supporting information sharing
with outside service providers. Third affect that IT was assumed to have on the HRM,
was even called “the most dramatic” as it was linked with the transformational HRM
integration (ibid, p. 220), considering IT’s impact on communications, demolishing
organizational boundaries, eliminating barriers of time and space, and supporting
virtual HRM and network organizations [11].
Putting forward to nowadays, recent developments in IT’s and WEB 2.0, increased
flexibility and scope of e-tools, at one hand, and diversity of the workforce, huge
Bondarouk T. and Maatman M. (2009).
New e-HRM Typology: From Broadcasting towards Supply Chain Support.
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Human Resource Information Systems, pages 98-105
DOI: 10.5220/0002196000980105
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

investments in intellectual capital, the war for talent, fashion and brand management,
at the other hand, - are at once increasing variations in e-HRM applications, validate
limitations of the conventional three-set e-HRM typology, and forcing to nuance it.
However, before proposing a new typology for the e-HRM applications, we first
make an overview of existing classifications of the HR practices. This will allow us to
extract the tendency in viewing HR practices, and integrate it with the e-HRM
applications.
2 Existing Typologies of HR Practices
Table 1. Categorizations of (e)-HR practices (chronological order).
Snell et
al., (1995)
[14]
Operational Relational Transformational
Informing, making
information available, and
use for decision support
HR databases,
supporting HR-related
decisions, and increasing
their ability to connect with
other parts of the corporation
Restructuring, reengineering,
outsourcing, and strategic alliances
created by organizations
Huselid et
al. (1997)
[7]
Technical HRM Strategic HRM
Recruiting, selection, performance measurement,
training, and the administration of compensation and
benefits
Compensations systems, team-based job
design, flexible work-forces, quality
improvement practices, employee empowerment
Carrig
(1997)
[1]
Transactional Traditional Transformational
Benefits
administration, record
keeping, employee
services, communication,
performance management
Performance
management, training,
recruiting, employee
relations, compensation,
management development
Management development, business
partner, strategic planning, organization
development, knowledge management
Lepak and
Snell
(1998)
[11]
Traditional Peripheral Core HR activities Idiosyncrati
c HR activities
Low uniqueness,
high generic value and
wide spread
Same as traditional, but
of low value
Highly unique and
highly valuable (for
attaining a competitive
advantage)
Highly
unique with
relatively low
value (for
attaining a
competitive
advantage)
Legnick-
Hall and
Moritz
(2003)
[9]
Publishing
information
Automation of
transactions
Transformation of the way HR is conducted
in the organization
Workflow, supply chain
integration, electronic input
Strategic partnering, centres of expertise,
service centre administration
Gardner et
al. (2003)
[5]
Automation Information Transformation
Delmotte
and Sels
(2005)
[3]
Transactional Transformational
(procedures)
Transformational
(people)
Strategic
Lepak et
al. (2005)
[10]
Transactional Traditional Transformational
Benefits
administration, record
keeping, employee
services, communication,
performance management
Performance
management, training,
recruiting, compensation,
management development
Management development, business
partner, strategic planning, organization
development, knowledge management
99

Table 1 shows some of the classifications of HR practices often used in e-HRM
studies. Authors use different typologies, aiming at their “ideal” classification, to find
a key for the HRM digitalization patterns and factors for the successful
implementation of e-HRM. The main border positions HR practices along a
continuum between technical or traditional and strategic, value-creating practices.
Professional debates continue on ranking HR practices as candidates for
digitalization. For example, the latest CedarCrestone survey [2] covering 828
responses from mostly North American companies (89%) distinguishes four e-HRM
applications:
- Administrative and Workforce Management applications (the core HR, payroll,
record-keeping systems, time management and absence management),
- Service Delivery applications (self-service transactional services),
- Strategic HR applications (talent acquisitions/services, eLearning, training
enrolment, performance management, succession planning, competence planning,
workforce planning), and
- Business Intelligence applications (when combined, they enable organizations to
move towards metrics-based management).
According to the survey results, Administrative e-HR applications are “very
mature with some movement from in-house to software-as-a-service solutions”. These
e-HR applications are now seen as moving towards a hosted solution or to full
outsourcing [2, p.8]. Implementation of Workforce Management applications is
accelerating and, as foreseen in the survey, will be increasingly used in organizations,
where flexible and agile scheduling is needed (ibid).
Service Delivery applications [HR-oriented help desk, employee self-service
(ESS), manager self-service (MSS)] continue to be adopted with their potential ability
to bring extra value through serving more employees with the same or fewer staff, and
reducing transaction cycle time and costs (ibid). An interesting observation from the
survey is that when an ESS or MSS is introduced, five more employees can be served
by the same number of HR staff, and even more with the move to a call centre.
Applications are viewed as strategic in the way that they help an organization
acquire, develop, and retain the right talent as well as make productive use of all
workers [2, p. 14].
Reviewing the data from the CedarCrestone research [2], it is not difficult to
observe symptoms or identifications of ‘practical’ e-HRM patterns, although strict
conclusions are difficult to make. As stated, companies are progressively
implementing more e-HRM, but recently it was observed that HRM professionals
(and their companies) are no longer surprised by the e-HRM phenomenon. Whatever
typology is used (“academic” or “practical”), it is clear that the adoption of e-HRM
grows from technical applications towards strategic ones. Organizations have ‘grown
up’ with administrative e-HRM and are ready for serious discussions about strategic
applications and their implementations. Another intriguing issue is that while the
effectiveness of e-HRM is justified by quantifying strategic success (operating
income growth), the classification of e-HRM / HRIS applications receives less
attention.
100

Reasons to Introduce a New Typology of e-HRM. Why do so many (differences in)
classifications of HR practices exist?
First of all, these variety can be explained as reflecting the variety of (e)-HR
practices in the reality of organizations. Secondly, different conceptualizations of the
role of the same practices confuse the classification. Third, studies might differ in
their understandings of the (e-)HR practices objectives.
We argue that the above mentioned classifications of (e-)HRM practices are not
enough for modern e-HRM for four reasons:
- They mix HRM fields and activities while for e-tolls it is crucially important to
focus on doing e-HRM. Thus, within such a transformational HR one can easily find
administrative and relational components. For example, to conduct a strategic
planning, HR specialists need to administer the data and communicate it to the
business partners.
- They do not echo different levels of interdependence between stakeholders involved
in e-HRM: HR professionals, line managers, employees.
- They do not consider or mix the impacts of an application of the HR function. For
example, is transformational e-HRM a type of e-HRM or a result of its
implementation?
- Existing typologies of e-HRM practices ignore the expertise of IT modelling as a
potential to bring an extra classification criteria.
3 Five Dimensions to Distinguish e-HRM Types
We suggest that a new e-HRM typology should be based on five dimensions that
integrate HRM and IT foci, instead of being linked with the names of the HRM fields:
- Ontological Dimension. Seen as a description of the concepts and relationships that
exist in a community [6]. Ontology in e-HRM applications aims at capturing HRM
domain knowledge in a generic way and provide a common understanding of HRM,
which may be reused and shared across applications. Ontology as a field of
philosophy exists for thousands years. It is underlying question, “What exists? What
is it?” has found its way in IT and cognitive sciences in more specific forms. E-
HRM has to solve the problem “Which HRM content is (to be) represented in a
formal e-tool?” All in all, e-HRM types have to be distinguished on the basis of
HRM language they use, and concepts as building blocks.
- Coordination Dimension. Seen as a process of managing dependencies between
(HRM) activities [12]. Organizational and management science have since long
researched coordination mechanisms with the focus on how people coordinate their
activities in formal organizations. E-HRM types have to be distinguished on the
basis of the coordination structure that is used among all users, information
exchange mechanisms, and communication forms among e-HRM stakeholders.
- User-Interface dimension. Seen as the medium to support the two-way exchange of
symbols and actions between humans (users) and computers. In other words, an
101

interface supports the communication between users (people) and computers. There
are at least two metaphors that describe ways in which humans interact with
computers: the conversational world and the model world. In the conversational
world, the end-user describes what to do, typically using a command language. In
the model world, the end-user shows what to do by “grabbing” and manipulating
(e.g., with a mouse) visual representations of objects. Thus, direct manipulations are
used to describe this interaction style. The research field of Human-Computer
Interaction has been identifying different aspects of user-interface, focusing on the
development, evaluation, and cognitive aspects of human-computer interaction [4].
E-HRM types have to be distinguished on the issues of usability of the e-tools such
as the ability to change the information, display of the user-role, dependency
conflicts, and the focus on the interactions between user operations.
- Adaptability Dimension. Seen as the capacity of e-tools to collect, save and analyze
the information from end-users, and based on the analysis – to adapt it to the needs
of the users. Adaptability is often concerned with personalization and customization
of the content and navigation of applications. The difference between
personalization and customization lays in the question, respectively, whether the
technology self is designed to adapt to users’ behavior, or users themselves should
adapt an application to their preferences [8]. For the distinction between different
types of e-HRM it means adaptability of e-HRM tools of the HRM content, its
presentation, and navigation of the applications.
- Impact on the HR Function. Seen as the role of e-HRM in re-dividing of the
responsibilities held by different actors within the HRM (line managers, HR
professionals and employees). In other words, e-HRM tools should be differentiated
on the basis of who is involved (actors), at which level of an organization, and what
are the HRM responsibilities performed through e-tools.
4 e-HRM Types
We distinguish three main categories of e-HRM that are further divided into five
types:
- Informational e-HRM: (1) Static informational/ broadcasting support, and (2)
Customized / personalized information provision
- Transactional e-HRM: (3) Pooled transactional, and (4) Sequential transactional
- Transformational: (5) Supply chain delivery support
Table 2 below unfolds the five types of e-HRM.
102

Table 2. Types of e-HRM.
Dimens
ions
Informational e-HRM Transactional e-HRM
Transformationa
l
e-HRM
Static
informational/broadca
stin
g
su
pp
ort
Customized/perso
nalized information
p
rovision
Pooled
transaction su
pp
ort
Sequential
transaction support
(
workflow su
pp
ort
)
Supply chain
deliver
y
su
pp
ort
Ontological dimension
Broadcasting/publ
ishing of information,
such as:
- Rules and
legislation
- HR
policies/practices
- Announcements /
news
Generating reports
on org. unit's human
capital properties, such
as:
- formation and
occupation
- expenditures/budg
ets
- skill levels
(compared to
requirements)
- (sick) leave
- mobility
- demographic
composition
Viewing employee
properties, such as:
- personal data
- classifications
(education/experie
nce)
- attendances and
absences
- performance
- a
pp
raisals
Administration of
org. unit's human
capital targets, such as:
- budgets
- formation
- job requirements
- performance
targets
Administration of
employee properties,
such as:
- personal data
- classifications
(education/experie
nce)
- attendances and
absences
- performance
- appraisals
Approval/denial
of requests, such as:
- leave
- expenses claims
Provision of
feedback, such as:
- 360˚
- performance
Supplementation
of records to be
archived, such as:
- results of
calculations
made by
professionals
- supplementation
of data with
restricted access
Creation of
product, such as:
- developed career
path
- composition of an
advice
Creation of an
situation, such as:
- fulfilled vacancy
- paid workforce
Creation of an
outcome: such as:
- an equipped
employee (skills
and equipment)
- qualified project
team
Coordination model
- Information is
published by one (type
of) user, but can be
consulted by whomever
is granted access to the
information
- Information can be
consulted
simultaneously by
multiple users
- The information
offered is the same for
every user granted
access to the
information
- There is no
interaction between the
users by means of the
technology
- Information is
extracted from a
database
- Access to the
information in the
database is often user
specified in as much
detail as necessary
- The information
provided may be
specified by user
requirements
- Specific information
objects can be consulted
by multiple users at the
same time
- There is no
interaction between the
users by means of the
technology
- Individual users
perform operations on
data in a database
- Access to the
information in the
database is often user
specified in as much
detail as necessary
- There is no
interaction (or
sequencing) between
the users by means of
the technology
- Users cannot
perform administrative
operations on a specific
instance of an
information object
simultaneously
- Dependency is
created as different
users can access and
perform operations on
one specific instance of
an object (not
simultaneously)
- A single user can be
involved in operations
on several instances of
different objects
(endeavor), these
endeavors however are
independent for the
technology
- Multiple users are
involved in
performing operation
on an instance of an
object
- Access to an
instance of an object is
granted by a defined
relationship between
the users
- There is sequential
dependency between
the operations to be
made on the instance
of the object by the
users
- The second user
starts operating on the
instance of the object
as the first user has
finished (output of the
first user acts as input
for the second)
- A single user can
be involved in
multiple operations on
several instances of
different objects
(endeavor), these
endeavors can belong
to each other but are
not necessarily
dependant
- The technology
provides mechanisms
to provide the user
status information on
all the endeavors the
user is involved in
- Multiple users are
performing operations
on a single instance of
an object
- The
interdependencies are
superficially created for
the operations on the
specific object based on
the constraints provided
for the creation of the
object
- The systems allows
the coordination
between the operations
of the users
- Dependency is
created as different
users perform
operations on one
specific instance of the
object
- One user may be
dependent on all other
user through a complex
network
(intraorganizationzal)
of dataflow
- Not all the user
might interact with each
other, but their inputs in
the system towards the
end product may
consist out of various
combination of polled
and sequential
interdependency
- Simultaneously
operating on a specific
instance of an object by
different users is
p
ossible
-
103

Table 2. Types of e-HRM (continuation).
User-interface model
- The data is presented
in a single manner
- The users are unable
to change the
representation of the
information
- Context information
is probably not
presented by the
interface as this is
integrated in the
information
broadcasted
- Users can be enabled
to change the
representation of the
information
- The presentation of
the information can be
made dependant of the
user's role
- The User-interface
probably displays
some structural,
organizational and
even social context
- The opportunities
for operations on
the objects through
the interface can be
made user-
dependant
- The interface
displays the role of
the user performing
the operations
- The user-interface
probably displays
some structural,
organizational and
even social context
- The interface
displays
dependency
conflicts
- The user interface
displays the status
of the object
- The interface
displays the role of
the user performing
the operations
- The interface
displays
dependency
conflicts
- The user interface
provides
information on the
participants of the
operations on the
object
- The user-interface
displays some
structural,
organizational and
even social context
- The user interface
displays the status of
the object
- The interface
displays the role and
the tasks of the user
performing the
operations
- The interface is
focused on the
interaction necessary
between the different
user performing
operations on an
instance of an object
- The user-interface
displays structural,
organizational and
even social context
Type adaptation
- Solely user-
interface customization
(static adaptability of
presentation by user)
- Adaptability
(personalization)
based on the user (user
data) of the
technology (static
adaptability of the
content presented)
- Adaptability
(customization) based
on the behavior (data
usage) of the user
(dynamic adaptability
on the content
presented)
- Static information
support
- Adaptability
(personalization)
based on the user
(user data) of the
technology (static
adaptability of
the content
presented)
- Adaptability
(customization)
based on the
behavior (data
usage) of the user
(dynamic
adaptability on
the content
presented)
- Personalized
information
support
- Adaptability
(personalization)
based on the user
(user data) of the
technology
(static
adaptability of
the content
presented)
- Adaptability
(customization)
based on the
behavior (data
usage) of the
user (dynamic
adaptability on
the content
presented)
- Personalized
information
su
pp
ort
- Adaptability
based on the
surroundings of
the product to be
made (dynamic
personalized
adaptation)
- Transactional
support
Impact on the
functioning of the HR
function
- Minimum impact
on the functioning
of the HR
- Medium impact
- Data made
transparent for
employees and
managers
- Less need for
information
provision by HR
professionals
- Considerable
impact
- Devolution of
tasks to line
managers and
employees
- Less
administration
tasks performed
by HR
p
rofessionals
- Considerable
impact
- Less face-to-face
consulting
necessary
- Standardized IT
driven
procedures
- Large Impact
- Integrated HR
function
- Integrated service
provision
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