POLITICAL POWER GAMES AND INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF e–HRM IMPLEMENTATION FROM MICRO–POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Mattila, Jaakko (2013)
Kuvaus
Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.
Tiivistelmä
As companies are continuously seeking new ways to modernize their human resources (HR) delivery, improve their cost structures and overall business strategy, e–HRM systems are the latest trend which seeks to combine the potential of information systems (IS) into new way to deliver HR. As a result, e-HRM industry has become a multibillion–euro business for technology suppliers. However, this phenomenon has not been as popular in academic research as one would hope it to be and especially issues regarding micro - and macro level environment in implementation projects are almost without prior research. Hence, this study seeks to shed light on the implementation environment in international, institutional and micro–political level and particularly investigate the role of a vendor consultant in these projects.
This paper builds from theories linked to micro–political and institutional environments and highlights these issues in e–HRM implementation context. This study argues that firstly, it is necessary to understand the implications surrounding to the e–HRM system implementations, secondly understand why external experts are used, and thirdly, comprehend the influence of external and social environment to the implementation projects. With this in mind, the theoretical part of this research combines and constructs a framework from relevant academic articles within aforementioned themes. The framework is then tested against empirical evidence gathered from a Finnish e-HRM vendor.
Results suggest that consultants have a key role in the implementation and have ability to change the intended outcomes, but still more research is needed. Institutional environment, on the other hand, creates boundaries for the implementation in terms of critical elements that must be addressed. Within these boundaries it is the organizational micro–politics and social interactions (i.e. conflicts and power games) among stakeholders which ultimately shape how e–HRM fits in its’ unique institutional and social context. This means that to be successful organizations need to address both of these environments and thus invest enough time for analysis and preparation.
This paper builds from theories linked to micro–political and institutional environments and highlights these issues in e–HRM implementation context. This study argues that firstly, it is necessary to understand the implications surrounding to the e–HRM system implementations, secondly understand why external experts are used, and thirdly, comprehend the influence of external and social environment to the implementation projects. With this in mind, the theoretical part of this research combines and constructs a framework from relevant academic articles within aforementioned themes. The framework is then tested against empirical evidence gathered from a Finnish e-HRM vendor.
Results suggest that consultants have a key role in the implementation and have ability to change the intended outcomes, but still more research is needed. Institutional environment, on the other hand, creates boundaries for the implementation in terms of critical elements that must be addressed. Within these boundaries it is the organizational micro–politics and social interactions (i.e. conflicts and power games) among stakeholders which ultimately shape how e–HRM fits in its’ unique institutional and social context. This means that to be successful organizations need to address both of these environments and thus invest enough time for analysis and preparation.