Human Resource Management-relevant Virtual Community Re- search: Review and Outlook

Virtual Community (VC) is a comprehensive phenomenon with relevance to social as well as economic transactions. Also Human Resource Management (HRM) includes both relationshipand value added-oriented processes. HRM-actors, in particular HR-managers and employees, increasingly try to balance their personal and job-related needs. Thus, given increasingly spatially dispersed workplaces, the usage of VC may generate benefits or risks for HRM-relevant processes. Further, applicants utilize VC to enhance their chances in the recruitment process. Yet, although there is practical evidence of HRM-relevant VC (VCHR), respective research literature seems to be scarce. To explore this, the paper aims at assembling and evaluating relevant academic literature to give an impulse for systematic VCHR-research which might abet to the development of a respective research area in the context of e-HRM.