Going beyond operational efficiency in HR using IT - A Literature Review of Human Resources Information Systems

Leading academics claim that the management of human resources will be most critical in gaining competitive advantage. Today, the human resources departments (HR) are transforming themselves from an administrative cost-center to an internal partner delivering additional business value. In this transformation process, information technology (IT) could play a key role. Therefore, this paper aims to unfold both the current state of knowledge concerning the value contribution of information systems (IS) for the HR function and approaches that go even beyond operational efficiency. Reviewing nearly 8,000 articles, published in the proceedings of eight major IS conferences reveals that in total 35 articles exclusively deal with the topic of human resources information systems (HRIS) but only very few research approaches show, how HRIS could help to go beyond operational efficiency. Furthermore, the literature analysis identifies that approaches dealing with the IT support for HR planning processes are completely missing so far.