Factors Affecting Extent of HRIS Adoption and its Impact on Organization's Performance: Moderating Role of HR Staff Expertise

Abstract

The human resource information system is a class of specialized applications that were designed to improve management of an organization’s human assets. Human resource information system supports the alignment of strategic outcomes which are essential for achieving sustained competitive advantage. Resultantly, human resource information system plays a major role in enhancing the organization’s performance, and impact its bottom line. The deployment of an effective human resource system is part of a holistic approach, partial implementation does not yield the same results. The main construct of interest for this study was the “extent of HRIS adoption”. The model that was developed and elaborated upon in this study incorporates the ideas of Mayfield, who provided a functional perspective of human resource information system, going beyond focusing on automating the various activities performed in human resources. The model then tests this impact of the extent of HRIS adoption on organization’s performance. Furthermore, the model developed for this study also incorporated the antecedents of the extent of HRIS adoption. In order to an all-inclusive model, the moderating role of HR staff expertise was also added to the model for the current study. Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire. The sample (n = 108) was drawn from organizations in the capital city of Pakistan. One-way Analysis of Variance was used to isolate the effect of contextual factors at the organizational and respondent level. Two organizational and two respondent level factors caused a significant variation in extent of HRIS adoption and one organizational factor caused variation in organization’s performance. Correlation analyses indicated the presence of a significant positive association between the antecedent and the outcome variable. Regression analysis was also performed and the results from this also confirmed the positive influence of innovation and environmental characteristics on the extent of HRIS. The extent of HRIS positive influence on organization’s performance. The results of the moderation analysis of the effect of HR staff expertise was not confirmed, although HR staff expertise was found to have a significant effect on organization’s performance. The results from this study contribute to the literature on extent of HRIS adoption in three ways (a) provides a different operationalization of the construct of extent of HRIS, (b) it examines the relationship between extent of HRIS, and its antecedents, (c) extent of HRIS adoption also tended to predict organization’s performance and its implications for managers and researchers have also been suggested.