Journal of Managerial Psychology

Organizational adoption of e‐HRM in Europe: An empirical exploration of major

adoption factors
Stefan Strohmeier Rüdiger Kabst
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Stefan Strohmeier Rüdiger Kabst, (2009),"Organizational adoption of e#HRM in Europe", Journal of
Managerial Psychology, Vol. 24 Iss 6 pp. 482 - 501
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JMP
24,6 Organizational adoption of e-HRM
in Europe
An empirical exploration of major
482 adoption factors
Stefan Strohmeier
Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany, and
Rüdiger Kabst
Justus-Liebig University Gießen, Gießen, Germany
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Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine which factors influence the cross-national
organizational adoption of electronic human resource management (e-HRM) in Europe.
Design/methodology/approach – Major general and contextual influence factors are derived and
tested based on a large-scale survey with a sample of 2,336 organizations in 23 European countries
using logistic regression.
Findings – The findings first reveal that e-HRM is a common practice throughout Europe since
two-thirds of all organizations have already adopted e-HRM. Major general determinants of e-HRM
adoption are size, work organization, and configuration of HRM. In addition, there are major
cross-national differences in e-HRM adoption, unexpectedly revealing Eastern post-communist
countries to lead e-HRM adoption.
Research limitations/implications – Abundance of general and scarcity of contextual factors
imply that there should be further important factors of adoption not considered in this paper. Owing to
its cross-sectional character, the paper is not able to reveal findings of convergence or divergence of
adoption over time.
Practical implications – HR professionals should be informed about the advanced state of e-HRM
adoption, while some general insights are offered which kind of organizations should take an adoption
of e-HRM into consideration.
Originality/value – This paper is a large-scale sample-based evaluation of cross-national influence
factors that drive organizational adoption of e-HRM in Europe.
Keywords Human resource management, Communication technologies, Europe
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Managerial Psychology
Vol. 24 No. 6, 2009
pp. 482-501
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0268-3946
DOI 10.1108/02683940910974099
Introduction
The rapid development of the internet during the last decade has also entailed the
advance of electronic human resource management (e-HRM). Customarily, it is agreed
that e-HRM leads to considerable changes and therefore should be taken as an
important development in the HR field (Lepak and Snell, 1998; Lengnick-Hall and
Moritz, 2003; Gueutal and Stone, 2005). Given this view, a basic research topic refers to
the organizational adoption of e-HRM (Strohmeier, 2007). Beyond the mere state of
adoption, a special question relates to relevant factors of adoption, i.e. is e-HRM a
universal activity that will be adopted by (virtually) all organizations by and by or are
there factors that systematically separate adopting and non-adopting organizations?
Given the manifest national differences in the adoption of various other HR activities
 (Brewster et al., 2004) a special aspect of this question refers to cross-national Organizational
differences in e-HRM adoption due to nationally differing influence factors. adoption of
In the interim, there is a certain body of empirical research that addresses organizational
adoption (Ball, 2001; Beamish et al., 2002; Martin and Jennings, 2002; Comacchio and e-HRM in Europe
Scapolan, 2004; Hausdorf and Duncan, 2004; Hoi, 2006; Florkowski and Olivas-Luján, 2006;
Parry and Wilson, 2006; Olivas-Luján et al., 2007; Panayotopoulou et al., 2007; Teo et al.,
2007; Galanaki and Panayotopoulou, 2008; Keim and Weitzel, 2008; Lau and Hooper, 2008). 483
Basically, these studies can be categorized by their regional and functional focus.
Concerning the regional focus, most studies relate to a single country (Panayotopoulou et al.,
2007), while cross-national studies (Florkowski and Olivas-Luján, 2006) are rare and
restricted to a few countries. Concerning the functional focus, one can distinguish studies
that address the adoption of general e-HRM (Lau and Hooper, 2008) from studies that focus
the adoption of specific functional subset of e-HRM, such as e-recruiting (Keim and Weitzel,
2008) or e-learning (Martin and Jennings, 2002). Customarily, most studies address the
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current state of adoption thereby accordingly yielding the result of a meanwhile wide-spread
adoption. Quite contrary, factors of adoption are rather seldom tackled (Teo et al., 2007) and
the few findings are rather scattered and inconsistent. So far, the only consistent result
exposes organizational size as a determinant of adoption (Ball, 2001; Hausdorf and Duncan,
2004; Florkowski and Olivas-Luján, 2006; Teo et al., 2007). Hence, at present there is only
little knowledge concerning the factors of adoption, especially in a cross-national setting.
Our study therefore aims at a first cross-national exploration of factors that influence
organizational adoption of e-HRM in Europe.
To do so, we first provide definitions, develop a general foundation and identify
factors of adoption. Subsequently, we employ a cross-national large-scale survey to test
our hypotheses on a sample of 2,336 organizations in 23 European countries and
present our results. While finally discussing the results, we also attempt to derive some
conclusions for future work.

Factors of e-HRM adoption

Researching factors of organizational e-HRM adoption refers simultaneously to two
recognized research streams. Since e-HRM mandatorily implies the application of
information technology (IT) e-HRM adoption research refers to research on the adoption
of IT (Jeyaraj et al., 2006). Additionally, since e-HRM can be seen as a HR activity e-HRM
adoption research also refers to research on cross-national adoption of HR practices
(Brewster, 2006). Jointly, these two research streams provide a valuable basis for the
present study. In particular, these research streams are helpful in defining, founding,
and deriving factors of e-HRM adoption.

Definition
Following literature, we initially understand e-HRM as the application of IT to both
network and support diverse actors in their shared performing of HR tasks (Strohmeier,
2007). Besides, the e-HRM concepts there are further similar terms like “virtual HRM”
(Lepak and Snell, 1998) and “web-based HRM” (Ruël et al., 2004). However, since these
terms are of a somewhat narrower intension (Strohmeier, 2007) the e-HRM concept is used.
Concerning adoption it is first generally agreed that adoption constitutes a
multilevel phenomenon, while customarily, the individual level (technology adoption by
individual persons) and the organizational level (technology adoption by organizations
 JMP or organizational units) are distinguished and interaction effects between both levels
24,6 are assumed (Jeyaraj et al., 2006). Since the present study concentrates on the
organizational level, the subsequent definition refers to organizational adoption
(however without ignoring possible level interaction). Moreover, it is generally agreed
that adoption constitutes a process that comprises of several phases (Jeyaraj et al., 2006).
Following a prominent suggestion, initiation, and implementation can be seen as major
484 phases of adoption (Rogers, 2003). Though, the organizational adoption of e-HRM can be
delineated as the process of initiating and implementing IT in order to network and
support diverse actors in their shared performing of HR tasks. These subsequent steps
may be enforced and performed by different internal and/or external actors and/or units.
Again there are some terms that are similar to adoption, while in particular the
“diffusion”-concept (Rogers, 2003) constitutes a prominent alternative. However, both
concepts cannot be finally differentiated and hence often are used synonymously
(Teo et al., 2007; Keim and Weitzel, 2008).
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Finally, a factor can be defined as a parameter that directly or indirectly furthers or

hinders the adoption of e-HRM. Once again, with “predictors” or “determinants”
(Jeyaraj et al., 2006) there are some parallel concepts.

Foundation
Any explanation of adoption aims at unfolding general reasons that trigger the initiation
and implementation of IT for HR purposes. There are diverse approaches that aim at
such an explanation. Besides, prominent approaches of information systems research,
such as the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989) and the diffusion of innovations
approach (Rogers, 2003), there are also offers from management research such as
transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1985) or institutionalism (DiMaggio and
Powell, 1983). Offers from both streams – such as diffusion of innovations (Florkowski
and Olivas-Luján, 2006) or institutionalism (Commacchio and Scapolan, 2004) – are used
in previous e-HRM adoption research by now.
To explicitly consider the cross-national dimension our foundation refers to
prominent positions in cross-national HRM research (Brewster, 1999, 2006). As a basic
matter of discussion two opposed positions are proposed: universalism constitutes a
first position that basically supposes a “best practice model” of HRM that is universally
applicable and successful, while pressures of globalized competition will enforce this
specific model by and by. Contrarily, contextualism supposes contextual national
characteristics that require consideration in national HRM concepts that finally lead to
cross-nationally different models of HRM (Brewster, 1999, 2006). Transferred to the
adoption of e-HRM, universalism would expect that e-HRM will – due to some universal
advantages or disadvantages – either be generally adopted or generally not adopted.
Cross-national adoption rates hence should be equal or at least converging over time.
Contrarily, contextualists would assume that e-HRM will – due to some cross-nationally
different influence factors – be cross-nationally differently adopted. Cross-national
adoption rates hence may be clearly divergent and even diverging over time.
Tentatively supposing the position of universalism, it becomes vital to find an
explanation that generally explains adoption. In adoption research, constructs such as
“perceived usefulness” (Davis, 1989) or “relative advantage” (Rogers, 2003) refer to
advantageous universal characteristics of IT as an important trigger of adoption.
Abstracting from detail advantages such as cutting costs, speeding up processes, or
 improving quality (Lengnick-Hall and Moritz, 2003), general work on IT unfolds that Organizational
automation and information are two general potentials of IT that epitomize its basic adoption of
organizational advantages (Zuboff, 1985). Given technological expansions of the
internet, collaboration has to be added as a third general potential. First, automation e-HRM in Europe
refers to the partial and sometimes even complete transfer of HR tasks to technology
thereby also involving the optimization of HR processes. As automated production,
automated HRM promises advantages in costs, time, and quality of HR processes and 485
therewith a liberation of HRM (Shrivastava and Shaw, 2003). Second, as essential
by-product of automation information refers to the provision of comprehensive
HR-related knowledge. Informated HRM promises advantages in the entire process of
planning and controlling HR and therewith also a more strategic orientation of HRM
(Kovach and Cathcart, 1999). Third, collaboration refers to the networking of spatially
segregated actors of HRM, such as HR professionals, line managers, employees,
applicants, or consultants among others. Collaborated HRM promises advantages
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through coordination of scattered HR actors and therewith also innovative forms of

organizing HRM (Lepak and Snell, 1998). Taken together, automation, information and
collaboration constitute the overall potentials of e-HRM that are suitable to explain
organizational adoption. However, so as to avoid the pro-innovation bias (Jeyaraj et al.,
2006) it has to be emphasized that adoption is based on the mere expectation of
advantages. Whether e-HRM actually yields these advantages is an open question to be
answered empirically.
Regarding the above explanation, it has to be stressed that these advantages cannot
be seen as universal in a strict sense since there are obvious factors that moderate
advantages. Organizational size constitutes a plain example: while large organizations
will amply profit from automation, information, and collaboration, very small
organizations with few employees will evidently not. Their rare and lucid HR activities
do not justify investments in automation and information, and technology-mediated
HR collaboration is unnecessary. Likewise, there may be further general factors that
moderate advantages and therewith the adoption of e-HRM. Consequently, due to such
factors not all but a certain subset of organizations will adopt e-HRM. Suggested such a
set of cross-nationally valid adoption factors, strict universalism then is not adequate
and, as a provisional result, “moderate universalism” seems to be more advisable.
Yet, switching to the position of contextualism there are pressing arguments that
e-HRM is additionally exposed to cross-nationally differing influences, as many other
HR activities (Brewster et al., 2004). Since a lot of institutions such as legislation,
education or industrial relations are nationally based and organizations necessarily act
within the frame of such national business systems, they are under pressure to adapt to
their institutional environment so as to gain legitimacy and recognition (Brewster,
2006; Björkman, 2006; Morgan, 2007). National data protection legislation offers a plain
example. If rigid national data protection forbids the transfer of personal data via
internet, this of course, will affect the collaboration function of e-HRM. If additionally
the mere storage of personal data is restricted, also automation and information will be
markedly affected within this country. Likewise, there may be further institutional
factors that moderate advantages and hence national adoption of e-HRM. Though,
concerning the adoption of e-HRM there are sound arguments for contextualism.
Hence, with general trans-nationally valid and contextual nationally valid factors
two categories of adoption factors are to be expected (Weber et al., 2000).
 JMP Identification
24,6 The above rationale justifies two groups of adoption factors, though this does not
support the concrete identification of major factors. Given the abundant fund of factors
offered by previous research (Jeyaraj et al., 2006) the problem of accurately selecting
meaningful factors seems to be obvious. However, abundance only applies to the first
group of general factors, while for the second group of contextual factors an
486 unexpected scarcity of factors has to be stated.

General factors
So as to identify a limited set of general factors the supposed intensity of influence on
adoption was used as selection criterion. Using this procedure, we suggest size, industry,
demography, work organization, employment structure, and HRM configuration of the
respective organization as major factors that are discussed as follows.
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In congruence with previous results (Ball, 2001; Hausdorf and Duncan, 2004;
Florkowski and Olivas-Luján, 2006; Teo et al., 2007) organizational size should constitute a
central adoption factor. First, larger organizations will take more advantages of
automation. In larger organizations HR tasks such as applicant management arise in large
quantities. This justifies even large investments in IT due to economies of scale. For
instance, larger organizations with thousands of applications per week can clearly save
administration costs by investing in e-recruiting systems, while small organizations with
few applications have difficulties in justifying such investments. In addition, larger
organization will also take more advantage of information. While employees in
small organizations are usually known personally and HRM tend to be lucid, with growing
organizational size things become more anonymous and unclear. Larger organizations
then have more information needs and therefore can take more advantages from the
information function. Moreover, large organizations also profit more by the collaboration
function. With growing size organizations tend to increasingly spread over different
buildings and locations. The resulting spatial segregation of relevant actors complicates
collaboration in performing HR tasks and calls for a corresponding collaboration
infrastructure. Hence:
H1. The size of an organization reveals an effect on the adoption of e-HRM since
larger organizations will more frequently adopt e-HRM.
In addition to size, the industry of an organization may well reveal differences in
e-HRM adoption. Previous research however shows mixed evidence, since there are
studies that could not reveal sectoral differences (Ball, 2001) while other studies hint at
sectoral differences (Panayotopoulou et al., 2007). A basic explanation refers to the task
characteristics of an industry that are even furthering or hindering adoption, while
especially the share of clerical and stationary work should predict the adoption of
e-HRM. Industries with a high proportion of stationary and clerical work, like banking,
promise an uncomplicated adoption, since there is a high share of workplace computers
and computer literate employees. In contrast, industries with mainly non-clerical and
non-stationary tasks, like building construction, do not dispose of workplace
computers and computer literacy as a characteristic of their task structure. Though
adoption of e-HRM of course, is not impossible within such industries, it is intricate and
costly since for instance specific mobile devices and corresponding training measures
are necessary. Hence:
 H2. The industry of an organization reveals an effect on the adoption of e-HRM Organizational
since industries with mainly clerical and stationary tasks will more frequently adoption of
adopt e-HRM.
e-HRM in Europe
Since e-HRM mandatorily requires the inclusion of employees, qualification as well as
acceptance of employees to individually adopt e-HRM is crucial. Following previous
research, individual qualification and motivation seem to systematically vary with
different demographical attributes, while in particular age, gender, and education may
487
influence individual adoption. First, age is taken as relevant for individual adoption.
Since two decades ago IT did not possess the crucial relevance of today schooling and
vocational education did not consider IT qualifications. As a consequence, many older
employees may not have developed the necessary basic qualifications and therefore
resist an individual adoption (Morris et al., 2005; Zhang, 2005). In addition, gender
seems to be of relevance, since research yields that females have less overall
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experience with IT and are more likely to have negative attitudes towards IT (Morris
et al., 2005; Zhang, 2005). Such attitudes will directly hinder individual adoption and
also indirectly since relevant IT qualifications will not be acquired. Moreover,
education is associated with central predictors of individual adoption such as IT
anxiety, enjoyment and perceived usefulness (Zhang, 2005). Also, higher levels of
education mandatorily include basic IT qualifications in the interim. Though
educated employees seem to be both more devoted to and better prepared for IT.
Though basically referring to individual adoption these phenomena may be relevant
for organizational adoption as well, thereby exemplifying a simple level interaction
effect: decision makers in organizations with a high percentage of old, female and/or
less educated employees will simply anticipate individual adoption problems and,
afraid of failure, refrain from adoption. Admittedly, problems in individual acceptance
and qualification may be tackled by measures of change management and training.
However, changing attitudes and qualifications of a larger share of employees
is costly and time-consuming and though antagonize the advantages of e-HRM.
Hence:
H3. The demography of an organization reveals an effect on the adoption of
e-HRM since organizations with a high percentage of young, male, and
educated employees will more frequently adopt e-HRM.
H3 then is based on a connection of micro- and macro-level adoption that illustrates a
first and simple level interaction effect – a phenomenon that is not well understood and
examined at present (Jeyaraj et al., 2006).
In addition, the organization of work within an organization may constitute a factor
of e-HRM adoption. Given that telecommuting is increasingly used in Europe (Training
& Development, 2005) this should also further the adoption of e-HRM. Basically,
telecommuting implies spatial segregation of HR and employees and personal
interaction is costly and time-consuming. Therefore, HRM is in need for cost-effective
measures that bridge spatial segregation, and organizations with telecommuting will
especially profit from the collaboration function of e-HRM. In addition, since
telecommuting implies that corresponding employees possess basic computer
qualifications and the existence of basic technical equipment, e-HRM can be easily
implemented. Hence:
 JMP H4. The work organization of an organization reveals an effect on the adoption of
24,6 e-HRM since organizations with a high percentage of telecommuting
employees will more frequently adopt e-HRM.
Beyond work organization, also employment structures may influence e-HRM
adoption. Concretely, the relation of permanent and temporary employees should exert
488 some influences. Concerning temporary employees host organizations regularly show
only restricted HR activities, since basic administrative activities such as
compensation are performed by the temporary work agency and managerial
activities such as succession planning are pointless (Burgess and Connell, 2006). For
the same reason investments in training temporary users seem not to make economic
sense. Hence:
H5. The employment structure of an organization reveals an effect on the
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adoption of e-HRM since organizations with a high percentage of temporary

employees will more frequently adopt e-HRM.
Though not discussed at present, e-HRM adoption may also depend on different aspects of
HRM itself, i.e. the configuration of HRM of an organization. As a first approach to possible
HR factors we discuss influences of the institutionalization, comprehensiveness, and
strategic orientation of HRM. Initially, the institutionalization of HRM, i.e. the existence of
a formal HR-department, seems to constitute a furthering factor of adoption. Initiation as
implementation of e-HRM needs an internal promoter. Though the advantages are
beneficial for the whole organization, gains like alleviation of administrative burdens via
automation are foremost beneficial for the HR department. In addition, especially HR
departments should dispose of the necessary financial and HRs to actually handle the
quantitative and qualitative challenges of e-HRM adoption. Though, motivation, capacity,
and ability to adopt e-HRM should be considerably higher when there is an
institutionalized HR department. Furthermore, the comprehensiveness of HRM, i.e. the
extent of performed HR functions, may influence the adoption. With a growing number of
HR functions the administrative burden grows and the need for automation will be more
imperative. As with a larger number of employees, also a larger number of functions may
allow the exploitation of economies of scale since there are fixed investments such as
hardware, web access, etc. Also, IT can be seen as a reliable measure to different integrated
HR functions. Hence, organizations with comprehensive sets of HR activities should have
more incitements to adopt e-HRM. Finally, a clear strategic orientation of HRM should
further the adoption of e-HRM. Automation will take on administrative work and thereby
“liberate” HR for strategic work (Shrivastava and Shaw, 2003), while especially
strategic-oriented organizations will profit from comprehensive information. In addition,
diverse managerial applications of e-HRM show the potential to realize aspirated HR
strategies, as for instance e-performance management systems allow a systematic linking
of organizational and individual goals. Hence, a strategic-oriented HRM should have clear
incitements to adopt e-HRM. Taken together:
H6. The configuration of HRM within an organization reveals an effect on the
adoption of e-HRM, since organizations with an institutionalized,
comprehensive, and strategic HRM will more frequently adopt e-HRM.
 Contextual factors Organizational
Contrary to general factors, previous research in e-HRM adoption does not refer to adoption of
contextual factors. Unexpectedly, and in contrast to other HR practices (Brewster et al.,
2004) there are two peculiarities that are complicating the identification of meaningful e-HRM in Europe
contextual factors.
The first peculiarity is the scarcity of contextual influences on e-HRM. This grounds
on a phenomenon that may be called “institutional openness” of e-HRM. Institutional 489
openness refers to the fact that e-HRM is basically open concerning the covered HR
functions, the employed HR methods, and the included HR actors, among others. To
give a plain example, previous research has yielded significant differences in financial
participation practices in Europe. Owing to institutional differences in some countries
employee share ownership is preferred, while in other countries profit sharing is
prevailing (Kabst et al., 2006). Given these differences, e-HRM is open to map both
kinds of practices. That is, some organizations will adopt e-compensation to realize a
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share ownership concept, while others adopt e-compensation to realize a profit sharing
concept. Generalizing this plain example, major institutional influences will first and
foremost relate to the content of e-HRM, i.e. kind and number of implemented activities,
employed methods, etc. but not to the basic adoption or non-adoption of e-HRM.
E-HRM then can be adapted to a broad range of divergent institutional requirements.
This does not entirely “immunize” e-HRM but it undoubtedly lessens its institutional
exposure. As a consequence, many of the well-established institutional influences of
HRM seem not to be valid for e-HRM. To give a prominent example, it may be due to
institutional openness that trade unions seem to have a rather indifferent position
towards e-HRM. In any case, there are no recognizable statements, publications,
lobbying activities, etc. Hence, contextual influences from national industrial relation
systems – usually one of the most important institutions regarding HR activities –
cannot be hypothesized.
At least within European national business systems, a second peculiarity refers to the
uniformity of contextual influences on e-HRM. National political, legal, and educational
systems can be exemplarily used to exemplify this uniformity of influences. National
policies in Europe accordingly aim at the exploitation of IT and therefore invest in IT
research, teaching, and infrastructure (Commission of the European Communities,
2005). Hence, there are broadly comparable, moderately furthering political influences
within Europe. Accordingly, national legal systems, in particular data protection laws,
are harmonized within the European Union and due to voluntarily adapting European
countries also beyond (Poullet, 2006). Though, there are also broadly comparable legal
influences on e-HRM adoption within Europe. As a third example, also educational
institutions – influential since they do (not) provide the critical computer literacy –
rather concordantly accept computer literacy as a key qualification (Virkus, 2003).
Again, this constitutes broadly comparable influences.
Summing up, at present only scarce contextual factors can be identified that
additionally show rather uniform influences towards the adoption of e-HRM.
Therefore, major differences in national adoption seem not to refer to the direction but
rather to the intensity of influences of several factors. In particular, the intensity of
furthering influences should generally depend on the stage of economic development of
a national business system, while economic development refers to the state of overall
economic capacity and wealth of a nation (Tumpel-Gugerell and Mooslechner, 2003).
 JMP Given that political, legal, and educational influences may accordingly tend to further
24,6 IT exploitation economically more developed nations comprise of the necessary
resources to actually realize exploitation such as providing nation-wide net
infrastructures, basic IT educations, etc. Hence:
H7. The national business system reveals an effect on the adoption of e-HRM,
since organizations located in economically developed nations will more
490 frequently adopt e-HRM.
Applying H7 to different parts of Europe, there should be differences between the
developed western and the still developing post-communist Eastern countries. In
addition, within the first group, there should be differences between the wealthy
north-western and the economically somewhat lagging southern nations.
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Method
The data employed in our study stem from the repeating Cranet Survey, which contains
data on HRM issues of private and public organizations in over 30 countries. Data are
ascertained by research partners in each of the countries. Information is gathered from
the senior HR person in the organization via a postal survey using a comprehensive
address list. The data are representative with respect to the industrial sector (using
European Union’s NACE categorization) in each country. In the 2004 survey, over 40,000
questionnaires were sent out worldwide. With a response rate of approximately
17 percent more than 7,000 organizations participated (Brewster et al., 2004). We used
the data of the included 23 European nations, i.e. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Turkish Cypriot Community, and the UK. This results in a sample of
2,336 organizations.
In order to measure the adoption of e-HRM (“e-HRM”) respondents were asked
whether their organizations have some e-HRM facilities. Organizations with e-HRM
facilities were coded as 1, organizations without e-HRM facilities received a 0.
The size of an organization was measured using the total number of employees.
Owing to its distribution skewness (only few very large and many small- and
medium-sized organizations) we choose the natural logarithm of size (“ln size”) for the
subsequent data analysis.
So as to test sectoral influences we selected three sectoral groups with two sectors
each and built corresponding dummy variables. The first group with mainly stationary
and clerical tasks comprises the sectors banking and insurance (“banking”) and public
administration (“public”). The second group with mainly non-stationary and
non-clerical tasks encompasses agriculture and forestry (“agriculture”) and building
construction (“building”). As a third hybrid group with mainly stationary but
non-clerical tasks we chose manufacturing (“manufacturing”) and retail (“retail”), while
all other sectors were grouped to “other sector.”
Age structure (“age”) was measured by the percentage of employees older than
45 years. We choose this age level due to our assumption that IT education in schooling
and vocational training generally started two decades ago, when the corresponding
age group was 25 and hence mostly had finished their education phases. Gender structure
(“gender”) was measured by the percentage of female employees. Education structure
 (“education”) was measured by the cumulated percentage of graduates and Organizational
post-graduates within the organization. adoption of
Organization of work (“telecommuting”) and employment structure (“employment”)
were measured using four classes of percentages of telecommuting employees, while e-HRM in Europe
the classes were 0 percent (coded 0), 1-20 percent (coded 1), 21-50 percent (coded 2),
and . 50 percent (coded 3).
The institutionalization of HRM (“institutionalization”) was measured by asking 491
respondents whether their organization has a formal HR department. The measurement
of HRM comprehensiveness (“comprehensiveness”) is based on the “major four” HR
functions, i.e. staffing, training, and development, performance management, and
compensation (Devanna et al., 1984). Given that organizations frequently have to
perform some kind of compensation and at least infrequently some kind of staffing,
we chose the additional implementation of appraisal and of internal training to measure
the comprehension. Organizations without additional functions were coded 0,
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organizations with additional functions 1 or 2, respectively. The strategic orientation

of HRM (“strategy”) was measured based on the existence of an explicit HR strategy.
We subsequently specified three different measures to capture different aspects of the
economical development of national business systems. In a first model, we employed the
gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. As the total market value of all final goods and
services of a country produced within a year, GDP constitutes well-established measure of
national economic development. In addition, GDP also constitutes a well-established
predictor of individual IT adoption (Chinn and Fairlie, 2007). In a second model, we
employed the geographical location and the corresponding historical developments to
establish two groups of business systems (BS [1]) that reflect differences between
“old” established nations (coded 1) and the “new” transforming post-communist nations
(coded 0). In a final model, we combined the slightly refined geographical location
(Northern, Eastern, Southern, or Western country) and GDP per capita to cluster
supra-national geo-economic business systems (BS [2]). Using k-means clustering,
we obtained three clusters, i.e. the Northwestern business systems (M GDP ¼ 24,750;
S GDP ¼ 1,913/Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland,
The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK), the Southern business
systems (M GDP ¼ 14,233; S GDP ¼ 6,679/Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkish
Cypriot Community), and the Eastern business systems (M GDP ¼ 10,417; S
GDP ¼ 2,336/Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia).
Besides, the usual descriptive and bivariate methods we used binary logistic
regression to test our hypotheses. Since logistic regression is able to predict the
probability of the occurrence of an event based on several numerical and/or categorical
predictor variables (Hosmer and Lemeshow, 2000; Menard, 2002), it constitutes an
adequate method of testing factors of e-HRM adoption.

Results
The results of descriptive analysis are shown in Table I. (BS [2] is not included due to
the categorical nature of the variable.)
As the probably most interesting result, the adoption rate amounts to 65.8 percent,
i.e. astonishing two thirds of all organizations have already adopted e-HRM. Hence,
e-HRM definitely constitutes a common practice in European HRM.
 JMP
Min Max M S
24,6
1. e-HRM 0 1 0.658 0.475
2. ln size 1.099 12.644 5.965 1.264
3. Banking 0 1 0.085 0.278
4. Public 0 1 0.072 0.259
492 5. Agriculture 0 1 0.018 0.132
6. Building 0 1 0.034 0.180
7. Manufacturing 0 1 0.258 0.237
8. Retail 0 1 0.074 0.261
9. Other sector 0 1 0.379 0.485
10. Age 0 100 37.492 21.326
11. Gender 0 100 41.549 24.202
12. Education 0 100 38.623 31.287
13. Telecommuting 0 3 0.335 0.543
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14. Employment 0 3 0.755 0.542

15. Institutionalization 0 1 0.904 0.294
16. Comprehensiveness 0 2 1.507 0.640
17. Strategy 0 1 0.821 0.384
18. GDP 5,300 28,600 20,709 6,281
19. BS [1] 0 1 0.767 0.423
Table I.
Descriptive analysis Notes: M ¼ mean; S ¼ standard deviation; n ¼ 2,336

The bivariate results are presented in the correlation matrix of Table II. Most
correlations found are weak to medium. Concerning e-HRM, in particular there are
significant positive correlations of ln size, telecommuting, institutionalization,
comprehensiveness, and strategy. Additionally there is a weak positive correlation
to banking and a weak negative correlation to building. The rest of the hypothesized
determinants as for instance GDP, however, did not show significant correlations.
Obviously, there are multiple influences on e-HRM adoption and the multivariate
analysis should add more insights.
In this context, problems of multicollinearity (Menard, 2002) are not to be expected
due to the weak correlations between the independent variables. (The high correlation
between GDP and BS [1] is not relevant since both measures are used in different
models).
The results of multivariate analysis are shown in Table III. So as to cover different
facets of H7 we used three different measures within three models. The measures for
model evaluation generally are acceptable for all models, while especially Nagelkerkes
R 2 refers to a moderate degree of explanatory power (Menard, 2002).
As expected, and in congruence with previous research organizational size (H1)
constitutes a significant factor of adoption. Concerning different industries (H2) our
results show the expected algebraic signs of the logit coefficients, i.e. positive signs for
industries with mainly stationary and clerical tasks and negative signs for industries
with mainly non-clerical and non-stationary tasks. In addition, also the “hybrid”
industries retail and manufacturing shows negative signs. However, with building and
banking only two industries reveal significant influences on adoption. Regarding
organizational demography (H3) age, gender, and education accordingly do not
influence adoption. Work organization (H4) and employment structures (H5) show
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. e-HRM –
2. In size 0.21 * * –
3. Banking 0.05 * 0.01 –
4. Public 0.02 0.06 * * 2 0.09 * * –
5. Agriculture 2 0.02 0.01 2 0.04 * * 2 0.04 * –
6. Building 2 0.06 * * 0.00 2 0.06 * * 2 0.06 * * 2 0.03 –
7. Manufacturing 0.02 0.02 2 0.18 * * 2 0.17 * * 2 0.09 * * 2 0.12 * * –
8. Retail 2 0.03 2 0.02 2 0.08 * * 2 0.07 * * 2 0.04 2 0.05 * * 2 0.15 * * –
9. Other sector 0.03 0.03 2 0.23 * * 2 0.22 * * 2 0.11 * * 2 0.15 * * 2 0.26 * * 2 0.28 * * –
10. Age 0.03 0.08 * * 2 0.01 * * 0.11 * * 0.04 * 0.01 2 0.03 2 0.12 * * 2 0.09 * *
11. Gender 2 0.01 0.01 0.13 * * 0.19 * * 0.02 2 0.20 * * 2 0.28 * * 0.07 * * 2 0.26 * * –
12. Education 0.02 0.11 * * 2 0.04 2 0.04 2 0.01 2 0.01 2 0.01 0.06 * * 0.04 0.01
13. Employment 0.01 2 0.11 * * 0.14 * * 0.07 * * 0.01 2 0.04 * * 2 0.32 * * 2 0.15 * * 2 0.40 * * 0.05 * *
14. Telecommuting 0.10 * * 0.03 0.06 * * 0.01 0.06 * * 2 0.03 2 0.09 * * 2 0.03 2 0.09 * * 2 0.01
15. Institutionallization 0.14 * * 0.29 * * 0.03 2 0.05 * 2 0.04 * 2 0.05 * * 0.08 * * 2 0.04 0.07 * * 2 0.05 * *
16. Comprehensiveness 0.11 * * 0.01 * * 0.06 * * 2 0.02 0.00 2 0.02 0.06 * * 0.05 * * 0.09 * * 0.00
17. Strategy 0.16 * * 0.13 * * 0.04 * 0.00 2 0.02 2 0.03 2 0.01 0.01 0.02 2 0.08 * *
18. GDP 0.03 0.09 * * 0.09 * * 0.08 * * 0.00 0.00 0.05 * * 0.00 0.06 * * 0.00
19. BS [1] 2 0.02 0.13 * * 0.09 * * 0.06 * * 0.02 0.01 0.09 * * 0.02 0.09 * * 0.13 * *
1. e-HRM 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
2. In size
3. Banking
4. Public
5. Agriculture
6. Building
7. Manufacturing
8. Retail
9. Other sector
10. Age
11. Gender
12. Education –
13. Employment 0.05 * –
14. Telecommuting 0.16 * * 0.00 –
15. Institutionallization 2 0.03 0.06 * * 0.17 * * –
16. Comprehensiveness 2 0.08 * * 0.06 * * 0.00 0.04 * –
17. Strategy 2 0.02 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.08 * * –
18. GDP 0.02 0.04 0.09 * * 0.03 0.13 * * 0.19 * * –
19. BS [1] 0.02 0.14 * * 2 0.08 * * 0.08 * * 0.09 * * 0.03 0.03 –
Notes: *p # 0.05; * * p # 0.01; n ¼ 2,336
Organizational

Bivariate results
e-HRM in Europe

493

Table II.
adoption of
 JMP
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
24,6 B Exp(B) B Exp(B) B Exp(B)

1. Constant 22.480 * * * 0.084 * * * 22.492 * * * 0.083 * * * 2 2.728 * * * 0.065 * * *

2. ln size 0.332 * * * 1.394 * * * 0.341 * * * 1.407 * * * 0.348 * * * 1.416 * * *
3. Banking 0.347 * 1.415 * 0.407 * 1.502 * 0.422 * 1.525 *
494 4. Public 0.219 1.245 0.252 1.286 0.256 1.291
5. Agriculture 20.308 0.735 20.279 0.757 2 0.194 0.823
6. Building 20.543 * 0.581 * 20.522 * 0.593 * 2 0.502 * 0.605 *
7. Manufacturing 20.210 0.811 20.197 0.821 2 0.217 0.805
8. Retail 20.460 0.631 20.451 0.637 2 0.412 0.662
9. Other sector 0.321 1.379 0.338 1.402 0.384 1.486
10. Age 0.003 1.003 0.004 1.004 0.003 1.003
11. Gender 20.001 0.999 20.001 0.999 2 0.001 0.999
12. Education 0.001 1.001 0.000 1.000 0.001 1.001
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13. Telecommuting 0.388 * * * 1.474 * * * 0.392 * * * 1.480 * * * 0.349 * * * 1.418 * * *

14. Employment 20.022 0.978 0.006 1.006 2 0.022 0.978
15. Institutionalization 0.335 * 1.398 * 0.347 * 1.415 * 0.281 * 1.325 *
16. Comprehensiveness 0.217 * * 1.242 * * 0.216 * * 1.241 * * 0.217 * * 1.243 * *
17. Strategy 0.572 * * * 1.773 * * * 0.571 * * * 1.770 * * * 0.574 * * * 1.775 * * *
18. GDP 0.000 1.000 – – – –
19. BS [1] – – 20.321 * * 0.726 * * – –
20. BS [2] – east – – – – – 0.333 * * 1.395 * *
21. BS [2] – south – – – – – 2 0.526 * * 0.591 * *
22 log likelihood 2,791.18 2,784.23 2,769.51
x2 200.76 207.70 222.42
Correct classified (%) 69.5 69.2 69.6
Nagelkerkes R 2 0.128 0.118 0.126
Table III.
Multivariate results Notes: *p # 0.05; * *p # 0.01; * * *p # 0.001; n ¼ 2,336

contrary results, since the share of telecommuting employees demonstrates a

significant positive effect while the share of temporary employees yields no effect. The
configuration of HRM (H6) does generally influence e-HRM adoption, since
institutionalization, comprehensiveness, and in particular strategy prove to
be significant for adoption. Since institutionalization is slightly positive correlated
with size, there may be some superimposition effects, however due to the only
moderate correlation institutionalization effects cannot be reduced to effects of size.
The economic development of the national business system (H7) yields some
interesting results. In a first model, GDP unexpectedly does not reveal any effect on
e-HRM adoption. Even more surprising, the second model that tests differences
between established and transforming post-communist nations yields that the
adoption in Western countries is less than in Eastern countries. Concretely, the odds
ratio reveals that the chance of adopting e-HRM in a Western country is only 0.726 as
compared to Eastern countries. Based on the described cluster approach of BS [2] a
third model was specified. The results confirm the “outlier” position of Eastern
business systems: using Northwestern business systems as comparative category, the
chance of adopting e-HRM is higher in an Eastern business system (Exp(B) ¼ 1.395)
and lower in Southern business systems (Exp(B) ¼ 0.591). Taken together, the findings
of the three models uncover an unexpected national adoption pattern shown in Figure 1.
 100 Organizational
Czech Republic adoption of
80
Slovenia Sweden
Austria
Norway e-HRM in Europe
Estonia Germany
Switzerland
e-HRM adoption [%]

Bulgaria Finland
Greece
60 Slovakia
Spain
France Iceland 495
Denmark
Italy
Hungary UK Belgium
40 Netherlands
Cyprus

20
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Turkish Cypriot
0 Figure 1.
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 Economic development
and adoption of e-HRM
GDP per Capita [US $]

Though of lower GDP, Eastern business systems accordingly show high adoption
rates. Apart from Eastern business systems, however, there seems to be a rather good
correspondence of the stage of national economic development and e-HRM adoption.

Discussion
Results
Conceptually, the present study offers a plain explanation of adoption based on general
potentials to automate, informate, and collaborate (within) HRM. Referring to basic
positions of cross-national research with general and contextual influences two basic
groups of factors could be derived and some influential factors could be hypothesized.
Empirically, our results offer different interesting insights, however also raise new
questions.
Concerning the basic state of adoption, our study first confirms that e-HRM
definitely is a common organizational practice in Europe. Given that two thirds of
organizations actually apply e-HRM, the informatization of HRM has massively forged
ahead. However, there are also marked cross-national differences.
Confirming previous results, it comes as no surprise that organizational size showed
significant influences on adoption and, therefore, can meanwhile be seen as a
well-established adoption factor. However, the rather moderate logit values in all
models may indicate the fact that e-HRM is increasingly adopted by medium and even
small sized firms. Though now as before in particular large organizations will profit
from automation, information, and collaboration, two developments may weaken the
influence of organizational size. First, the market for packaged software increasingly
show specific offers adapted to the functional needs as well as to the financial
capabilities of smaller organizations. Additionally, outsourcing offers an opportunity
for smaller organizations to adopt e-HRM without larger investments (Keebler, 2001).
Both developments hence should be considered in future work.
 JMP Concerning the influences of different industries, there was at least partial evidence
24,6 that sectoral differences in task structures significantly further or restrain e-HRM
adoption. The partially non-significant results may be an effect of a “segmented”
adoption, i.e. the possibility to provide e-HRM only for a certain segment of employee.
For instance, though manufacturing firms are mainly characterized by non-clerical
tasks, there is of course, a certain clerical segment that can be efficiently provided with
496 e-HRM. Referring to this, future consideration of segmented adoption could shed some
light on this issue. In addition, it should be considered whether a replacement of
“industries” with “organizational task segments” will lead to increased understanding.
Though depicted as individual adoption obstacle in previous empirical work,
organizational demography showed no influence on adoption. A first explanation may
be that despite of the supposed level interaction effect organizations simply do not care
for individual adoption problems and adopt nevertheless. However, given that this
would imperil overall e-HRM success, a second explanation may be more adequate.
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Obviously, the findings that gender, age, and education influence individual adoption
may have simply aged. Though valid in the past, in the interim computer and web
literacy is wide spread in the developed countries and lacks of certain demographical
segments have disappeared by and by. However, there yet may be an effect of
education that was occluded by our measurement. Though any adequate individual
usage of e-HRM requires a certain education level, an academic education is certainly
not a crucial condition. Future research hence should rather use a reverse measure and
test the effects of the proportion of completely unskilled workforce on e-HRM adoption,
since this eventually will yield an effect. In addition, the underlying argumentation that
organizational decision-makers will also reflect individual adoption potentials in their
adoption-decisions may constitute a simple blueprint for further level interaction
explanations.
As expected, the organization of work influences adoption and telecommuting
constitutes a significant predictor. Given the necessity to connect to spatial
externalized employees and based on the existence of technical infrastructures and
literacy, it is obvious to adopt e-HRM and utilized its basic collaboration potential.
Contrarily, there were no effects of the employment structure. This however does by
no means indicate equality in offering e-HRM to permanent as temporary workers.
First, this may be simply an effect of our sample not having a larger number of
organizations with extensive proportions of temporary employees. In addition, again
there may be a segmented adoption e-HRM for the permanent segment that is not
discernable based on our data. Therefore, future work on the effects of temporary work
on adoption requires both a sample and design that actually allows sufficient testing.
Interestingly, the HRM configuration, i.e. institutionalization, comprehensiveness,
and especially strategic orientation of HRM, showed significant influences thereby
indicating the importance of HRM inherent aspects for e-HRM adoption. Though not
understood in detail by now, adoption of e-HRM seems to be interrelated with some
very basic decisions concerning the design of HRM, while certain decisions apparently
seems to imply adoption. Since it has not been investigated by previous research we
limited our study to rather general configurational aspects of HRM, hence promising
potentials for future research can be assumed in this area.
Finally, the national economic development influenced e-HRM adoption only
partially or rather regionally. Revealing that the economically still developing Eastern
 countries are leading e-HRM adoption doubtlessly constitutes an unexpected and Organizational
challenging result of our study that hints at further reasoning not yet covered by our adoption of
rationale. The political and economic collapse of former communist countries may
constitute a starting point for an explanation. This collapse allowed and required an e-HRM in Europe
entirely new design of organizations and hence of HRM. In this situation, obviously a
lot of Eastern organizations chose e-HRM as a new concept at hand. Theoretically, this
line of reasoning may be associated to the concept of organizational inertia (Nelson and 497
Winter, 1982) and the corresponding concept of learning advantages of newness
(Autio et al., 2000). Established western organizations possess established routines
generated from years of activities in competitive markets. Adopting e-HRM therefore
means to change (or unlearn) existing while simultaneously initiating and
implementing new routines of e-HRM, what constitutes a challenging, conflicting,
and lengthy process. Quite the opposite, organizations in post-communist countries
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possess learning advantages of newness. As these organizations had to “reinvent”

themselves anyway, cutting off existing routines completely, these organizations show
a higher absorptive capacity for new practices like e-HRM. Though, based on a
reassessment of the superiority of adoption in Eastern countries future research may
have a deeper look at this.
Generally, our findings add to previous work on e-HRM adoption by explicitly
addressing factors that systematically separate adopting and non-adoption
organizations in a cross-national setting. Accepting that e-HRM obviously is not a
strictly universal practice, it is appropriate for a certain type of organizations while
inappropriate for other organizations. The above findings hence contribute to our
understanding of the basic organizational “application range” of e-HRM. Besides, detail
results concerning adoption factors also the elaboration of “institutional openness” and
the offer of an intelligible blueprint for level interaction effects may contribute to a
better understanding of the complex adoption phenomenon.

Limitations
First, though our foundation allows hypothesizing two general groups of influence
factors the theoretical logic remains rather loose in identifying specific influence
factors. As a consequence, our study is confronted with two opposed problems in
indentifying factors. One the one hand, we had to heuristically select general influence
factors from an abundant set of possible factors. On the other hand, scarcity and
uniformity of contextual factors complicated the identification of meaningful
contextual factors that could explain the detected cross-national adoption
differences. As a consequence, there should be further important factors of adoption
not considered in our study, while this is also supported by the rather moderate
explanatory power of our regression models.
A further limitation is constituted by the cross-sectional nature of our sample that
does not consider dynamics of adoption. For instance, a simple explanation of the
cross-national differences may be that based on cross-national concordant adoption
patterns most of the differences are owed to differing starting points while national
adoption rates will finally converge. Therefore, it has to be stressed that our study
offers an empirical “snapshot in time” that by no means represents a final picture of
e-HRM adoption in Europe.
 JMP Moreover, we used a simple binary measure of adoption that did not ascertain the
24,6 width (which and how many HR activities? Which and how many employees (users)?),
the depth (intensity of activity support? Intensity of employee usage?) or the kind
(internal provision or outsourcing?) of adoption, among others. This has produced
rather rough and general results as we for instance were not able to address the
phenomenon of “segmented” adoption or to distinguish different varieties of e-HRM
498 adoption, such as internal vs external provision of technology.
Finally, though the presented general factors are basically transferable to other
countries, our scarce knowledge of contextual factors in combination with perhaps
idiographic national situations (Brewster, 2006; Björkman, 2006; Morgan, 2007) does
not allow an international generalization of findings.

Implications
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The outlined limitations directly point at possible improvements in future research.

First, so as to more comprehensively understand the organizational application range of
e-HRM, future studies should strive for further influence factors that are able to explain
more variance of e-HRM adoption. To support this, the above discussion of results has
pointed out promising influence factors or at least influence areas. However, future
research as well will have to cope with the fact of factor abundance on the one and factor
scarcity on the other hand. In addition, longitudinal studies would be able to provide
valuable insights in the development of e-HRM adoption over time. In a cross-national
setting this would also allow propositions concerning the convergence or divergence of
adoption over time (Brewster et al., 2004). Given the limited international
generalizability of our results the inclusion of further developed as emerging
countries in future cross-national studies of course, will enrich our knowledge
concerning global adoption. Given the broad uniformity of several important factors
within Europe, this also may throw more light on influences such as national politics,
legislation, and education, and among others. In addition, an advanced measurement of
adoption should refer to the width, depth, and kind of adoption as delineated above so as
to yield refined empirical insights in adoption.
The results yielded also offer some interesting information for practitioners
interested in e-HRM. First, HR professionals should be informed about the advanced
state of e-HRM adoption in Europe. Of course, a comprehensive adoption cannot justify
the adoption within a specific organization however there may be typical positive
network externalities as for instance in the interaction with job-boards, learning
content-provider, or applicants. In addition, the factors elaborated inform practitioners
about the general organizational application range of e-HRM and offer some
benchmarks concerning the adoption-behaviour of comparable organizations.

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About the authors

Stefan Strohmeier is a Professor of Business Administration and Management Information
Systems at Saarland University, Saarbrücken. He is member of the editorial advisory board of
the German Journal of Human Resource Research. His research interests refer to technical as
managerial aspects of information systems in human resource management. Current projects
concern e-learning, talent relationship management, e-portfolios, virtual communities, and data
mining in HRM. Stefan Strohmeier is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
s.strohmeier@mis.uni-saarland.de
Rüdiger Kabst is a Professor of Business Administration and Human Resource Management at
the University of Giessen and Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Unit on evidence-based
management and entrepreneurship. He is Co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Management
Revue: The International Review of Management Studies, Co-editor of the scientific book series
Empirische Personal- und Organisationsforschung as well as Co-editor of the professional HR
journal Personal. His current research interests include international comparative human resource
management, expatriate management, human resource practices between market and hierarchy,
employer branding, interfirm cooperations, trust between organizations, young technology
start-ups, international entrepreneurship, and internationalization of medium-sized enterprises.

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