Bibliometric review on human resources management and big data analytics

• Date: 30 December 2022
• Pages: 1307-1327
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-05-2022-0247
• Published date: 30 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Economics,Labour economics
• Author: Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi,Zetty Ain Kamaruzzaman,Hamirahanim Abdul Rahman

Bibliometric review on human

resources management and big

data analytics

Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi, Zetty Ain Kamaruzzaman and

Hamirahanim Abdul Rahman

Faculty of Industrial Management, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Gambang, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose –This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of big data analytics (BDA) in human

resource management (HRM). The emergence of digital technology and the availability of large volume, high

velocity and a great variety of data has forced the HRM to adopt the BDA in managing the workforce.

Design/methodology/approach–This paper evaluates the past, present and future trends of HRM through

the bibliometric analysis of citation, co-citation and co-word analysis.

Findings –Findings from the analysis present significant research clusters that imply the knowledge

structure and mapping of research streams in HRM. Challenges in BDA application and firm performances

appear in all three bibliometric analyses, indicating this subject’s past, current and future trends in HRM.

Practical implications –Implications on the HRM landscape include fostering a data-driven culture in the

workplace to reap the potential benefits of BDA. Firms must strategically adapt BDAas a change management

initiative to transform the traditional way of managing the workforce toward adapting BDA as analytical tool

in HRM decision-making.

Originality/value –This study presents past, present and future trends in BDA knowledge structure in

human resources management.

Keywords Big data analytics, Human resource management, Bibliometric analysis, Knowledge management

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Today, firms are moving toward a knowledge-based economy, keeping up with globalization

and rapid technological advancement. Firms must be technologically equipped to compete

and survive in competitive environments (Sousa and Dias, 2020). The past decade has seen a

deliberate change in human resource management (HRM), exploiting big data on firms’

day-to-day activities (Nocker and Sena, 2019). Big data analytics (BDA) has transformed the

way HRM operationalizes for its ability to facilitate organizational decision-making based

on a data-driven approach (Shet et al., 2021). It has facilitated human resource (HR) personnel

to analyze and decide based on data analytics.

The BDA approach is now considered a “must-have”tool for HRM and personnel involved

in the organization’s human capital management (Angrave et al., 2016;Shah et al., 2017).

It is considered a novel approach to managing, analyzing and processing data dimensions

based on the 5V (volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value) in creating ideas to deliver

sustainable value outcomes and sustaining performances for competitive advantage (Wamba

et al., 2015,2017). It serves as an interdisciplinary juncture for HR practitioners to work with

every organizational data. Despite this emerging opportunity in HRM and firm operational

activities, many have not yet utilized and adapted BDA in the HRM context (Jiang and

Bibliometric

review on HRM

& BDA

1307

This paper forms part of a special section “Methodological Advances in HR Research”, guest edited by

Dr Lin Xiu and Prof Thomas Lange.

Funding: This work has been funded by Universiti Malaysia Pahang Flagship Grant: Made in UMP

(Grant no PDU213001-3).

Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0143-7720.htm

Received 27 May 2022

Revised 26 September 2022

10 November 2022

Accepted 9 December 2022

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 44 No. 7, 2023

pp. 1307-1327

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-05-2022-0247

Messersmith, 2018). HRM still uses sample-based and small data, where evidence indicates

that the big data approach has not been fully incorporated (Zhang et al., 2021). Hence, this

study explores the potential of BDA application in the HRM context based on a structured

bibliographic database by evaluating the past, present and future trends of BDA in HRM.

The motivation of this study is based on three premises. First is the investment in BDA to

strategically move toward data analytics in HRM. Even though BDA has been regarded as a

“must-have”tool in HRM, there are significant gaps in how the application of BDA impacts

firm performance (Suoniemi et al., 2020). The inevitable question that might be asked is

whether the investment in BDA would have any cost-benefit and substantial trade-off for the

organization. Several studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between HRM

organizational behavior and the firm’s investment in BDA, which subsequently affects firm

revenues (Frisk and Bannister, 2017;Caputo et al., 2019).

Second is the transformation of valuable data in HRM toward analytics. The form of data

usage in HRM research has shifted from the traditional approach to the BDA, where queries

arise on how HR practitioners should utilize and use the large volume of data in the workplace

(Zhang et al., 2021). Previously, data in HRM were either by qualitative textual data

(interview) or quantitative numerical data (survey). Since the development of BDA, HR

practitioners must use other forms of semi-structured and unstructured data such as emails,

videos, audio and images from all kinds of data sources. Processing these data requires a

different set of skills and knowledge, which many firms are not capable of executing.

Third, although there are several reviews on BDA application in the HRM context, such as

Garcia-Arroyo and Osca (2021) and Zhang et al. (2021), however, these studies lack in-depth

investigation of the link between the knowledge structure in presenting the current issues

and future directions of BDA application in specific HRM contexts and the workplace in

general. Somehow, Zhang et al. (2021) adopted a similar approach using bibliometric analysis,

but the review was limited to co-authorship and journal co-citation analysis. The knowledge

structure based on influential articles cannot be inferred without investigating the document

in detail. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first that systematically reviews BDA

in HRM based on the bibliometric analysis to present the past, present and future directions.

Through the three analyses, this paper will provide a comprehensive and in-depth overview

of the application of BDA in HRM that can be a substantial fundamental understanding of its

application. As such, the following research objectives are presented:

(1) To determine the most influential publications related to BDA in HRM through

citation analysis.

(2) To evaluate the knowledge structure among the highly cited publications through

co-citation analysis.

(3) To investigate and predict future research trends in BDA in HRM through co-word

analysis.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the literature review of BDA in the

organization, particularly within the HRM context. Section 3 explains the methodology

according to the three bibliometric analyses and the research procedure for extracting the

bibliographic database. Section 4 describes the result and analysis of the review. Section 5

discusses the emerging points derived from the analysis presented. Section 6 outlines the

research implications, while Section 7 concludes and presents the limitation.

2. Literature review

“Big Data Analytics”has become a well-known phrase within IT communities since 2011

(De Mauro et al., 2018). Its definition is a result of disorganized evolution and a combination of

IJM

44,7

1308