Industrial Revolution 4.0 is upon us, with disruptive technology rapidly changing our personal and professional lives. In this climate it is not clear how organization reorganization will take place and there is haziness over the strategic HRM required to attract, develop, and retain talent.

This book focuses on the challenges and changes that new technologies bring to human resources (HR) of modern organizations. It examines the technological implications of the last changes taking place and how they affect the management and motivation of human resources belonging to these organizations. It looks for ways to understand and perceive how organizational HR, individually and as a team, conceptualize, invent, adapt, define and use organizational technology, as well as how they are constrained by features of it. The book provides discussion and the exchange of information on principles, strategies, models, techniques, methodologies and applications of human resources management and technological challenges and changes in the field of industry, commerce and services.

What role do human resource managers play in the processes of technical change in organizations? What opportunities or constraints are presented by different dimensions of technical change? How does technical change affect such issues as job design, supervision, total quality management, team-working, increased flexibility, skills training and employee involvement? In addressing these central themes and debates, this book provides a systematic analysis of the relations between technical change and human resource management (HRM). The contributors draw on research and case studies to clearly demonstrate that effective technical change in organizations is integrally related to effective HRM - as much by general and line managers as by specialist personnel managers.

Digitalization is changing the world of work. Technology is shifting the relationship between workers and machines and how work is organized; new skills are becoming increasingly relevant in the workplace where workers no longer work for a single company, in 9-to-5 jobs, five days a week. Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is revolutionizing the way managers can design, control and improve their activities. While the nature of the tasks and the interdependences between individuals are changing, the impact of intelligent technologies is severely questioning the span of control of leaders and the effectiveness of their leadership styles. The authors sketch out the main changes occurring in the business landscape and identify the new expectations that organizations are formulating for leaders across several industries. In an age in which new leadership models are about to emerge, they describe how the relevant changes impact and shape the managerial arena. This book sets the stage for a new way of thinking on the nature of the relationship between HR and technology. It examines the influence of Industry 4.0 and Innovation 4.0, (i.e. the connection between physical and digital processes in industrial production, where human competencies and machine potential are strictly interconnected throughout the entire value chain), from a myriad of viewpoints: namely in terms of structures, practices, influences (learning, training and communication), competencies and roles. A chapter is also dedicated to the understanding of the impact of Innovation 4.0, in the context of European Universities through E-learning Experiences where a multiple-case study analysis is provided.

This volume views innovation of HRM in two ways: At one end, HR practices and policies should be designed to support innovative organizational members and climates, new ideas, and larger capacities. At the other end, the HRM function evolves by applying new structures to the practices, and by involving new agents in the management process.

As with other parts of business, technology is having a profound effect on the world of work and management of human resources. Technology is a key enabler for faster, cheaper and better delivery of HR services and in some cases can have a transformational as well as unintended negative effect. Designed for the digital era, e-HRM is one of the first textbooks on these developments. It incorporates the most current and important HR technology related topics in four distinct parts under one umbrella, written by leading scholars and practitioners drawn from across the world. All the chapters have a uniform structure and pay equal attention to theory and practice with an applied focus. Learning resources of the book include chapter-wide learning objectives, case studies, debates on related burning issues, and the companion website includes lecture slides and a question bank.

Information technology has had a profound effect on almost every aspect of our lives including the way we purchase products, communicate with others, receive health care services, and deliver education and training. It has also had a major impact on human resource management (HR) processes, and it has transformed the way that we recruit, select, motivate, and retain employees (Gueutal & Stone, 2005; Kavanagh, Thite, & Johnson, 2015). For example, some estimates indicated that 100 % of large organizations now use web-based recruiting (Sierra-Cedar, 2016-2017), and over half of the training conducted in America is delivered using technology-based methods (American Society for Training and Development, 2015). Results of a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) (2002) revealed that technology is one of the major drivers of change in today’s HR departments. In spite of the increased use of technology in the field of HR, relatively little research has examined the acceptance and effectiveness of electronic human resource management (eHRM) methods. As a consequence, practitioners are implementing these new systems without the benefit of research. Thus, the primary purpose of this issue is to review the results of research on a number of important eHRM practices including e-recruitment, e-selection, gamification, e- socialization, e-learning, and e-performance management. It also considers how technology can be used to manage task-based contingent workers, and examines the problems associated with cyberdeviance in organizations. The chapters in this series should be extremely beneficial for HR researchers and practitioners who are employing these new systems.