E-HRM AS A DYNAMIC CAPABILITY: BRIDGING ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN EMERGING ECONOMIES – AN ETHICAL PARADOX

Abstract

In the digital age, Electronic Human Resource Management (E-HRM) transcends its administrative roots to emerge as a strategic dynamic capability a powerful engine driving organizational agility and digital transformation. Grounded in Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Strategic HRM, this study unveils a transformative pathway: Sophisticated E-HRM systems ignite organizational agility, which in turn becomes the principal conduit for digital transformation. A key insight on the dynamics of our moderation startling shows that this effect of enabling agility is raised considerably by top management digital literacy (β=0.18; p<0.01)-leadership fluency in digital tools accelerates E-HRM impacts on adaptive capacity. A rigorous analysis of 200 firms from Pakistan's telecom, banking, IT, and education sectors-a vibrant laboratory of emerging-economy digitalization-revealed that the advanced functionalities of E-HRM (AI-driven talent mapping, real-time analytics, adaptive learning) catalyze rapid adaptation, enabling organizations to pivot rapidly amid volatility.

Of considerable importance, organizational agility does not merely complement E-HRM, it also provides much of its transformational power, that same transformational power that builds a necessary bridge between digital tools and pan-company innovative capacity. Yet, like most powerful things, it presents an intriguing paradox: While algorithmic HR tools drive responsiveness, they may along the way erode a travesty of trust by opaque surveillance and embedded bias, threatening employers' and employees' psychological contract. Thus E-HRM stands as a socio-technical infrastructure in which strategic value will depend on ethical acuity-admittedly an ever-challenging attainment, particularly within institutional voids like Pakistan. Our research reconstitutes the conversation within HRM and Information Systems as:

Unmasking agility's covert function as the necessary translator of HR digitization into tangible transformation.

Highlighting digital literacy at the leadership level as a key accelerator of E-HRM's impact on agility (β=0.18)

Ringing the ethical alarm as to the tensions between algorithmic efficiency and human dignity.

Making a case for emerging economies as important venues to rethink digital resilience.We argue that E-HRM’s evolution demands a radical shift—from support function to strategic partner where technology augments human agility rather than replaces it. For firms in volatile markets, this isn’t just innovation: it’s survival."

Keywords:
E-HRM, organizational agility, digital transformation, dynamic capabilities, algorithmic bias, psychological contract, emerging economies, PLS-SEM, ethical paradox, Pakistan