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IMDS
111,3
470
Received 13 September 2010
Revised 1 January 2011 Abstract
Accepted 6 January 2011 Purpose – Human resources information systems (HRIS) are becoming increasingly important in
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 111 No. 3, 2011
pp. 470-488
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635571111118314
Exploring the public sector
adoption of HRIS
Indrit Troshani, Cate Jerram and Sally Rao Hill
University of Adelaide Business School,
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
helping modern organizations manage their human assets effectively. Yet, HRIS adoption remains an
under-researched phenomenon. The purpose of this paper to isolate the factors that influence the
organizational adoption of HRIS in public sector organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – Adopting the technology-organization-environment model
as an analytical framework, the paper draws on qualitative evidence from 16 interviews across
11 Australian public sector organizations.
Findings – The authors find that champions in public sector organizations should demonstrate HRIS
benefits before their adoption can succeed. With standardization trends adopted by HRIS vendors,
complete organizational fit between adopted HRIS and business processes may be elusive for adopters
suggesting that post-adoption vendor support must be negotiated if costly customizations are to be
minimized. In addition to various organizational factors, including management commitment and
human capability, the authors also find that broader environmental factors including regulatory
compliance can have a deep impact on the success of HRIS adoption by creating urgency in adoption
intentions.
Originality/value – There is paucity of research concerning HRIS adoption in the public sector
which presents unique challenges due to its idiosyncrasies. This paper contributes to the existing body
knowledge by investigating the role of technological, organizational, and environmental factors and
their interactions. It provides an improved understanding of the challenges related to HRIS adoption in
public sector organizations.
Keywords Australia, Human resource management, Information systems, Public sector
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In today’s knowledge economy, organizational success depends almost disproportionally
on the performance of human resources (HR) (Lippert and Swiercz, 2005). Widely
acknowledged to be one of the most challenging aspects of modern businesses (Davila,
2005; Browning et al., 2009), HR management (HRM) has recently shifted its focus on
knowledge sharing and strategic workforce analysis and has been increasingly evolving
into a significant contributor in the strategic management of organizations (Rodrı́guez
and Ventura, 2003). This shift is partially attributed to HR technologies, such as HR
information systems (HRIS) which consist of systematic procedures and functions for
acquiring, storing, manipulating, retrieving, analysing, and disseminating pertinent
information concerning organizational HR (Lippert and Swiercz, 2005).
To increase the effectiveness of HRM, organizations are becoming increasingly
reliant on HRIS (Ball, 2001; Lippert and Swiercz, 2005; Troshani et al., 2010). At the
functional level, HRIS can keep track of information concerning applicant/employee
qualifications and demographics, recruitment, professional development, performance
evaluation, payroll, retention, and attrition (Harris and Desimone, 1995). By facilitating
improved access to metrics, HRIS can improve administrative efficiency which Public sector
comprises faster information processing, improved employee communications, greater adoption of HRIS
information accuracy, lower HR costs and overall HR productivity improvements
(Beadles et al., 2005; Dery et al., 2009; Wiblen et al., 2010).
At the strategic level, HRIS can improve organizational performance and change the
way in which organizations are managed (de Pablos, 2004; Katou and Budhwar, 2006).
HRIS can facilitate strategic value generation by helping design and implement 471
internally consistent policies and practices that ensure that human assets contribute to
achieving business objectives (Boateng, 2007). Strategic value can be derived by HRIS
tools that assist with decision-making concerning vital HR functions (Farndale et al.,
2010). For example, the information that HRIS deliver can help strategic planning by
forecasting future workforce demand and supply requirements, thereby becoming an
invaluable tool for employers in improving their ability to respond swiftly to changing
competitive landscapes and helping them craft suitable strategies, including tailoring
remuneration packages, making suitable training investment and accurate salary growth
forecasts as market conditions change (Lippert and Swiercz, 2005). Additionally, growing
HR regulatory and competitive pressures impact on all organizations, irrespective of
their size which has contributed to widening reliance on HRIS (Hendrickson, 2004).
The body of HRIS literature has been growing, though it has predominantly focused
on the organizational impacts of HRIS including conditions for successful HRIS usage
(Heines and Petit, 1997) and current usage patterns (Davila, 2005; Hussain et al., 2007),
legal, ethical, and privacy issues (Eddy et al., 1999), global HRIS integration
(Colakoglu et al., 2006) and the role of HRIS in achieving competitive advantage
(de Pablos, 2004; Alcázar et al., 2005; Katou and Budhwar, 2006; Browning et al., 2009),
improving performance (Rodrı́guez and Ventura, 2003), delivering organization-wide
benefits (Hendrickson, 2004), gathering information cost-effectively (Schenk and
Holzbach, 1993), and assessing HRIS support for developing organizational HR
(Türetken and Demirörs, 2004). Recent studies have examined HRIS adoption
determinants in Singapore (Teo et al., 2007) and the degree to which HRIS can enable
strategic focus of HR (Dery et al., 2009; Wiblen et al., 2010).
This literature, however, takes HRIS in organizations for granted with relatively little
attention being paid to their organizational adoption. In fact, there is broad agreement
that HRIS adoption remains under researched (Henriksen and Mahnke, 2005; Blount and
Castleman, 2009). Adopting HRIS can be challenging as it can be costly and it can take
long periods of time before espoused pre-adoption benefits become available after HRIS
are fully assimilated (Ashbaugh and Miranda, 2002). In particular, HRIS adoption in the
public sector may be even more challenging than the private sector for several reasons.
First, public sector organizations have different underlying goals to those operating in
the private sector, in that the former may have multiple intangible goals (e.g. health,
education), unlike the latter that are typically driven by economic viability considerations
(Kamal, 2006). Second, unlike private sector organizations that generally adopt
innovations proactively, due to a bureaucratic culture, public sector organizations
generally introduce innovations reactively. That is, they wait for evidence to become
available to justify adoption decisions. Additionally, due to budget timing restrictions,
public sector organizations may be subject to constraints of budgeting cycles which may
be dictated by political influences or periodic changes in political priorities (Caudle et al.,
1991; Themistocleous et al., 2004). Third, public sector HRM is currently undergoing
IMDS fundamental changes including workforce retirement/aging, downsizing, talent
111,3 management, and culture guardianship (McKinnon, 2010). Finally, there is evidence
suggesting that technologies in the not-for-profit sector, including the public sector, often
“have greater diffusion difficulties” (McGrath and Zell, 2001, p. 388) which must be
addressed in future research. These reasons suggest that adoption models developed for
the private sector cannot be automatically applied to public sector organizations (Ahmad
472 and Zink, 1998; Fountain, 2001; McGrath and Zell, 2001; Henriksen and Mahnke, 2005).
Although there is a lack of research concerning the public sector adoption of HRIS,
research is available concerning the adoption of other information and communication
technologies (ICTs) in the public sector. Extant research has investigated the adoption of
ICTs in the Jordanian public sector (Ahmad and Zink, 1998), benefit realisation
(e.g. efficiency, accountability) due to adoption of electronic records management systems
in the Pakistani public sector (Henriksen and Andersen, 2008), adoption of e-procurement
systems in the Malaysian (Kaliannan et al., 2007) and Danish public sectors (Henriksen
and Mahnke, 2005), and the adoption of healthcare technologies in India (Ghodeswar and
Vaidyanathan, 2007). However, findings in extant research may not be readily applicable
to HRIS adoption. There is general agreement that factors that drive technology adoption
depend on the type of technology suggesting that no one-size-fits-all approach can be
adopted across technologies and domains and that factors that drive the adoption of
specific technologies require specific attention (Dewar and Dutton, 1986; Damanpour,
1987; Walker, 2006). This is consistent with criticism of existing technology adoption
research according to which “search for a universalistic theory may be inappropriate
given the fundamental differences that exist across innovation types. Empirical support
for this conclusion is accumulating.” (Dewar and Dutton, 1986, p. 1422). Furthermore,
HR/HRIS are highly complex and driven by significant regulatory requirements. The
impact of these requirements may be even more pronounced in the public sector which is
more open than the private sector for providing flexible employment opportunities for
achieving work-life balance objectives (Taylor, 2010).
The objective of this paper is to explore and isolate factors that are associated with the
organizational adoption of HRIS in the public sector. It contributes to knowledge by
providing a framework of technological, organizational, and environmental factors which
are validated by qualitative evidence from the Australian public sector. A preliminary
exploration of the interactions amongst these factors is also undertaken. Existing
practices in Australian public sector organizations are marred by payroll errors, poorly
defined business rules, and communication and coordination problems which underscores
the need for HRIS support while also making Australian public sector organizations a
good setting for this study (Grubb, 2010). This, thus, contributes to an improved
understanding of HRIS adoption which is necessary given the growing organizational
interest in HRIS, and extant limited research about the unique challenges related to their
adoption in public sector organizations (Ball, 2001; Lippert and Swiercz, 2005).
In pursuit of our objective, we first review innovation adoption literature. The discussion
of the method follows. Results are subsequently discussed before the contribution,
limitations, and future research directions are highlighted in the conclusion.

2. Innovation adoption in organizations

One of the most established approaches in studying innovation adoption entails
identifying contingency factors that can affect adoption decisions in organizations
(Fichman, 2004). Also known as “innovation configuration” (Fichman, 2004, p. 320), Public sector
these factors can jointly explain adoption outcomes in organizations, and are adoption of HRIS
commonly classified into three broad categories, namely, technology, organization; and
environment (TOE) (Tornatzky and Klein, 1982; DePietro et al., 1990). As technology
adoption is complex and context-sensitive, specific factors of each category can vary
across different domains (e.g. EDI (Iacovou et al., 1995; Kuan and Chau, 2001), financial
reporting technologies (Doolin and Troshani, 2007), open systems (Chau and Tam, 473
1997), electronic business (Zhu and Kraemer, 2005), and enterprise resource planning
systems (Pan and Jang, 2008)). Consequently, there are persistent calls in the literature
to extend TOE approaches to unexplored domains including HR/HRIS (Teo et al., 2007;
Dedrick and West, 2004; Lippert and Swiercz, 2005).
DePietro et al. (1990) have proposed a useful TOE model that can be used for the
structured analysis of innovation adoption in organizations. It helps distinguish
between intrinsic innovation characteristics, organizational capabilities and
motivations, and broader environmental dimensions that impact on adopters (Dedrick
and West, 2004). Specifically, the DePietro et al.’s (1990) model suggests that decisions to
adopt innovations are shaped by the influence and interaction of generic TOE factors as
shown in DePietro et al. (1990).
First, the technology context focuses on the manner in which technology characteristics
can influence adoption (DePietro et al., 1990; Yang et al., 2007). The context emphasis
relates to the operationalisation and potential realisation of benefits and existing
organizational adoption capability (Chong and Ooi, 2008; Tan et al., 2009). Adopters assess
the characteristics of innovations in terms of “possible gains and barriers” (Chau and Tam,
1997, p. 6). Gains refer to the benefits organizations expect to receive upon adoption and
include increased levels of service quality, efficiency, and reliability (Oliveira and Martins,
2010). Barriers include innovation complexity and its compatibility with organizational
technology competency and legacy systems (Rogers, 2003; Chong and Ooi, 2008).
Generally, the manner in which innovation opportunities are exploited by organizations
depends on the degree of match between innovation characteristics on the one hand, and
the practices and technological infrastructure currently adopted by organisations, on the
other (Chau and Tam, 1997; Moon and Ngai, 2008).
Second, the organizational context describes the nature of organizational characteristics
that may facilitate or inhibit adoption. These include structures, processes, and resources
(DePietro et al., 1990). Adoption can be facilitated in organizations that exhibit high degree
of centralization because top management can make adoption decisions irrespective
of resistance from lower level managers or employees (Yang et al., 2007; Jayasingam et al.,
2010). A supporting organizational setting, including a skilled workforce, can be critical
for successful innovation adoption (Lin, 2006). The greater the support from top
management, the easier it will be for adopting organizations to overcome difficulties
encountered during adoption (Premkumar and Ramamurthy, 1995; Silva et al., 2007).
Owing to financial advantages, larger organizations are more likely to adopt innovations
before smaller organisations; however, smaller organizations can be more agile than larger
organizations in adopting innovations due to flexibility and adaptability factors (Barbosa
and Musetti, 2010).
Third, the environmental context represents the arena where organizations
conduct their business, and includes industry characteristics, government regulation,
and supporting infrastructure (DePietro et al., 1990; Oliveira and Martins, 2010).
IMDS These factors can present opportunities to encourage organizations or to inhibit them
111,3 from adopting innovations. If innovations are to be adopted, information about them
must be available to prospective adopters (Rogers, 2003; Doolin and Troshani, 2007).
Particularly, an environment with success stories can be conducive to technology
adoption as every successful adoption leads more users to strongly consider it (Kearns
and Lederer, 2004). Infrastructure and technical support are also important
474 requirements for innovation adoption (Chau and Hui, 2001). Typically, government
can play a vital role for encouraging technology adoption by raising awareness,
training, and support, including funding (Chong and Ooi, 2008).

3. Method
There is a paucity of research concerning HRIS adoption in the public sector in
Australia. Given the intricate nature of HRIS, their adoption can be better understood
by examining the interpretations of relevant organizational actors (Van De Ven and
Rogers, 1988). This paper’s qualitative exploratory focus enables the study of dynamic,
intricate, and multifaceted processes and the exploration of emerging themes (Miles
and Huberman, 1994).
Qualitative empirical data were collected via semi-structured face-to-face interviews
which were used because of their flexibility (Myers and Newman, 2007). In-depth
interviews provide rich insights for exploring, identifying, and understanding viewpoints
and attitudes (Myers and Newman, 2007). Moreover, they allow greater control over the
interview situation (e.g. sequencing of questions) while providing opportunities for
making clarifications and collecting supplementary information (Walsham, 1995).
A total of 16 key informant representatives of 11 public sector organizations agreed to
be interviewed. The main criterion for selecting organizations was that they had adopted
or were in the process of adopting major HRIS. Interviewees were either heads of HR
departments or team leaders. The principal criterion for selecting interviewees was that
they had to be knowledgeable within their organizations on HRIS topics (the Appendix).
Interviewees were, thus, able to contribute meaningful information to this exploratory
research. Interviewees were identified using theoretical sampling extended to a
snowballing technique (Aaker and Day, 1990). At the end of each interview, interviewees
were sufficiently familiar with the aims of the research to refer the investigators to other
experts. Each interviewee was deliberately asked for referrals to more than one other
expert they had rarely or never met to reduce chances of snowballing research being
locked into the mindset of one network. Furthermore, we found that multiple human
actors belonging to the same organization held the same views representing their
organisations. We collectively treated these interviewees as a single actor in our
analysis.
The interviewees belong to three broad types of public sector organisations.
Determined by dimensions of ownership, funding, and control, these include:
(1) government institutions (GI) which act as agents representing community
interests;
(2) public sector institutions (PSI) which provide access to facilities and work for
the entire community; and
(3) state enterprises (SE) which are similar to private enterprises and represent
limited communal interests (Wettenhall, 2003; Willem and Buelens, 2007).
To honour confidentiality commitments, only the categories of the interviewees’ Public sector
organizations and their type have been identified in Table I. adoption of HRIS
A one-page document summarising the open-ended questions was provided to all
interviewees prior to the interviews to give them time to prepare while allowing them
freedom in expressing their viewpoints (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Interviews were
recorded and transcribed. Borrowing from a hermeneutic cycle approach (Boland, 1985),
in each interview the investigators asked questions about topics raised in previous 475
interviews, to find agreements or disagreements between them seeking explanations for
disagreements. When stability was reached interviews were completed (Miles and
Huberman, 1994). Driven by the TOE model, interview content was analysed thematically.
While DePietro et al.’s (1990) TOE model takes an integrative approach, studies taking
similar approaches in public sector HRIS adoption integrating these perspectives are
lacking which justifies TOE adequacy further (Dedrick and West, 2004).
During analysis, codes were developed as patterns in the data emerged which
provided the basis for cross-case analysis and helped identify and analyse patterns of
themes (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Data belonging to themes were incrementally
assembled before being triangulated against literature. Although the interviewed
organizations represent public sector organizations of different types, we found that
their HR objectives were consistent suggesting that integrating interview findings is
not unreasonable.
Construct validity has been adequately addressed. First, multiple sources of
information were used (Yin, 2003). While interviews constitute the primary source of
information, many informants provided supporting secondary data comprising archival
papers which were used for triangulating findings. Second, the informants belong to
different categories of public sector organisations, and therefore, provided different
perspectives which constitutes further triangulation of qualitative information by
preventing biased opinions (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Third, three investigators
conducted the interviews and analysed them thereby reducing potential bias (Yin, 2003).
Finally, the chain of evidence tracing conclusions to interview summaries and
transcripts was also maintained. According to Yin (2003), these enhance construct
validity and reliability of this research, thereby boosting its overall quality.

4. Analysis
In this section, we discuss technology, organization, and environment context factors
and the manner in which they affect HRIS adoption in the Australian public sector.

Category Type Number of interviewees Number of organizations Identifier

Communications SE 2 1 Organization 1
and media
Education PSI 1 1 Organization 2
Health PSI 2 2 Organizations 3-4
Financial services SE 5 3 Organizations 5-7
Natural resources GI 2 1 Organization 8
Utilities SE 3 2 Organizations 9-10 Table I.
Defence GI 1 1 Organization 11 Categories of informants’
Total 16 11 organisations
IMDS We use the TOE model of DePietro et al. (1990) (Figure 1) to structure our discussion.
111,3 The sign shown besides each factor indicates the direction of the influence on adoption
decisions, namely, enabling, i.e. (þ ) or inhibiting, i.e. (2 ). Where both signs are shown,
i.e. (þ /2), the direction of the influence can be interpreted as being most commonly
enabling although occasionally inhibiting.

476 4.1 Technology context

Perceived benefits-costs trade-off. Interviewees consistently argued that perceived HRIS
benefits and the manner in which these impact HR functions can drive their adoption.
Specifically, the benefits that were expected to result from HRIS adoption include
integration and accessibility. Achieving these in delivering HR functions, including
workforce planning, recruitment, performance management, career and development
planning, learning management, and remuneration, was unanimously regarded to be
beneficial for strategic decision making, and hence, to drive adoption:
We are going to a situation where managers can manage their staff using sophisticated tools
[HRIS] that make their life very easy [. . .] The big thing is the information that they can
integrate and produce will actually start to add some real value to the top level decision
making. [. . .] and I think then the world will open up for HR metrics to be able to feed into the
strategic decision making about our workforce (Organization 1).
HRIS were widely perceived to be highly complex which, at least partially, reflects HR
domain complexity. Consequently, HRIS user friendliness was generally considered to
be a major adoption driver. However, the HRIS in the interviewees’ organizations were
characterized by lack of user friendliness which had become an adoption barrier:
[. . .] because of the user-unfriendliness, we couldn’t see managers using that [HRIS] basically.
We just couldn’t. So, we stopped partially from the implementation. So armed with the experience,
many of us tend to look with some reluctance of continuing with [HRIS] (Organization 1).

Environment context Organizational context

Regulatory compliance (+) Technology competency (+)
Successful adoptions (+) Management commitment (+)
Organization size (+/–)
Degree of centralization (–)

HRIS adoption
decision-making

Technology context
Perceived benefits/costs trade-off (+/–)
Organizational fit (+)
Figure 1.
HRIS adoption in the
Australian public sector
HRIS adoption was expected to impact the operational aspects of HR functions Public sector
positively by delivering significant efficiency improvements. Operational efficiencies adoption of HRIS
represent an adoption driver as that is “where the big, big savings are” (Organization 1)
in adopting organizations.
HRIS adoption costs were perceived to be significant, including licensing,
implementation, maintenance, training, and transition costs. Transition costs are
defined as costs incurred to replace existing older HRIS with the new ones. In the 477
same manner as other types of costs, these featured strongly as adoption inhibitors.
While licensing costs were considerable, these were perceived to represent the lesser
proportion of overall adoption costs:
[. . .] but that [HRIS] really came down to price – and price of the implementation part [. . .]
and that is where the big money is. A few hundred, a few mill[ions] for the license is peanuts
compared to whatever it is, X million for the rest. Ask [other government department ], I think
they spent about $85 million (Organization 1).
Nevertheless, there was uniform agreement that cost-benefit trade-off assessments
were necessary for justifying investments in and adoption of HRIS:
[HRIS], as you are probably aware, is a very expensive product to maintain [. . .] But it is
about efficiency and cost, and it is also about the product itself and its functionality and
usability (Organization 1).
Organizational fit. Generally, software vendors provide standardized HRIS. However,
public sector organizations, in addition to common HR functions, are also characterized
by domain-specific idiosyncrasies. As a result, there was general agreement amongst
interviewees that HRIS were “too stock standard” (Organization 7) which explains
why interviewees uniformly believed that HRIS adoptions tend to exhibit lack of
organizational fit:
[. . .] any big software HR system is the same; they are all the same. They have all got
problems, they all don’t give you what you want, [. . .] [and need] a lot of customising. But you
know, every organization has got its own business rules anyway. [. . .] I don’t know of any
systems in the world that would fit the bill here or in any other public sector place, something
has to be done to them (Organization 1).
We found that lack of fit between adopted HRIS and organizational requirements were
addressed in three ways:
(1) changing business processes to suit standard HRIS functionality;
(2) customizing adopted HRIS; or
(3) combining (1) and (2).

Many interviewees were concerned about process re-design trends considering them
“pretty awful, pretty cumbersome” (Organization 1):
I think one of the downfalls of the industry is that they come from a position of “how about
you let our system capacities drive your HR requirements?”, whereas they should actually be
appreciating that we need to articulate what our business requirements are, and then see
what system best delivers that (Organization 2).
At least partially, process redesign has triggered the emergence of “feral systems”
(Organization 8) which had proven to be “time consuming and costly” (Organization 7)
IMDS and sometimes “ineffective” (Organization 6). Some interviewees indicated that their
111,3 organizations undertook HRIS modifications with vendor support which was
unanimously considered to be a key adoption driver. While some vendors were
willing to support HRIS modifications to support organizational processes by issuing
software patches as part of service agreements (Organization 8), others were willing to
do so for a fee which was considered to be an adoption inhibitor (Organization 7).
478
4.2 Organizational context
Human capability. Interviewees agreed that an organization’s human capability is
comprised of three components, namely:
(1) HR domain knowledge;
(2) technical IT/IS skills; and
(3) communication skills.

Taken together, these can be a key driver for HRIS adoption. However, this combination
of skills was considered to be “a huge area of skills shortage” (Organization 8), and it was
particularly pronounced in public sector HR. In fact, public sector HR was widely seen to
be highly complex which was attributed to the “enormous flexibility” (Organization 3) of
employment practices and “unlimited work patterns” (Organization 3) that are afforded
to public sector employees, including flexible and complex leave rules, flexible
employment commitments, high variability of superannuation/pension and salary
sacrifice schemes. Taken together, these domain complexities have contributed to
making HR/HRIS “quite messy” (Organization 11) and the required skills set and
knowledge unique. Consequently, training was considered to be critical for sustainable
human capability to be achieved (Organization 9). Interviewees consistently indicated
that training was necessary for all user levels including operational and strategic
levels. The combination of these skills was labelled as “systems thinking”
(Organization 8).
Management commitment. It was considered to be a key driver for HRIS adoption in
the public sector as it represents a source of support and funding which are both
critical for adopting HRIS and adapting them to suit organizational requirements as
“it always comes down to the dollars and cents” (Organization no. 4). There was
agreement that lack of management support and funding constitutes an inhibitor for
successful adoption of HRIS and for achieving organizational fit:
[. . .] to change the system requires money and it’s not a cheap thing to change in the [HRIS]
environment, so one of our biggest issues is to actually gain the funding to do it. [. . .] We’ve
only just got a new CEO, so what happens now depends, I suppose, to some degree on what
his view of the world is but prior to that they were supportive of it (Organization 6).
Organization size. It was also found to impact HRIS adoption. Interviewees agreed that
government departments with large numbers of employees can use size to support their
business case for adopting HRIS because potential benefits can be spread across large
user bases (Organization no. 6). However, organizational size can also increase
complexity. That is, “the bigger the organization, the more complexity” (Organization
no. 3) which can, in turn, adversely affect the flexibility with which HRIS can be adopted
which is consistent with extant literature.
 Degree of centralization. It impacts adoption when decisions are made at higher Public sector
hierarchical levels in the organization. For example, one of the Organization 8 adoption of HRIS
interviewees argued:
We are part of the administrative units within the [. . .] public sector, and as a whole of
administrative unit process, we were told that would have [HRIS] (Organization no. 8).
Although interviewees consistently indicated that some consultation does occur with 479
respect to identifying functional, legislative, technical, and cultural requirements
specifications, decisions are “centralized” (Organization 7) “at a higher level rather than
the group level” (Organization 11).
While interviewees appreciate standardization impacts of adoption approaches
dictated by centralization, they were also critical in stressing that adopted systems may
not easily address specific HR idiosyncrasies that characterize different government
departments, thus, adversely affecting organizational fit. Nevertheless, interviewees
consistently argued that centralization had fostered a “red tape” (Organization 4)
culture, an inhibitor in HRIS adoption.

4.3 Environment context

Regulatory compliance. The public sector organizations interviewed adopt systems that
help them fulfil regulatory compliance. In fact, regulatory requirements concerning
industrial relations legislation can drive HRIS adoption by both driving the removal of
non-compliant systems and adoption of compliant systems:
We now have to push [new HRIS] because recent changes to the Nursing Act cannot be
accommodated in [old HRIS]. So we have to go to [new HRIS] (Organization 4).
Successful adoptions. Interviewees agreed that success stories and champions that
adopt HRIS can have a positive impact on adoption. Success stories can allow benefits
to be observed in practice, while enabling driving individuals to persuade decision
makers in their organizations to adopt HRIS or upgrade them:
[HRIS type] was quite a brand new product and the government felt a bit anxious about
putting something in that wasn’t really tried and tested so we didn’t go that way
(Organization 8).
Most interviewees consistently argued that local success stories involving large
reputable public sector organizations constitute a significant catalyst for HRIS adoption
as they can trigger social learning phenomena and bandwagon adoption pressures.

5. Discussion
We derived the factors discussed in the previous section from our analysis of the
adoption of HRIS in Australian public sector organizations. In addition to their enabling
and inhibiting impacts, we also observed that these factors interact with one another,
thereby creating a complex web of interactions and influences as HRIS adoption unfolds.
We found that technology-context factors including integration, user friendliness,
accessibility, efficiency, and vendor support can positively impact organizational
adoption of HRIS. These technology-context factors can strengthen the business case for
management to become committed to support HRIS adoption. While complexity and
adoption costs were acknowledged to negatively impact management commitment,
the extent to which HRIS fit within adopting organizations can affect management
IMDS commitment as it can impact the extent to which adoption costs increase in order to
111,3 adapt business processes to suit the adopted HRIS or to customize them. The extent to
which HRIS fit within adopting organizations was also seen to depend on organization
size which can impact both adoption costs and complexity. Interviewees consistently
indicated that human capability, an organizational context factor, could be enhanced
by training. Human capability was also found to be susceptible to be adversely affected
480 by HRIS complexity which interviewees consistently argued could be addressed by
vendor support and user-friendly HRIS functionality. Degree of centralization was found
to impact both the extent to which management can commit to support HRIS adoption
and organizational fit, whereas environmental context factors, namely, regulatory
compliance and successful adoptions, were both found to positively affect management
commitment for supporting HRIS adoption.
To summarize these interactions, we used a concept map (Novak, 1998). To develop
the concept map, we selected and ranked key concepts before clustering them at similar
levels of abstraction. We subsequently arranged them into a diagrammatic
representation and connected them with linking propositions showing underlying
interactions and influences as represented in the data (Figure 2).

Inhibits Human
Complexity
capability

Addresses Enhances
Inhibits

Drives Enhances
Reduces
User Vendor Training
friendliness support
Enhances Drives

Organisation Affects Drives Management Encourages Regulatory

Org fit encourage
commitment
size compliance

Drives Drives Drives Efficiency

Affects
Affects Drives Encourages Drives

Degree of Successful
Adoption cost Inhibits centralization Accessibility Integration
Figure 2. adoptions
Interactions among
contextual factors
impacting organizational Key
adoption of HRIS in the
Australian public sector Technology factor Organizational factor Environmental factor
In Figure 2, rectangular shapes represent technology context factors, whereas rounded Public sector
rectangles and ovals represent organizational and environmental context factors, adoption of HRIS
respectively. We have also used labelled arrows showing linking propositions to identify
relationships. The concept map is not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, it is meant to
illustrate the proposed interrelatedness between factors, their influences and interactions
noted during the adoption of HRIS in Australian public sector organisations. Where
applicable, the concept map features specific rather than general factors to make the map 481
relevant to HRIS adoption in the Australian public sector.
In providing a preliminary analysis of factor interactions with a concept map, we also
attempt to address criticism of factor-based frameworks, including the TOE, concerning
their limitation of overlooking complex interactions amongst factors that constitute
innovation configurations (Doolin and Troshani, 2007). Although the interviewees did not
provide quantified performance-improvement indicators concerning HRIS impacts in
their organizations, they unanimously indicated that HR practices had improved relative
to those used prior to HRIS. Consequently, the concept map constitutes a first
step towards understanding factor interactions concerning the public sector adoption
of HRIS.

6. Conclusion
This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by enhancing current
understanding of the organizational adoption of HRIS which is an under-researched
area. By employing the TOE model as an analytical tool, evidence confirms that the
adoption of HRIS in the public sector depends on environmental, organizational, and
technology context factors in three ways.
First, adoption champions in public sector organizations need to demonstrate the
benefits that HRIS can introduce to their organizations including integration,
accessibility, and operational efficiency and the extent to which these benefits can
justify adoption costs and inherent HRIS complexity. For adoption to encounter minimal
resistance, HRIS need to deliver these benefits via user-friendly functionality. With
standardization trends undertaken by HRIS vendors, complete organizational fit
between adopted HRIS and organizational business processes seemed elusive for
adopters. This suggests that negotiating post-adoption vendor support is essential if
organizations are to minimize costly customizations and the emergence of feral systems
that might be necessary for bridging gaps resulting due to inadequate organizational fit.
Second, management commitment is crucial for both supporting adoption
initiatives and ensuring that resources are made available for sustaining adoption
efforts including the development of human capability that is characterized by the
combination of specific HR domain knowledge, technical IT/IS and communications
skills. Given the degree of centralization that characterizes public sector organizations,
extensive input needs to be harvested by organization-wide HRIS user involvement to
inform HRIS selection criteria before adoption decisions can be made.
Third, wider environmental context factors can have a deep impact on HRIS adoption
success. Particularly, the need and urgency for achieving regulatory compliance can be a
strong driver accelerating adoption of compliant HRIS. Successful adoptions were also
considered to be a driver suggesting that adoption campaigns featuring successful
adopters are likely to entice non-adopter public sector organizations to strengthen their
business cases for adopting HRIS.
IMDS While this study employs the experience of various participating organizations to
111,3 further current understanding of HRIS adoption, we appreciate that a limitation is that
the HRIS adoption factors examined are based on only sixteen interviews across
11 public sector organizations, thereby providing potentially limited insights for
generalizing to the wider public sector in Australia. However, given the exploratory
nature of this study, generalization was not an objective. Thus, further research is
482 needed to investigate HRIS adoption from other perspectives in both Australian and
non-Australian public sector organizations. Another limitation of this research is that it
does not examine the extent to which the identified factors affect HRIS adoption and
each other. We call for further qualitative and quantitative research to be carried out in
order to address this limitation. Additionally, this study has ignored the transition
from HRIS adoption to their complete assimilation and the extent to which espoused
benefits become materialised during HRIS usage which is another limitation of this
study. Further work is also required in addressing HRIS adoption in private sector
organizations where research is currently lacking and where HRIS adoption
configurations may be different to those in the public sector.
Nevertheless, given the wide range of participating organizations and the rich nature of
collected data, managerial implications can be derived. The proposed adoption factors
and their interactions can provide insights supporting technology adoption initiatives and
decision making in public sector organizations. That is, knowing adoption drivers
and inhibitors, decision makers will be better placed to improve future HRIS adoption in
the public sector (Smith et al., 2010). Isolating HRIS adoption factors, understanding their
impacts, and tracing the plethora of relevant interactions is crucial if public sector HR
managers and decision-makers are to understand their ensuing effects. In turn, this can
help them in shaping the strategic positioning of their organizations and achieving
advantageous relationships with all stakeholders that control the identified factors.
Furthermore, an improved understanding of the organizational adoption of HRIS could be
useful to HR managers and IT/IS professionals as they design and implement new HRIS.
Knowledge gained can be used to achieve greater efficiencies in HRIS adoption by
developing actionable adoption tactics, strategies, and policies for improving the chances
of achieving HRIS adoption success. For example, our findings can be useful to change
agents within organizations (e.g. HR managers, decision makers, HRIS adoption
champions) and HRIS developers/vendors who can tailor their business case
demonstrations and training programs in order to capture these factors (Teo et al.,
2007). Additionally, prior knowledge of these factors and their interactions can help them
use targeted HRIS adoption and implementation efforts at the various phases of the
adoption process (Rogers, 2003). More broadly, as an increasing number of organizations
adopt HRIS, it is incumbent upon all types of organizations and public sector
organizations in particular to understand HRIS adoption dynamics if adoption HRIS
adoption is to succeed (Boateng, 2007).

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Appendix
Interview questions:
(1) What is your role in your organization, and your involvement with HRIS?
(2) What HRIS are used in your organization; how are they used?
(3) What is your organisation’s motivation for adopting HRIS?
(4) Can you explain the factors that have encouraged or hindered your organization for
adopting HRIS? What kinds of technological/organizational/environmental
problems/issues/challenges were encountered during your organisation’s adoption of HRIS?
(5) Can you elaborate on lessons learnt during the adoption of HRIS in your organization?
(6) Can you explain the implication and/or organizational changes arising from HRIS
adoption in your organization?
(7) What are the future trends of HRIS in your organization?
(8) Are the any other issues concerning HRIS adoption that have not been covered in this
interview and that you wish to bring to our attention?
(9) Can you recommend other persons in your position in other public sector organizations
who we might wish to interview?

About the authors

Indrit Troshani is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems at the University of Adelaide Business
School. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Edith Cowan University (Western Australia), an
MSc in Computer-based Information Systems (Sunderland, UK), and a BBA (Hons) from Malaysia.
His research interests include adoption and diffusion of network innovations in
business-to-business (B2B) settings and mobile services. Indrit Troshani has contributed to the
body of knowledge in electronic commerce and information systems by co-authoring refereed
journal and international conference publications. His work has appeared in Information
Technology & People, Electronic Markets, European Journal of Innovation Management,
International Journal of E-Business Research, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic
Commerce Research, International Journal of Mobile Communications and others. Indrit Troshani
is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: indrit.troshani@adelaide.edu.au
Cate Jerram is currently the Lecturer-in-Charge of the Qualitative Methods course for Higher
Degree Research students and of the first-year course Information Systems 1 at the University of
Adelaide Business School. Since coming to academia from a background in theatre, in ministry
and in management, she has taught in management information systems, Ecommerce,
EBusiness, information technology, education, and social psychology. Cate Jerram’s current
research interests include investigating aspects of human resources information systems (HRIS);
human factors in information security; information systems education and employment futures;
and team-based learning and other pedagogical advancements in the Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning (SoTL).
IMDS Sally Rao Hill is a Senior Lecturer at the Business School of the University of Adelaide. She is
an active researcher in the area of marketing and information systems. She has published in
111,3 leading academic journals, presented papers at leading academic conferences and is an ad hoc
reviewer of several academic journals. One of her papers has won the “Best Paper” in an
international conference. She has written eight book chapters and several case studies for
marketing textbooks. Her research has been published in the European Journal of Marketing,
Australasian Marketing Journal, Industrial and Business Marketing, Young Consumers, and
488 International Journal of Mobile Communications. She serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several IS
and marketing journals. Sally Rao Hill’s research interests involve service co-creation,
self-service technologies, consumer innovation adoption, relationship marketing, service
encounters, and on-line word-of-mouth.

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