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Artificial intelligence: a focus on HR applications and the implications for skills
Rondeaux, Giseline; Franssen, Marine
202010th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) workshop
 

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Keywords :
AI; HRM
Abstract :
[en] Introduction Over the past years, the use of artificial intelligence-based tools has emerged in vast areas of professional practices. In the HR field specifically, developers are focusing, for example, on pre-hire assessments via sentiments and facial expressions analyses (AI-powered job interview platform such as HireVue), HR performance measurement (Jatobá et al., 2019) or turnover prediction based on artificial neural networks (Strohmeier & Piazza, 2015). As Levy (2018) noted, tools designers claim these AI-based applications enhance human resources policies. Notably, they often underline such technology provide rational decisions based on objective, unbiased and measurable sets of data, as opposed to practices based on a gut feeling. In the management literature, a growing field is increasingly paying attention to the link between artificial intelligence and skills. From a decontextualized point of view, many of these works highlight the importance of soft skills, said to be central because of their presumed irreplaceability by the machine: social intelligence, creativity (Frey & Osborne, 2013), empathy, adaptability, integrity (Manyika et al., 2017), human experience, contextual knowledge or common sense (Günther, Mehrizi, Huysman, & Feldberg, 2017). Position and research question Our paper aims to find out whether such claims are effectively reflected in the HR-practices of a selected enterprise and to document the evolution of the HR function. In order to closely look at the relationship between technology and humans; we chose to move away from both techno-centric (e.g. Svahn, Henfridsson & Yoo, 2009; Volkoff, Strong & Elmes, 2007) and human-centred perspectives (e.g. Boullier, 1997; Ouschoorn & Pinch, 2003). Drawing on from a sociomaterial perspective resting on the foundations of critical realism (Leonardi, 2011, 2013), we consider the imbrication of HR applications based on AI and the evolution of professional practices of HR officers using these applications. Doing so, this perspective “maintains an analytical dualism between structure and action. Here, materiality is thought to be a structural property while social interaction occurs in the realm of action. Over time, the material and the social become the sociomaterial through the process of imbrication and stay conjoined through continuous imbrications” (Leonardi, 2013: 72). Methodology Findings are part of a study commissioned by a major European group in the telecom sector. HR practices related to artificial intelligence were investigated over the year 2019 through several interconnected research methods. Among those methods were semi-structured interviews with executives of the company, the distribution of a questionnaire to 7800 employees and managers, as well as a focus group discussion with ten HR professionals. Results The transversal analysis of our empirical approaches shows an evolution in terms of expected competencies profiles for HR professionals. Through various examples from our results, we illustrate in the paper how AI-technologies and human activities combine into sociomaterial HR practices implying evolutions in terms of skills. We also illustrate how these technologies are not neutral but, on the contrary, enacted in action and producing new biases that need to be understood. In particular, we argue that the cruciality of soft skills needs to be rethought in favour of a deformation of occupational skills and the acquisition of a basic digital literacy. An example of such claim can be found within human-machine collaboration for recruitment process, where candidates innovative competencies tailored to the software calls for deeper interview techniques, only acquired through professional experience. Conclusion Our results highlight the relevance of taking a step back from the trends in the literature as regards the rise of AI. They are generally expressed in terms of neutrality of the technology and through an emphasis on soft skills development to strengthen human capabilities. Our examples show how the social and material aspects of HR practices and AI applications are imbricated with each other and produce effects on competencies profiles: through reconfigured occupational skills and basic numeric literacy is the HR officer able to see beyond data sorting algorithms and candidate strategies for example.
Disciplines :
Human resources management
Author, co-author :
Rondeaux, Giseline ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège : UER > LENTIC
Franssen, Marine ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège : UER > LENTIC
Language :
English
Title :
Artificial intelligence: a focus on HR applications and the implications for skills
Publication date :
June 2020
Event name :
10th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) workshop
Event organizer :
UC Berkeley
Event place :
San Francisco, United States
Event date :
du 24 au 26 juin 2020
Available on ORBi :
since 18 December 2020

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