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AI in Human Resource Management: Literature Review and Research Implications

• Published: 24 January 2024

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• Yuming Zhai 1 ,
• Lixin Zhang 1 &
• Mingchuan Yu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7576-509X 2  

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This study sorted out the literature on the application of AI in HRM from 2012 to 2021 using CiteSpace to derive the history of research in this field. Further, the research emphasis has shifted from the AI algorithm level to the application level. We proposed a conceptual paradox model to explain the positive and negative effects of AI in workplaces. We also discussed theoretically the practical implications of this study. Finally, this study offers relevant information that can help support and expand future research.

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This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71802134 and 72372079).

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Zhai, Y., Zhang, L. & Yu, M. AI in Human Resource Management: Literature Review and Research Implications. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01631-z

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Received : 03 May 2023

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Published : 24 January 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01631-z

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How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

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What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

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When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

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Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Research bias

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A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Human Resource Practices and Policies: A Literature Review

This study aims to determine the dimensions of HR Practices and Policies contained in various previous literatures. Journal analysis was carried out using a systematic literature review (SLR) method obtained from Scopus in 2016-2021 following inclusion and exclusion criteria with the keywords HR Policies and Practices in order to obtain 15 journals. The journal articles obtained related to HRM practices and policies were found with various specific topics ranging from age-related HRM, Green HRM, hospitality HRM, Austerity HRM, Gen-Z HRM, Health Workers HRM, HRM Strategy, SR-HRM, Promoting Women to seniors. and HRM in the University. There are various dimensions of HR Practices and Policies categorized on macro, meso and micro measures. Most of the research methods used in the article are qualitative. For future researchers, it is expected to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches to make it more comprehensive with a wider research sample.

Aggarwal, et.al. (2020). Gen Z entering the workforce: Restructuring HR policies and practices for fostering the task performance and organizational commitment. Journal of Public Affairs, hlm. 1–18.

Ahmed, R., & Philbin, S. P. (2021). Systematic literature review of project manager ’ s leadership competencies. 28(1), 1–30.

Aydogan, E. and Arslan, Ö. (2021), “HRM practices and organizational commitment link: Maritime scope”, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 260-276.

Bagader, A., & Adelhadi, A. (2021). The need to implement green human resource management policies and practice in construction industries. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 20(SpecialIssue2), 1–7.

Barrena-Martínez, et.al (2019). Towards a configuration of socially responsible human resource management policies and practices: findings from an academic consensus. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(17), 2544–2580.

Barrena-Martínez, et.al, (2017). Socially responsible human resource policies and practices: Academic and professional validation. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 23(1), 55–61.

Biswas, K., et.al,. (2017). A mediated model of the effects of human resource management policies and practices on the intention to promote women: An investigation of the theory of planned behaviour. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(9), 1309–1331.

Boehm, S. A., et.al, (2021). Age-Related Human Resource Management Policies and Practices: Antecedents, Outcomes, and Conceptualizations. Work, Aging and Retirement, 7(4), 257–272.

Crimmins, G. (2017). Feedback from the coal-face: how the lived experience of women casual academics can inform human resources and academic development policy and practice. International Journal for Academic Development, 22(1), 7–18.

Daft, R. L. (2015). Organization theory and design. Boston: Cengage Learning

DeNisi, & Murphy. (2017), “Performance appraisal and performance management: 100 years of progress?”, Journal ofApplied Psychology, Vol. 102 No. 3, p. 421.

Gaffar, V. (2020). Systematic Literature Review: an Introduction. FPEB Online Discussion.

Hadji, S., et.al (2022). Diagnosing of human resource performance management based on lack of ambidextrous learning themes: a case study of public Iranian banking system. International Journal of Ethics and Systems, ahead-of-p(ahead-of-print).

Kelana, et.al,. (2021). The Effect of HR Sustainability Practice To HR Policy at SMEs Manufacturing in Malaysia. Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, vol. 27(SpecialIssue 2), 1–5.

Khan, Rasli, & Qureshi. (2017). Greening human resource management: A review policies and practices. Advanced Science Letters, Vol. 23(9), hlm. 8934–8938.

Mohammadi, & Sharifzadeh, F. (2017), “Designing a performance management model with a human resources development approach in the public sector”, Quarterly Journal of Human Resources Training and Development, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 133-153

Niati, D. R., Siregar, Z. M. E., & Prayoga, Y. (2021). The Effect of Training on Work Performance and Career Development: The Role of Motivation as Intervening Variable. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences, 4(2), 2385–2393. https://doi.org/10.33258/birci.v4i2.1940

Onnis, L. ann. (2019). Human resource management policy choices, management practices and health workforce sustainability: remote Australian perspectives. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 57(1), hlm. 3–23.

Paraschi, & Georgopoulos, A. (2020). Austerity HRM practices, work deterioration and possible recovery policies: A cross-European survey in the airport workplace. Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 41(4), hlm. 860–886.

Serafini & Szamosi. (2021). Variations and differences in the application of HR policies and practices by US hotel multinational firm’s subsidiaries across coordinated and transitional periphery economies: a case approach. International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 32(17), p. 3659–3695.

Shah, M. M., et al. (2020). The Development Impact of PT. Medco E & P Malaka on Economic Aspects in East Aceh Regency. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal) Volume 3, No 1, Page: 276-286.

Tsymbaliuk, et.al,. (2021). Green human resource management policies and practices in Ukraine. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Vol. 915(1).

Upamanyu, & Shivnani, T. (2016). HR policies and practices: A study of Hotel Sarovar Portico and Hotel Fortune Select Metropolitan of Jaipur city. International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, Vol.14(No. 12), hlm. 8399–8407.

Wahono, R. S. (2015). A Systematic Literature Review of Software Defect Prediction: Research Trens, Datasets, Methods and Framework. Journal of Software Engineering Vol. 1 (1), 1-16.

Werdhiastutie, A. et al. (2020). Achievement Motivation as Antecedents of Quality Improvement of Organizational Human Resources. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal) Volume 3, No 2, Page: 747-752.

Xie & Cooke. (2019). Quality and cost? The evolution of Walmart’s business strategy and human resource policies and practices in China and their impact (1996–2017). Human Resource Management. Vol. 58(No. 5), hlm. 521–541.

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