Running Head: AI & Management

Artificial Intelligence in Personnel Management:

The Development of APM Model

Author & Affiliations: Kirk Chang (Department of Management, University of Sharjah. University City
Road, Sharjah, PO Box 27272, United Arab Emirates, UAE; TEL: +971-6-5585000, FAX: +971-6-5585099;
Email: Kirk.Chang@gmail.com)

Declaration/Conflicts of Interest: Some parts of the manuscript have been discussed in the International
Seminar on the Transformation of Economic Drivers and New Trends in Human Resources Management,
Qingdao Shandong, China in 2019, but the full-text of manuscript has not been published. The research
reported was conducted in accordance with the UAE Psychological Society’s Research Ethics Guideline, and
the dataset was newly collected and never being used for publication.

Article classification: Conceptual Paper (Category: Viewpoint)

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5689-7780

Data Availability Statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the
corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Funding: The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Words-Count: 4,591

Acknowledgements: I would like to express my sincere gratitude to two colleagues Professors Ashish Malik
and Chris Rowley who have offered valuable comments to an earlier version of this paper. The insight
provided by colleagues and their constructive criticism has greatly improved the paper.

Corresponding Author: Kirk Chang (see author’s details above)

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 Abstract

Purpose: Managers have mixed views of how artificial intelligence (AI) affects personnel management. The

current article aims to identify potential knowledge gap and brings new insights to the AI-personnel

management literature.

Design/methodology/approach: Both applicability- and theoretical- perspectives are adopted to critically

discuss the constraint and opportunity of AI in personnel management. Tables and narrative analysis are

utilized to clarify the role of AI in managerial practices.

Findings: Research findings have helped to develop a new model titled APM (AI in Personnel Management).

The APM model unfolds itself in three levels, followed by potential outcome. The three levels comprise

“organizational-, managerial- and individual job- levels”, and the outcome comprises “organizational

performance, employees’ well-being, and staff turnover rate”.

Practical implications: The APM model helps managers to understand the implication of AI in their

workplace. With better understanding of AI’s implication, managers are more likely to develop appropriate

AI-driven managerial policies, which in turn benefits employees and their organizations. The APM model

acts as a reference guide, helping managers to evaluate the AI’s constraint and opportunity in their

managerial practices.

Originality/value: The APM model is valuable and informative to the academic researchers, as it has first

responded to Malik et al. (2019)’s call (re: the absence of AI and management literature); and, more

importantly, it has advanced the knowledge of AI-Management relationship, supporting scholars to further

understand the role of AI in personnel management.

Keywords: AI; Artificial Intelligence; Career Opportunity; Personnel Management.

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 Introduction

In layman’s terms, artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines and programmes.

AI often refers to the technology adopted to execute a command (or task) that needs intelligence to

accomplish (Brown, Ling & Gurdeniz, 2017). More recently, AI has shifted from laboratory experiments

into business and management world. In the finance industry, for instance, managers are implementing AI

models in order to increase revenue and reduce cost through better and faster decision-making in the

management system (Wisskirchen, Biacabe, Bormann et al., 2017). In personnel management, managers are

keen to improve staff performance via the AI-based techniques such as performance monitor apps (Ernst &

Young, 2018). Duchessi, O'Keefe, and O'Leary (1993) also state that AI has the ability to change the

ownership and responsibility for decision making in management.

Every story has two sides, so does AI. While some managers appreciate the convenience of AI as it

facilitates the decision-making-process in management, other managers feel that AI has ripped off their

imperativeness at work and threatened their career opportunity. Coincidently, Chang (2019) has found that

managers and subordinates of the canteen had mixed views about using AI in their job allocation, e.g., AI

helped to cut down the personnel cost, but also implied less staff appointment; canteen staff had reservations

about how AI would work and they understood very little about how their canteen affected or was affected

by the AI-driven management. In addition, Duchessi and O’Keefe (1995) indicate that AI applications are

unlikely to be used if no incentives are offered, perhaps because that managers and organizations are not

entirely sure how AI can be utilized into the managerial practices.

Interestingly, despite of the aforementioned views and barriers in application, AI does not refrain its

influence on personnel management (PM), along with the following reasons. To begin with, the top

management, corporate stake holders and business owners are always interested in improving their

organizational performance and employee engagement. In line with this interest, Ernst and Young (2018)

have found that AI offers opportunities to improve PM functions, such as self-served transactions, and

recruiting-talent-acquisition programmes. They comment: “Human resources executives have faith that

merging AI into managerial functions will benefit and improve the overall employee experience. This will

provide more capacity, more time and budget, and more accurate information for decisive people

management, p.3”. In a similar vein, several business and enterprises have adopted “Big-Data & Cloud” in

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their staff management practice, with a view that the use of AI analyses offers better insights into how to

execute and operate in performance appraisal, staff succession planning and performance management

(Wang, Wang & Huang, 2017).

Another point to be borne in mind is: AI outperforms human intelligence in two characters (Grace,

Salvatier, Dafoe et al., 2018). These are: cognition (e.g., translating languages, writing essays, driving

vehicles) and coordination (e.g., selling and customer-interaction skills, operating surgeries). Spurthi (2018)

scrutinizes the difference between natural intelligence (NI) and AI, summarizing that NI exceeds AI in

sensors, creativity, and adaptability, but AI surpasses NI in complex calculation and information transferring.

Interestingly, AI and NI are equally competent in using and acquiring information. These characters are

crucial to personnel management, as the organization nowadays tends to have complex structure, in which

departments and teams share great number of tasks and distributed responsibility (Mullins, 2016). Following

this logic, one shall expect managers to perform better and more effectively when AI supports their decision-

making-process (which requires cognition) and team management (which relies on coordination). Ernst and

Young (2018) also suggest that AI-based management applications have strong potential to raise

management efficacy as well as employee productivity, such as training new managers to become

knowledgeable and skilful managerial practitioners, which in turn boosts teamwork and employee

performance. Following this logic, one can imagine that AI-based management applications will soon have

an ability to analyze, predict, diagnose and become more powerful and capable resources in the field of

personnel management.

In addition, over 67% of managerial practitioners (e.g., CEOs, business owners, managers) recognize

the significance of Big-Data and AI for the existing and future personnel management; yet, only 7% of the

surveyed organizations have managers who are confident in utilizing Big-Data and AI in their management

practices (Keystone Consulting, 2017). In a different but management-relevant survey, only 38% of the

surveyed managers are found to focus their efforts on AI tools in people management, although manages

generally agree that AI will definitely play a more proactive role in the practices of personnel management

(Ernst & Young, 2018). Coincidently, IT and technology industry is keen to adopt AI-based programmes in

recruiting top talents (e.g., psychometrics-based recruitment software: Wang et al., 2017), as well as

enhancing employee experience (e.g., health monitor app: Ernst & Young, 2018).

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 In view of what has preceded, understanding the role of AI in personnel management has become

imminent and imperative, as AI becomes more advanced and ubiquitous across enterprises and industries,

and AI-powered personnel management will encompass much more than just workflow optimization. AI has

a great potential to make management better. To sum up, regardless of its potential side effect and threats, AI

has possessed numerous merits and outperformed human intelligence in different aspects of human life. AI-

based management applications have strong potential to raise employee productivity and help managers

become knowledgeable agents that facilitate teamwork and boost employee performance. Our view is: the

success of any organization depends on how effectively it combines people, process and technology to

deliver transformational value at optimized cost, and we strong believe that AI can help to efficiently

automate many back-office functions for reliable personnel management transactions and service delivery.

Rather than worrying the possibility that AI-technology might replace millions of jobs over the coming

decades, it would be more practical and sensible to find out the opportunity and constraint of using AI in

personnel management and practices.

AI in human resource management – From the applicability perspective

To further evaluate the applicability of AI in personnel management, this article now turns to the

introduction of current AI practices. Depends on the business field and organizational context, organizations

tend to perceive the concept of AI differently and thus adopt different approaches in their personnel

management. For instance, Kaushik (2011) states that some organizations adopt AI to identify the resource

and spot errors, while others adopt AI to reduce cost and manage job allocations. Interestingly, experts and

scholars have different views in how managers should approach AI. As it is presented in Table 1, some

scholars focus on the origin of AI (e.g. what makes AI and how it work), but others suggest it is crucial to

understand the opportunity and limitation embedded within the AI applications (e.g. what’s the edge over AI,

avoid over-reliance on AI). In the realm of personnel management, more specifically, there are several

common AI approaches shared by business and managers (Kolbjornsrud, Amico, & Thomas, 2016). These

approaches are outlined below:

Approach One: Leave Administration to AI

Managers usually spend great amount of time in conducting mundane work such as business

administration, staff management and resource coordination (Chang, 2019). However, many decisions
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require insights beyond what AI can squeeze from data alone, and managers often use their knowledge of

organizational history and culture, as well as empathy and ethical reflection. This is really the essence of

human judgment – the application of experience and expertise to critical business decisions and practices.

Kolbjornsrud et al. (2016) indicate that managers have a sense of a shift in this direction and identify the

judgment-oriented skills of creative thinking and experimentation, data analysis and interpretation, and

strategy development as the top new skills that will be required to succeed in the future. Following this logic,

managers may see AI as extra hand or playing an assistant role, dealing with administration related tasks.

Simply put, AI may focus on the hassles, so managers themselves can have more time in concentrating on

the judgement work.

<Insert Table 1 About Here>

Approach Two: Treat AI tools as colleagues

Intriguingly, not all managers regard AI as their assistant such as playing a supporting role in their

managerial practices. Indeed, there are managers who are willing to respect the merits of AI and adopt a

more amicable approach in working with AI. Kolbjornsrud et al. (2016) comment that managers who view

AI as a kind of colleague will recognize that there’s no need to “race against a machine”. While human

judgment is unlikely to be automated, intelligent machines can add enormously to this type of work, assisting

in decision support and data-driven simulations as well as search and discovery activities (Wang et al., 2017).

78% of the surveyed managers also believe that they will trust the advice of intelligent systems in making

business decisions in the future (Kolbjornsrud et al., 2016). Following these findings, one can imagine that

not only will AI augment managers’ work, but it will also enable managers to interact with intelligent

machines in collegial ways, through conversation or other intuitive interfaces. To a certain degree, AI may

become managers’ always-available colleague or even adviser.

Approach Three: Work like a designer

Some people may assume that AI makes innovation and offers creativity, which is not entirely accurate.

Scholars actually suggest that AI often helps managers to compile data, diagnose ideas, and integrate the

information (Duchessi et al., 1993). Although AI does not necessarily produce creativity, it works like a

designer; namely, while managers’ own creative abilities are vital, perhaps even more important is their

ability to harness others’ creativity (Ernst & Young, 2018). Manager-designers (i.e., management and AI

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jointly) bring together diverse ideas into integrated, workable, and appealing solutions. They embed design

thinking into the practices of their teams and organizations. Kolbjornsrud et al. (2016) state that 33% of the

managers have identified creative thinking and experimentation as a key skill area they need to learn to stay

successful as AI increasingly takes over administrative work.

Based on the aforementioned practices, one can summarize that AI has implied great opportunity and

applicability in personnel management. AI has huge potential to help managers in making better decisions.

Through various AI practices in personnel management, organizations and managers are able to identify the

resource, spot the human errors, monitor managerial targets, locate best teamwork and output. Moreover,

Ginni Rometty is one of the world-class and well-known managers, and she is the first female CEO (2011-

present) from the bottom line in the IBM history. Rometty is famous for her fierce AI-driven management

and evidenced-leadership in IBM. During an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on the side-lines of the

2017 World Economic Conference in Davos, Rometty made the following remark: “…some people call this

artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us…”. In echoing Rometty’s remark, we

believe that, compared to humans, AI is able to crunch numbers, identify patterns, and make faster data-

driven decisions. (c.f.; AI has the ability to process large amounts of data and spit out trend directions and

actionable advice; Brown et al., 2017). We also propose that AI application can be a vital tool for any

manager looking for some quantitative support in their decision-making for personnel management. By

learning how to work with AI and using the advice it can provide, we believe that managers can adapt and

improve their managerial options and create more value to the organization.

Moreover, AI in personnel management may help to plan recruitment and appraisal of employees, such

as performing deep behavioral analysis on subordinates to better identify their needs and aspirations (Ernst &

Young, 2018). Coincidently AI-driven applications have become popular in Asian enterprises, for instance,

Alibaba’s HR software for staff appraisals, and network-based programmes for recruitment and shortlisting

(http://www.hcpersonnel management.com/). Chang (2019) indicates that the era of AI-driven management

has arrived, and such management concept will be refined with the integration of emotional intelligence,

giving the AI system greater insight into human nature. Considering the existing evidence, it is sensible to

imagine a trend where AI becomes essential and indispensable part of every enterprise. Enterprises are thus

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encouraged to appreciate such trend and escalate their efforts to not only incorporate AI in personnel

management but also integrate AI into all other functions of the business as well.

Furthermore, experts and scholars have raised ethical concerns about how AI should be applied in

general management. One common caveat is pertinent to the information processing and integration.

Scholars have mixed viewpoints of such caveat but, generally speaking, the caveat includes: who creates AI

rules and managerial guidelines, how AI collects information, who supervises the collection process, how the

AI-gathered information is analysed, shared and managed, who reviews the AI users, and what policies (or

protocols) are required for the validation and re-verification of AI guidelines (e.g. Harris et al., 2011; Tsohou

et al., 2015). Duly, as AI in personnel management is still in its infancy stage, more empirical studies and

longitudinal research are encouraged to understand the opportunity as well as constraint of AI in personnel

management. To respond to the rise of AI as well as the aforementioned concerns, the Chartered Institute of

Personnel and Development (CIPD: a professional association for people management professionals in the

United Kingdom) has initiated a series of AI-related proposals in April 2019 (CIPD, 2019). Hopefully, the

outcome will not only contribute to the knowledge of AI, but also clarify its applicability in personnel

management.

AI in personnel management – From the theoretical perspective

Earlier discussion of applicability perspective has revealed that managers evaluate AI's potential

differently and their views vary. Some managers value the technological merits of AI and see AI as powerful

tool in people management, whereas others regard AI as career threat and downgrade its applicability. In a

similar vein, Malik et al. (2019) also comment that there is no theoretical basis within personnel

management literature for understanding how AI impacts on employees and their management. To address

this theoretical gap, three relevant theoretical approaches are discussed below, helping to interpret AI’s role

and clarify its potential influence in personnel management.

<Insert Table 2 About Here>

Job demands-resources: Bakker and Demerouti (2007) indicate that whereas every occupation may

have its own specific working characters, these characters are generally divided in two categories (job

demands vs. job resources), thus constituting an overarching model that may be applied to various

occupational settings, irrespective of the particular demands and resources involved. Bakker and Demerouti
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continue that people may feel stressed when the demand-resource relationship is not balanced (e.g., when job

demands are high and when job resources are limited). Similarly, when AI is regarded as job demands (AI

functions as an innovative and assistive tool; Wisskirchen et al., 2017), organizations without AI knowledge

and skills are more likely to miss profit opportunities, whereas those with AI knowledge and skills may

secure more opportunities instead. When AI is regarded as job resource (as AI helps to efficiently automate

many back-office functions for reliable transactions and service delivery; Wang et al., 2017), organizations

with AI resources are more likely to gain competitive advantage, compared to those without resources.

Following this line of analysis, managers shall remain cautious of AI’s influence in their managerial

practices, as AI has potential to become job demand and job resource, and the absence of either potential

may put the organization at a disadvantageous position.

Psychological contract: Broadly speaking, human beings are a social species and rely on relationships

in every aspect of their life. In the workplace, for instance, employees may negotiate what they must do to

satisfy their side of the bargain, and what they can expect in return, and this give-take relationship has

formed the sense of psychological contract (Rousseau, 1989). The aforementioned negotiation appears in

different ways, such as conducting appraisal and performance review sessions, exchanging expectations

between assessors and assesses, or acting/reacting to organisational policies. Moreover, psychological

contract helps all parties (e.g., organization, manager, subordinate) to understand what each party should or

should not do, and how it should be done; thus, when the parties' expectations match each other, objectives

are likely to be accomplished and satisfaction obtained (George, 2010). Following the concept of

psychological contract, managers shall remain cautious in their introduction as well as implementation of AI

in personnel management, as managers and subordinates may have different roles or expectations. Take the

health monitor app for example, subordinates are reminded that the app helps share their physical data with

managers for the purpose of health management and well-being support, whereas managers are expected to

learn and use the data in refining their managerial practices (Ernst & Young, 2018). Although the purpose of

health monitor app is authentic, subordinates’ psychological contract may be breached if they feel being

overwatched or the data being abused (Chang, 2019). In addition, organizational leaders and senior

executives have the responsibility to learn AI and understand how to use it, and AI should be adopted in an

appropriate manner, at least in a way that empowers employees, not threatens them (CIPD, 2019).

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 Job replacement: Scholars have found that AI may re-shape employees' job tasks and hence make

them exposed to the redundancy risk (Malik et al., 2019), and that AI acts like as amalgamation of

innovation and efficiency in implementing tasks (Brown et al., 2017; Duchessi et al., 1993). Following this

line of research, Huang and Rust (2018) have specified four intelligences required for service tasks (i.e.,

mechanical, analytical, intuitive & empathetic) and outlined the way managers should decide between labor

and machines for accomplishing those tasks. According to Huang and Rust, AI’s influence evolves in a

staged manner, with mechanical mostly preceding analytical, analytical mostly preceding intuitive, and

intuitive mostly preceding empathetic intelligence. They assert that AI job replacement occurs fundamentally

at the task level, rather than the job level, and usually for lower intelligence tasks initially. Based on their

argument, AI may first replace some of a service job’s tasks, a transition stage seen as augmentation, and

then progresses to replace human labor entirely when it has the ability to take over all of a job’s tasks. The

progression of AI task replacement from lower to higher intelligences results in predictable shifts over time

in the relative importance of the intelligences for service employees. As such, analytical skills will become

trivial in future jobs, as AI may take over more analytical and complex tasks, giving the intuitive and

empathetic skills more weight and credits in the job market. Eventually, AI will have the capability to

perform not just mechanical and routine tasks of a job, but also in its entirety, even jobs that have high

intuitive and empathetic content.

The discussion above has offered a comprehensive analysis on how managers and employees interact

with (or are affected by) AI in their workplace. Managers are encouraged to plan themselves in training of AI

management; in addition to traditional labor management, they are expected to know how to manage AI or at

least equip themselves with skills in managing AI software/hardware. A summary table (Table 2) is

compiled, outlining the main argument of each approach. These approaches are different in nature but they

all have their unique merits, analyzing how AI may be constructed, interpreted and hence different outcomes

may emerge. The table also helps managers to understand to what extent AI may incorporate into (or could

be embedded within) the existing personnel managerial practices.

Model development: AI in Personnel Management (APM)

The applicability perspective has discussed the AI-management relationship, contributing to the

development of AI-management protocol for the managerial practitioners. The theoretical perspective has
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evaluated how, and to what extent, AI impacts on personnel management. Both perspectives have suggested

that AI has important implication in personnel management, and that employees interpret AI’s influence

differently. Following this logic, a new model of AI in personnel management (APM) is proposed, in line

with the rationale below. As it is shown in Figure 1, the model unfolds itself in three levels, followed by a

component of potential outcome. The three levels comprise “organizational-, managerial- and individual job-

levels”, and the outcome comprises “organizational performance, employees’ well-being, and staff turnover

rate”. Details are presented below:

<Insert Figure 1 About Here>

Organizational level. Following the discussion of job demands-resources model, scholars suggest that

AI may affect managerial practices, as AI has potential to become either job demand or job resource, and the

absence of either potential can put organizations at a disadvantageous position (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).

Organizations with AI knowledge/skills (job demand-wise) are found to secure profit opportunities

(Wisskirchen et al., 2017), whereas organizations with AI resources (job resource-wise) are more likely to

gain competitive advantage (Wang et al., 2017). In view of what has preceded, the APM model proposes to

include profit opportunity and competitive advantage at the organizational level.

Managerial level. Successful personnel management often depends on managers’ experiences and their

managerial approaches, such as managers’ understanding of management, managerial strategies, leadership

skills, management of communication, arrangement of delegation and autonomy (e.g., Macey & Scgeneider,

2008; Robert, & Davenport, 2002). Clear instruction, non-abusive supervision and person-organization fit

are also found to be related with employees’ organizational identification and job satisfaction (e.g., Chang et

al., 2013; Elsbach, 2001). Moreover, earlier discussion (c.f. applicability perspective) offers preliminary

credence that how managers view AI and their approach in learning AI may impact on their personnel

management practices, and that implementing AI requires great attention and careful arrangement. As such,

we propose to include two components at the managerial level. These are: manager’s views of AI in

personnel management and implementation of AI-driven personnel management policies.

Individual job level. AI is pertinent to job security as it has potential to replace jobs and expose

employees to the redundancy risk (Malik et al., 2019); namely, the more tasks AI can take over, the more

risk employees are exposed to. From the task-intelligence perspective, Huang and Rust (2018) suggest that

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tasks with heavy-intelligence-requirement are less likely to be replaced by AI, whereas tasks with light-

intelligence-requirement are more likely to be replaced. These arguments seem to infer that the replacement

may occur at the task level and for lower intelligence tasks first. Thus, we propose to include job security and

intelligence requirement at the individual job level.

Outcome. The APM model comprises three levels (organizational-, managerial- and individual job-

levels), and each level helps to explain how AI is relevant to specific aspects of personnel management

practices. These three levels are meaningful, bringing new insights to the AI-Management literature. These

levels also help scholars to understand the potential consequence of AI’s influence in personnel management.

Specifically, at the discussion of organizational level, we have learnt from literature that both profit

opportunity and competitive advantage are found to contribute to the overall organizational performance

(Robbins & Judge, 2012). At the discussion of managerial level, we have learnt that managers’ knowledge of

management and skill sets are important to subordinates’ workplace experiences (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin &

Cardy, 2008), and both leadership styles and managerial strategies are associated with employee’s well-being

(Jordan, 2019). At the discussion of individual job level, we have learnt from literature that job security plays

a key role in staff turnover, as insecurity causes an intention of leaving the organization (McCloy, Purl &

Banjanovic, 2019). To sum up, prior studies have offered valuable insights to the consequence of AI-driven

personnel management policies. As such, we propose to include: organizational performance, employees’

well-being and staff turnover rate as the potential outcome.

Discussion and directions of future studies

The development of APM model is valuable and informative to the academic researchers in several

ways. To begin with, the APM model has responded to Malik et al. (2019)’s call (re: the absence of AI-

personnel management literature); specifically, the model has advanced the knowledge of AI-personnel

management, supporting scholars to further understand the role of AI in personnel management. Next, the

emergence of APM model is vital to general managerial practitioners as well, as the model helps managers to

scrutinize the implication of AI in their workplace. With better understanding of AI’s implication, managers

are more likely to develop appropriate AI-driven managerial policies, which in turn benefit employees and

their organizations. Finally, the model acts as a reference guide, helping managers to evaluate the AI’s

12
constraint and opportunity in their managerial practices. It is our hope that the review of literature (i.e., AI-

personnel management) and the model in this paper will provide research with a lunching point.

Despite the fact that a great deal of research has been conducted on AI and personal management, there

remain several opportunities for future research. Based on the job demands-resources model (Bakker &

Demerouti, 2007), future studies may investigate the best demand-source equilibrium for AI implementation,

i.e., when and how AI should be provided to managers, should AI be offered via internal trainings or

incorporated into the existing PDR process? Alternatively, is it necessary for organisations to appoint AI

specialists to work with managers in their personnel management policies and practices? If AI specialists are

appropriate and to be appointed, whether the role of specialists might be overlapped with managers’

decision-making? Scholars are encouraged to consider these questions in their future attempts.

From the perspective of employees’ well-being, future studies may investigate how AI should be

deployed to maximize the efficacy of managerial policy. For instance, in order to help employees maintain

healthy psychological contract at work, scholars may research the most appropriate or feasible ways to

support the victims (i.e., the employees who are affected by AI-driven management policies; Huang & Rust,

2018), so victims do not feel being left behind and receive an opportunity to recover? Probably more

importantly, as AI becomes more advanced and ubiquitous across enterprises and industries (Ernst & Young,

2018), what personnel management strategies could managers adopt to ensure their subordinates are

confident and capable in interacting AI, rather than becoming the victims of AI implementation?

Last but not the least, the APM model is potentially important to related topics in which AI has implied

but yet not tested. Concerning the AI-personnel management literature, scholars may research APM-related

themes in two ways. On the one hand, what might define task-level jobs and what assistance may be required

to support those who are affected such as victims and the people around victims? These questions are salient

to personnel management, as managers and organisations do have responsibility to look after their employees

as well as protecting employees’ career development opportunities (CIPD, 2019). Allowing employees face

AI’s consequence alone is unethical and harms organisational interests in the long run (Chang, 2019). On the

other hand, scholars may conduct further research to analyze the potential impact of AI in processing heavy-

cognition-component jobs. A recent case explains that AI outperforms radiologists in detecting breast cancer,

but others suggest that AI only works in certain conditions (McKinney, Sieniek & Shetty, 2020). Namely, AI

13
may be powerful in the task-level jobs, what AI can contribute to in the more advanced jobs, or how people

can work with AI in the heavy-cognition-component jobs are still unknown. Further studies on these themes

are therefore encouraged.

Summary

The current research has adopted two specific perspectives (applicability vs. theory) to review and

critically discuss the constraint and opportunity of artificial intelligence (AI) in personnel management. The

applicability perspective helps inform an AI-driven set of management guidelines and contributes to the

development of AI-management protocol for the managerial practitioners. The theoretical perspective has

adopted three theories to evaluate how, and to what extent, AI impacts on personnel management. These

perspectives jointly have contributed to the knowledge advancement of AI-personnel management, and

developed a new model of APM, bringing new insights to the AI and management literature.

14
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 Artificial Intelligence in Personnel Management

Organizational level: Managerial level: Individual Job level:

*. Profit opportunity *. Manager’s views of AI in *. Job security

(AI as Job demand) personnel management *. Intelligence requirement

*. Competitive advantage *. Implementation of AI-driven

(AI as job resource) personnel management policies

Outcome

*. Organizational performance

*. Employees’ well-being

*. Staff turnover rate

Figure 1. The Model of APM (AI in Personnel Management)

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Table 1: How should managers approach AI in their practice?
Expert Affiliation Recommended approach

Dario Gil Vice President, AI Quantum Understand what AI is and what it will become
Computing, IBM

Prof. Julian London Business School Be aware of the rising AI tide

Birkinshaw

Prof. UCLA Test your black box data

Dominique Don’t rely on AI to drive growth
Hanssens

Prof. Tomo Japan Shizenkan University Know where you have the edge over AI
Noda
Bruno Di Leo Senior Vice President of The Consider your broader responsibilities
IBM

Prof. Bernard National University of Update your own education

Yeung Singapore

Ricardo CIO of the BBVA Define your values and sense of purpose
Forcano

Nico Rose Vice President, Bertelsmann Don’t just hire people, build an ecosystem
Entertainment

George Irish playwright and Stay spiky - Insistency Simply

Bernard Shaw polemicist (1856-1950)

Note.

Author compiled Table 1 using the information from internet and refined the findings at an institutional

workshop. Table 1 describes how managers and experts perceive AI, including their recommendations

managerial approaches.

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Table 2: Manifestation of theoretical approaches
Theoretical approaches Main scholars AI’s potential impact

Job demand-resource Arnold B Bakker AI affects managerial practices, especially when AI

Evangelia Demerouti has potential to become either job demand or job

(2007) resource, and the absence of either potential may put

employees and employers at a disadvantageous

position.

Psychological contract Denise M. Rousseau Implementing AI requires great attention, and

(1989) managers have the responsibility to learn AI and

Christeen George understand how to use it. To ensure employees

(2010) maintain healthy psychological contract, AI must be

adopted in an appropriate manner, at least in a way that

engages employees, not threatens them.

Job replacement Ming-Hui Huang Due to the AI’s influence, job replacement occurs

Roland T Rust (2018) fundamentally at the task level, rather than the job

level, and for lower intelligence tasks first. Tasks with

heavy-cognition-component are less likely to be

replaced at present, although more advanced AI

devices (hardware, software) may develop over time

and gradually change the course of replacement.

20