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The Data Are Coming! Reconceptualizing Big Data for the Organizational Sciences

Michael Howe (Iowa State University, US)
James K. Summers (College of Business, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA)
Jacob A. Holwerda (University of Wyoming, US)

Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management

ISBN: 978-1-80455-046-5, eISBN: 978-1-80455-045-8

Publication date: 4 October 2022

Abstract

The increasing prevalence and availability of big data represent a potentially revolutionary development for human resource management (HRM) scholars. Despite this, the current literature provides eclectic and often contradictory guidance for scholars attempting to conceptualize big data and subsequently incorporate it into relevant theoretical frameworks. The authors attempt to bridge this gap by discussing key considerations relevant to understanding and integrating big data into the existing theoretical landscape. Building on a novel, integrative definition of big data, the authors propose a parsimonious theoretical framework utilizing the established dimensions of complexity and dynamism as meta-attributes to bring order to the various attributes that have been proposed as central to defining big data (e.g., volume, variety, velocity, and variability). Throughout, the authors highlight numerous theoretical and empirical opportunities and considerations that this perspective holds for future HRM scholarship.

Keywords

Citation

Howe, M., Summers, J.K. and Holwerda, J.A. (2022), "The Data Are Coming! Reconceptualizing Big Data for the Organizational Sciences", Buckley, M.R., Wheeler, A.R., Baur, J.E. and Halbesleben, J.R.B. (Ed.) Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Vol. 40), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 133-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-730120220000040005

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022 Michael Howe, James K. Summers and Jacob A. Holwerda