Institutional context and e-recruitment practices of Danish organizations

Up to now, there has been little research on the impact of the external environment on recruitment practices of organizations, and in part it lags behind practice. The purpose of this paper is to rectify this by studying recent changes in recruitment practices of Danish organizations and the adoption of e-recruitment from a macro organizational perspective.

The study employs new institutional theory as a theoretical lens in order to understand how external pressures impact upon recruitment professionals and their practices. The empirical part is based on interpretive methods and the inductive analysis of data. The data were collected from a number of sources, such as exploratory interviews, observations, web sites, and other secondary material from 2008 to 2013.

The findings indicate that recruitment practices are strongly influenced by changes stemming from functional and social pressures of the wider society, such as the labour market and the penetration of the internet into Danish society. That is reflected in the widespread use of digital HRM in general, and e-recruitment in particular. The study concludes that the recruitment field has transformed and reviewed its practices to a great extent due to the changes in how individuals search for employment and expect to be hired.

The empirical part of this study is limited to Denmark, and its economic, social, and cultural domains, yet the research design can be applied elsewhere.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of HRM in context, the pressures and mechanisms for adoption of new recruitment practices, and more specifically the rationale for adopting e-recruitment practices. Additionally, it offers a novel research framework for future research on recruitment from the neoinstitutional perspective.