ALGORITHMIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING: ORGANISATIONAL JUSTICE AND TRANSPARENCY AS EXPLANATORY MECHANISMS

Abstract

As software increasingly enters conventional organisations, algorithmic human resource management (AHRM), originally developed in the context of platform work, is also expanding into traditional organisations with software appearing as a participant in recruitment, scheduling, performance evaluation, compensation, promotion, and discipline. While these systems hold the promise of consistency, speed, and data-informed coordination, their implications for workers remain theoretical. While efficiency-oriented accounts typically regard algorithms as neutral tools, critical accounts highlight their opacity, surveillance, diminished agency and asymmetrical managerial control. This integrative review provides a way to conceptualise AHRM as both a job resource and a job demand. Based primarily on organisational justice theory and the job demands-resources perspective, this paper argues that AHRM influences employee well-being through employees' evaluations of procedural, informational, interpersonal and distributive justice. The reason for this is that algorithmic transparency is proposed not in an unqualified manner but as a boundary condition: explanations for AI systems can help improve predictability and contestability at some level, but, when technical disclosure is imperfect, they become a cognitive burden or create mere symbolic openness. The synthesis distinguishes between informational visibility and meaningful transparency, and the organisational safeguards it identifies include human review, employee voice, data proportionality, and appeal mechanisms. In particular, five propositions define the expected relationships among AHRM intensity, perceived justice, transparency quality, employee autonomy, and well-being. It contributes by weaving together perspectives of efficiency and control, positioning justice as the focal psychological mechanism, and proposing a research design appropriate for organisations in emerging economies. He concludes that responsible AHRM cannot rely on perfect algorithms but must instead provide real procedural justice that enables employees to comprehend, question, and contribute to potentially consequential decisions.