In the 1995 edited volume, The Changing Nature of Work, editor Ann Howard and the contributing authors refer to the many and varied disruptions that workers might expect in the coming years, including transformations in the employer-employee relationship, the content of work, and the contexts in which work is conducted. An interesting characteristic of this and a number of other forward-looking writings on work conditions and labor markets is that they implicitly demarcate the challenges of human resources (HR) professionals in terms of responding to the problems that will be raised by adaptation in the ways that other people must do their jobs. Although exceptions exist, most writing on this topic spends little time reflecting upon the effects of changing work conditions on HR professionals themselves. This special issue of Human Resource Management Journal on "e-HR: The Intersection of Information Technology and Human Resource Management" presents a set of articles that speaks in one way or another to this topic. Specifically, authors in this special issue address a variety of ways in which information technology affects the HR profession.
In the years since the publication of Howard's volume, the rapid development of networked information technology (IT) to support organizational processes such as HR management has dramatically increased the global connectivity and reach of these activities. Almost every aspect of HR-recruiting, hiring, training, performance management, compensation, benefits, and so forth-has