Digital Transformation of HRM and Its Impact on the Employment Relationship: A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Study of Nigerian Banks

This doctoral study longitudinally examines the digital transformation of HRM systems and its multi-dimensional impact on the employment relationship in Nigerian commercial banks over a five-year period from 2019 to 2024, contributing original theoretical and empirical insights into how technology mediates the employer-employee nexus in an emerging market banking context. The digitalisation of HRM through AI-powered recruitment, automated performance management, digital learning platforms, and chatbot-based employee relations services fundamentally reconfigures the social exchange dynamics of the employment relationship, yet longitudinal evidence of these effects in African banking remains absent from the literature. A longitudinal sequential mixed-methods design was employed, combining four waves of quantitative survey data from 380 bank employees across five Nigerian banks with 60 qualitative interviews conducted at corresponding time points. Latent change score modelling and longitudinal thematic analysis were applied in parallel. The study draws on Orlikowski's Sociomateriality Theory, the Employment Relationship Model, and Digital HRM Theory. The original theoretical contribution is a Dynamic Digital HRM-Employment Relationship Model that captures how initial employee responses to HRM digitalization (ambivalence, adoption, resistance) evolve over time and produce distinct employment relationship trajectories, generating a typology of digital HRM employment relationship patterns not available in existing literature. The study also finds that digitalization depersonalizes the employment relationship for junior staff while enhancing it for managerial grades, producing a technology-mediated employment stratification effect. Recommendations include digital empathy design principles for HR technology, employee digital voice mechanisms, and regulator guidance on AI in HR. Keywords: digital transformation, HRM, employment relationship, Nigerian banks, longitudinal study