Strategic Human Resource Management in the Digital Era: A Quantitative Analysis of Perceived EVP, E-HRM Practices, Organizational Trust, and Employee Retention in Pakistan's Fashion Retail Sector

Abstract

In today's knowledge economy, talent retention has become a key business goal for companies seeking competitive advantage. This study seeks to transfer the customer-centric principles into the Human Resource (HR) architecture, by exploring the structural linkage between Perceived Employee Value Proposition (EVP), Electronic Human Resource Management (E-HRM) practices, Organizational Trust and the resulting impact on Employee Retention. This is an empirical study with a post-positivist epistemological approach using a quantitative, cross sectional survey design to assess the corporate personnel (N = 390) of three leading fashion retail conglomerates (Khaadi, Sapphire, Gul Ahmed) in Pakistan. The psychometric properties of the structured instruments were checked using Cronbach's alpha (α > 0.90). Pearson correlation analysis and multi-variable linear regression analysis showed that Organizational Trust was the main and most powerful predictor of Employee Retention in all the organizational contexts (Khaadi: β = 0.942; Sapphire: β = 0.735; Gul Ahmed: β = 0.923). In comparison, Perceived EVP showed reverse paths in the traditional legacy structures, with negative signs indicating an expectation-reality gap. E-HRM systems proved to be highly effective in digitally oriented contexts in supporting retention, while showing little functionality in legacy contexts. This study contributes to Employee Turnover Theory and Resource Based View (RBV) in a new context of the fast developing corporate context of the emerging South Asian context.