Application of Cloud-based Human Resource Management Information System and Women-Entrepreneurial Growth: A Conceptual Consideration

: The aim of this study is to offer a conceptual understanding on the link between Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System and women entrepreneurship growth. The phenomenon of female entrepreneurship, female business owners themselves and their enterprises, is regarded as one of the carriers of economic and social development. Despite their vast participation and contribution to the economic development, however, female entrepreneurs do not perform as well as their male counterparts in terms of business strategy which results in high growth prospects. The study followed a conceptual approach to indicate how Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System will lead to women entrepreneurial growth. The study also proposed a framework on the association between the two constructs. It was concluded that the development of the system will offer greater opportunities for women entrepreneurs to overcome the overarching challenges most especially in their human resource practices which will eventually results in growth opportunities. The study recommended that future research efforts should be carried out to empirically test the proposed framework so as to empirically understand the association between the two constructs.


Introduction
High growth venture is considered a major driver of sustainable economic development in a nation. This is mainly due to its greater impact on job creation and increased economic activity in a country. An important aspect of any economy is the effective performance of entrepreneurial activities most especially in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating within the sector of the economy (Caloghirou et al., 2020). Globally, researchers, business managers and policymakers have continued to pay greater attention to understanding the performance of such businesses and their impact on strategic goals attainments. This is largely due to widespread evidence that high-growth businesses are largely active in spreading innovation and increasing productivity to create value (Monteiro, 2019). An important aspect of any entrepreneurial effort is their ability to implement strategic human resource planning measures (HRPM), which ensure efficient use of resources by directing human resource efforts to key areas of need in their business operations (Fawcett & Hampton, 2020).
Theoretically, growth by its very nature is being influenced by diverse factors which affect business opportunities. Some researchers in the field of economic analysis recognized the importance of firm strategy and industrial structure to be the main drivers of growth (Hechavarria et al., 2019); some knowledgeable authors emphasized on the desires and intentions of business owners (Beynon et al., 2020); while some other considerations in the field of entrepreneurship recognized the significance of a complex combination of some critical elements such as, individual entrepreneurial characteristics encompassing educational level, strategy, managerial experience, innovation and gender. While the differences between male and female-led businesses are of deep concern, the fascinating questions lie in the conception of female entrepreneurship and the relative importance of the various factors that influence high-growth female entrepreneurship (Yeboah, 2021;Hechavarria et al., 2019) The phenomenon of female entrepreneurship, female business owners themselves and their enterprises, is regarded as one of the carriers of economic and social development. According to the latest report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor on Women, 274 million women have new or established ventures in 74 economies (Kuschel, 2020). In all of these societies, female entrepreneurship can manifest itself in different ways based on diverse backgrounds and geographies. It is an established facts that women around the world have different entrepreneurial experiences in terms of accessibility to opportunities, markets, resources business strategies (Ogundana et al., 2021;Welter, 2011).
Despite their vast participation and contribution to the economic development, female entrepreneurs do not perform as well as their male counterparts in terms of sales, job growth, or profitability (Poggesi et al., 2020;Orser et al., Brush, 2019). Therefore, there are various factors that affect the growth of female entrepreneurship. The most common elements revealed by the empirical literature include educational level, entrepreneurial ability, management strategy, and gender (Amrita et al., 2018). These key factors placed female-led entrepreneurs in a highly complex situation that is associated with extreme difficulties in promoting business development (Ariffin et al, 2018).
Several empirical efforts in comparing the performance of male and female entrepreneurs have been recognized by researchers with inconclusive findings. Key and missing from the past research effort is the consideration of highgrowth women entrepreneurs and its critical elements. According to Fairlie & Fossen (2018), growth-oriented businesses led by women and men are critical to economic success because they are more likely to create jobs, support communities, and achieve higher productivity, innovation, and exports (Qian et al., 2021). Similarly, past empirical evidences revealed that women face different challenges in applying different strategies that are critical and directional in attaining various growth prospects. However, less empirical attempts were given by past studies to consider the importance of other factors most especially in the areas of human resource management practices.
Giving the importance of adequate knowledge of Human resource practices and how its application can improve venture growth, passed studies have revealed that most businesses fail to maintain proper and adequate recruitment and selection procedures, and other issues related to performance monitoring and evaluation systems (Olson et al., 2018). These and other complex issues have relapsed into systematic consequences of poor employee performance, which invariably affects the growth prospects. Hence, as knowledge of Human Resource Management (HRM) is seen as the most important strategy to ensure overall entrepreneurial growth, the automation of HRP measures through the application of information technology can effectively improve HR practices in businesses and bring about positive growth prospect (Amrutha & Geetha, 2020).
Large businesses globally have continued to reap the benefits of understanding Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System (CHRMIS) to reduce most of the challenges associated with HRPM. The system offer greater advantages of collecting, storing, maintaining, retrieving, and validating the data in line with HRPM (Wang et al., 2016). The system is viewed as an automated software application that combines the HR functions of recruitment and selection process with employee performance evaluation analysis (Abdeldayem & Aldulaimi, 2020). With the full knowledge and implementation of the system, businesses are expected to take control of their human resource practices in selecting the right employees and monitoring their job performance to achieve the organization's growth prospects (Shou et al., 2019). However, whether the adoption of the system by Women entrepreneurs can generate desired results of attaining high-growth prospects is an issue of greater consideration among researchers.
Even though, past studies have investigated the relationship between human resource management practices and employees' performance using different constructs. For instance, Bilgic (2020), Abbasi, Tahir, Abbas, and Shabbir (2020) Moreover, with the automation of human resource management practices through the ITbased human resource technology infrastructure, businesses are expected to efficiently manage employee information system through the IT-based recruitment and selection process, and performance appraisal system (Liu & Zeinaly, 2020). However, review of past studies indicated that few or no research efforts were offered towards investigating the adoption of cloud-based recruitment and selection, and employee performance appraisal most especially in the context of Women entrepreneurs' growth, hence, the need for more research efforts.
The objective of this study is to provide conceptual understanding on the link between Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System and women entrepreneurship growth; and to propose a framework on the association between Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System and Women entrepreneurial growth. The remaining components of the paper provided discussions on the concept of business growth, the concept of entrepreneurship, women-led entrepreneurship and cloud-based human resource management information system. Finally, the paper offered a framework on the relationship between cloud-based human resource management information system and women entrepreneurial growth.

Concept of Business Growth
According to Schepers, et al. (2021) growth is defined as a product of the internal processes of firm development and the improvement of quality and expansion of output. Oparin, et al. (2018) defined growth as a change in size over a defined time horizon. In the words of Chen, Kang and Butler (2019), the growth of a company is basically the result of an expanding demand for a specific product or service provided by the organization. It is considered the first result of an increase in sales and thus an investment in additional factors of production to accommodate new demand. Similarly,  describe organizational growth in terms of increased sales, increased headcount, increased profits, increased assets, increased company value, and internal development. According to the above definition, growth can be seen as the result of certain dynamics that the organization keeps building up based on the company's assessment and the market.
Generally, growth is an important indicator aspired by any entrepreneur. There are several growth indicators, including entrepreneurial characteristics and the availability of resources such as financial and human resources that have a greater impact on the entrepreneurial growth and differentiate it from non-growing businesses (Glancey, 1998;Handoo & Sharma, 2014). In addition, as a form of geographic expansion, the growth of an organization, the increase in the number of branches, the entry of new markets and customers, the increase in the number of products and services, integration and acquisitions (Abdulsaleh & Worthington, 2013;Calabrò et al., 2019). It has been emphasized that growth is a function of decisions made by entrepreneurs, such as how to grow internally or externally and where to grow in domestic or international markets (Gupta et al., 2013).
Researchers have put considerable effort into studying the determinants of business growth. In general, growth is considered to be the result of optimal management of the resources and available capabilities in organizations (Mutandwa et al., 2015). These include the entrepreneurial capabilities, access to information, and resources management. Thus, the growth of organizations depends on the identification of sources both human and material, the ability and learning of accumulation methods and the generation of sustainable profits, as well as a review of how and when industrial and financing resources are acquired and how external investors acquire them. (Coad, 2007;Gupta et al., 2013). According to Alex, et al. (2018) they postulate that growth is primarily enhanced from a strategic perspective, and it is important to trust those with the cognitive ability to grow, as holders are not the only protagonists of growth. Furthermore, the ability of entrepreneurs to participate in the network is very important (Acemoglu et al., 2018).

Concept of Entrepreneurship
From an economic point of view, entrepreneurship is conceptualized in the aspect of risk taking as someone who actively compensates for the difference in supply and demand thereby reaping the highest possible benefits (Belás et al., 2018). Entrepreneurs take risks to acquire and allocate resources to balance the economy (Virglerová et al., 2016). Ramoglou, Gartner, and Tsang (2020) mentioned Knight in the 1900s that the job of the entrepreneur is to take on the uncertainty inherent in the economy.
Entrepreneurship is an act of innovation that involves endowing existing resources with new wealth, producing capabilities and the nature of the decision-making context that serves as an entrepreneurial decision-making (Salmivaara & Kibler, 2020). Thus, an entrepreneur is someone who is exclusively responsible for and makes judgmental decisions affecting the location, form and use of a commodity, resource or institution (Filion, 2021). Entrepreneurs are at the heart of a company's business, especially in a newly established company. Entrepreneurs are individuals who create new businesses, take most of the risks, and enjoy most of the rewards. The process of starting a business is called entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are often seen as innovators, sources of new ideas, goods, services and businesses/or programs.
Given the above definitions, entrepreneurship can be defined as the type of business strategy that creates jobs, social wealth and profits by optimizing the use of production and business resources. In addition, Szkudlarek & Wu (2018) identify entrepreneurship as a phenomenon related to entrepreneurial activity, that is, the enterprising human behavior that pursues the creation of value through the creation or expansion of economic activity, through the identification and development of new products, process or market. In this sense, McKelvey & Lassen (2018) identified that the basic act of entrepreneurship is through launching new ventures, whether by start-ups or through internal corporate venture capital, and through the use of new Entrepreneurial activities are tentatively guided by some entrepreneurial theories.
Entrepreneurs can therefore, be seen as anyone who comes up with new ideas, discovers opportunities and converts them into added value to society, who take the risk of starting a new business. An entrepreneur is also considered as anyone who adds value to an existing idea. Likewise, one might put forward that entrepreneurship is conceivable not only in the context of starting a new business, but also in the possibility of transforming existing ideas in innovative ways.

Concept of Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System
The development of technology has offered organizations the opportunity of providing services directly to employees and managers through the use of self-service systems (Stone et al., 2019). In recent times, there has been a shit of emphasis in the delivery of transactional HRM approach, which is highly labour intensive, to more a sophisticated phase of technologybased, whereby a large proportion of operational activities of organizations are delivered using an array of software rather than facilitation through HR administrators (Khera, 2012;Stone et al., 2019). This has led to the emergence of cloud computing in carrying out the necessary HRPM in organizations, and hence, the emergence of Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System.
In today's business environment, organizations make use of the Cloud-Based Human Resource Information System (CHRIS) for reducing most of the challenges associated with HRPM. The system is seen as an automated software application that combines human resources functions of recruitment and selection process, and performance evaluation analysis (Assante et al., 2016). The system assists businesses in collecting, storing, maintaining, retrieving and validating data needed regarding its HRPM, and personnel activities (Wang et al., 2016). With the application of the system, organizations are expected to have control over its HRPM in terms of selecting the right employees, and monitoring their job performance for the attainment of the organizations' high-level growth prospects (Shorfuzzaman et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2016).

Cloud-Based Recruitment and Selection
In today's business environment, organizations have been devising varied efforts to adjust to the new reality of cloud-based technology in implementing their HR practices. According to Wang et al., (2017), cloud-based recruitment selection as an emerging field of E-recruiting is defined as the application of communication technologies such as websites and social media to find and attract potential job applicants, to keep them interested in the organization during the selection processes, and to influence their job choice decisions. Recruitment and Selection Subsystem and Firm Performance Web-based technology used by e-recruiting helps organizations attract a stronger and more diverse applicant pool (Piabuo et al., 2017). Cloud-based recruitment and selection can also be seen as the most common means of using the Internet as a means to recruit and identify other online activities within the scope of e-recruiting (Ramkumar, 2018) The process of recruitment and selection in organizations set into being at the moment where the need to fill a position arose, and as well, ends with the receipt of résumés and completed application forms (Ankrah & Sokro, 2012). The result is a pool of qualified job seekers from which the individual best matching the job requirements can be selected. On the other hand, selection is seen as the process of choosing candidates that possessed the relevant qualifications to fill existing job vacant. In this regards, the applicants' data and information regarding current employment are collected and evaluated (Ankrah & Sokro, 2012). This information on the applicant can be evaluated for the purpose of transfer on the basis of the man power required. In today's business environment, organizational recruitment efforts have increasingly relied on computer technology (Wang et al., 2016). Employers can electronically advertise jobs, scan and store resumes, conduct test, and contact qualified applicants by using the power of the Internet to match people to jobs.
On the other hand, e-selection uses cloud computing in assisting businesses to efficiently manage the process of identifying the best applicants that possessed the right knowledge, skills and abilities for each job and who may best www.ejtas.com EJTAS 2023 | Volume 1 | Number 2 263 fit the organization (Wang et al., 2016). It a practice that businesses usually faced with the pressures to continually improve on the accuracy of selection methods and to meet legal requirements (Ankrah & Sokro, 2012). Therefore, businesses view technology as a way to manage the recruitment and selection processes more effectively and to provide more evidence of the effectiveness of the chosen selection method.

Cloud-Based Performance Appraisal
Cloud-based performance appraisal can be defined as the automated process of analyzing the training needs of the employees, and systematic means of monitoring and review their progress and receiving feedback for employee performance improvement (Bulmash, 2009). It can also be seen as the application of such software systems provided by IT companies which help to integrate and implement HRPM processes of performance monitoring and appraisal system in organizations. According to Wang et al., (2016) cloud-based performance appraisal can be seen as a practice that the application of cloud computing techniques in the process of assessing the performance of individual worker in organizations. The system recognizes human differentiation and helps in achieving higher-level of honest evaluation of team members while also allowing clearer indication of where specific skill-gaps need to be bridged to enhance overall organizational performance through the application cloud computing (Chakraborty & Mansor, 2013;Wang et al., 2016).
Cloud-based HR help to measure and manage the employee performance. It assists organizations in automating the processes of HRPM and save time and cost and reduce the efforts required on the paperwork (Wang et al., 2016). Generally, large organizations have already been applying the system and rest are planning to put its application for the success of their performance management. As an effort to automate the processes of performance appraisal management, organizations are increasingly taking the advantages of various performance management software's such as Workforce Performance Management (WPM) suite systems and Talent Management Software (Ankrah & Sokro, 2012). This software assist in systematic record of all the required information concerning employee performance, predetermined targets and the results achieved, compensation, succession planning and other related HR systems. Its application required for the various data forms to be filled online and submitted to the HR department (Carroll & Wagar, 2010;Wang et al., 2016).

Women Entrepreneurial Growth and Cloud-based Human Resource Management Information System
The use of cloud computing in the area of human resource management in organizations has generally regarded as a prospect for women entrepreneurs to utilize the advantages surrounding their business opportunities (Wuen et al., 2020). This benefit is crucial to women business owners because the application of IT allow for the HR function to become more efficient and to provide better information for decision-making.
Through the CHRIS entrepreneurs can maintain an integrated system of acquiring and storing data used to make analysis, make decisions in the field of HR (Seethamraju, 2015). A contemporary HRIS is a dynamic database about employees' performance and demographic information. According to (Chakraborty & Mansor, 2013), HRIS provides details about employees' data, employment, application requirement, job characteristics, selection and staffing, procedures of employment, corporate structure, professional and individual improvement, education costs, performance appraisal, personnel planning, organizing (Obeidat, 2012).
Before the development of CHRIS, conventional HRP in hiring the right skills to the designated positions is an effective way of building and sustaining a committed workforce. This is more likely to be facilitated by the employment of a range of sophisticated human resource management infrastructures (Nickson,   . Entrepreneurs can recruit and select the right candidates. At the same time, job seekers gather information about organizations and current jobs offers; because they cannot gain complete knowledge of all alternatives and their potential characteristics (Matimbwa & Masue, 2019). It has been observed that businesses maintained higher desire to fill the various job vacancy very quickly or who are unwilling to have recruitment processes such as job analysis, are possibly less discriminating in the quality and quantity of the candidates (Macke & Genari, 2019).
Therefore, with the automation of the system, businesses are likely to obtain the required labour force to fill in the existing vacancies. Therefore, this will offer greater advantage to entrepreneurs most especially women to have its best utilization for the attainment of high growth prospects.

Proposed Conceptual Framework
The research model was presented as thus:

Figure 1. Proposed Framework
The diagram above shows the proposed conceptual framework of the study. As indicated in the diagram, the independent variables (cloudbased employee recruitment and selection, and cloud-based employee performance appraisal) will have a direct relation relationship with the dependent variable (Entrepreneurial Growth). The framework indicated that the nature of resources owned by an entrepreneur are an important source of competitive advantage. Women entrepreneurs can strive to use resources available to secure the best cloud computing technology in the field of HRM most especially in the areas of cloud-based recruitment and selection, and cloud-based performance appraisal), and sustained competitive advantage. These distinctive forms of resources owned by the entrepreneur can be outstanding advantage which can generate high growth prospect. As a result, the entrepreneur's ability to obtain resources in unique historical conditions, causally ambiguous relationship between firm resources and sustained competitive advantage most especially in building high growth enterprise.

Conclusion
This study offered conceptual understand on the link between Cloud-Based Human Resource Management Information System indicated by cloud-based recruitment and selection and cloud-based performance appraisal and women entrepreneurial growth as depicted in Figure 1. The study proposes that if the framework is empirically validated, the findings will offer significant insight to both academics, researchers, practicing women entrepreneurs, and business employees on the present state of the application of cloud computing in the field www.ejtas.com EJTAS 2023 | Volume 1 | Number 2 265 of women entrepreneurship. The study recommended that future research efforts should be carried out to empirically test the proposed framework of the study so as to empirically understand the association between the two constructs.