Domain Expertise and AI Adoption: Insights into HR Managers’ Unified Perspectives Across Roles and Contexts

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) offers transformative potential for human resource management (HRM), yet a significant majority of organizations have yet to adopt AI in HRM practices. While much research focuses on individual-level factors in technology adoption, limited attention has been given to the role of domain-specific expertise in shaping HR managers’ perceptions of AI. This study addresses this gap by exploring HR managers’ attitudes and intentions toward AI adoption and examining whether these perceptions differ by gender, job role, organizational size, or industry. Survey data from 279 HR managers in China, analyzed using ANOVA, reveal a largely positive, uniform view of AI adoption, with no significant differences in demographic or organizational factors. These results suggest that shared expertise within HR may drive a cohesive understanding of AI’s benefits, challenging conventional models that emphasize individual or contextual variability in technology adoption. This study contributes to the theoretical framework of technology adoption by highlighting the role of functional expertise in developing uniformity and provides practical insights for designing AI training and implementation strategies that resonate across diverse organizational settings.