Abstract
Purpose The human resource (HR) allocation problem is one of the critical dimensions of the project management process. Due to this nature of the problem, researchers are continually optimizing one or more critical scheduling and allocation challenges in different ways. This study aims to optimize two goals, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing costs using the imperialist competitive algorithm. Design/methodology/approach Cloud-based e-commerce applications are preferred to conventional systems because they can save money in many areas, including resource use, running expenses, capital costs, maintenance and operation costs. In web applications, its core functionality of performance enhancement and automated device recovery is important. HR knowledge, expertise and competencies are becoming increasingly valuable carriers for organizational competitive advantage. As a result, HR management is becoming more relevant, as it seeks to channel all of the workers' energy into meeting the organizational strategic objectives. The allocation of resources to maximize benefit or minimize cost is known as the resource allocation problem. Since discovering solutions in polynomial time is complicated, HR allocation in cloud-based e-commerce is an Nondeterministic Polynomial time (NP)-hard problem. In this paper, to promote the respective strengths and minimize the weaknesses, the imperialist competitive algorithm is suggested to solve these issues. The imperialist competitive algorithm is tested by comparing it to the literature's novel algorithms using a simulation. Findings Empirical outcomes have illustrated that the suggested hybrid method achieves higher performance in discovering the appropriate HR allocation than some modern techniques. Practical implications The paper presents a useful method for improving HR allocation methods. The MATLAB-based simulation results have indicated that costs and waiting time have been improved compared to other algorithms, which cause the high application of this method in practical projects. Originality/value The main novelty of this paper is using an imperialist competitive algorithm for finding the best solution to the HR allocation problem in cloud-based e-commerce.