A Comparison of the Effects of Positive and Negative Information on Job Seekers' Organizational Attraction and Attribute Recall

Expanding branding: effects of multiple brand types on organizational attractiveness

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relative effects of three organizational brand types (product, employment and corporate social responsibility brands) on organizational attractiveness. The potential differences in the impacts exerted by each brand on organizational attractiveness between the US and Chinese job seekers are also examined.

Design/methodology/approach

A policy-capturing design was used among both US and Chinese participants to test the hypothesized relationships using multilevel modeling.

Findings

Results suggest that each brand type independently contributes to the prediction of attractiveness, with the employment brand a significantly stronger predictor than the other two. Besides, the strength of relationships between brands and organizational attractiveness varies among job seekers from different national contexts.

Originality/value

The findings contribute to the limited understanding of how different types of brands together influence organizational attractiveness among job seekers, and the role national context plays in it.

Impact of word-of-mouth, job attributes and relationship strength on employer attractiveness

Purpose

Job information through word-of-mouth (WOM) has a crucial impact on employer attractiveness. The phenomenal rise of social media offers alternate WOM platforms for sharing job information, which is quite different from traditional face-to-face WOM. The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential impact of traditional word-of-mouth (t-WOM) and social media word-of-mouth (s-WOM) on employer attractiveness along with the difference in the job attributes and relationship strength with the information source.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted to examine the impact of information source (t-WOM and s-WOM), job attributes (tangible and intangible) and relationship strength (strong and weak), on employer attractiveness. Source expertise and source trust were treated as the control variable.

Findings

The result shows the differential impact of t-WOM and s-WOM on employer attractiveness. Moreover, t-WOM from strong relation source found to have a high impact on employer attractiveness than s-WOM. No significant difference due to job attributes was found.

Research limitations/implications

Use of only positive WOM and not the negative one, student as the subjects, etc.

Practical implications

The present study suggests using t-WOM and s-WOM to attract talented job seekers.

Originality/value

This is the first study to analyze the differential impact of t-WOM and s-WOM on employer attractiveness.

(Mis)Steps for Attracting High Resilience Workers

Organizations are becoming increasingly likely to incorporate measures of trait resilience into their selection batteries despite the challenges and validity questions described by Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016). Organizations can overcome some of the challenges of selecting high resilience workers by improving attraction and recruitment methods. In the following commentary, we describe common organization efforts to attract high resilience workers for occupations with risk of psychological trauma. We integrate research on organizational attraction and trait resilience to predict which of these approaches are likely to have the desired (attract high resilient workers) or undesired (attract low resilient workers) effect.

Employer Image and Employer Branding: What We Know and What We Need to Know

In this article, we review theory and research on employer image and employer branding published since 2001. The review is wide ranging. First, we define employer image and distinguish it from similar constructs such as reputation and identity. We find that the literature has used two conceptualizations of images: an elementalistic perspective (e.g., distinction between symbolic and instrumental organizational attributes) and a holistic perspective (i.e., overall ratings of organizational attractiveness). Second, we discuss the effects of favorable organizational images, including better recruitment outcomes, more differentiation, stronger emotional bonds, and financial returns. Third, we review the antecedents and formation of image with a focus on organizational (e.g., recruiters) and nonorganizational sources [e.g., word of mouth (WOM)]. Fourth, we discuss the theoretical mediating mechanisms responsible for image effects and the moderators of image-outcome relationships. Finally, we address practical implications in the form of employer brand management and provide future research suggestions.