Do Employment Experience and Attractiveness Rankings Matter in Employee Recommendation? A Firm-level Analysis of Employers

Lievens

Srivastava

2022

JPBM

Self Cite

Purpose In the past 25 years, employer and internal branding have grown significantly. Prior reviews tended to focus on either one of these domains. This study aims to map the intellectual structure of research on both employer branding and internal branding, thereby identifying impactful authors and journals, current and evolving themes and avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach Using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages, a bibliometric analysis of 739 articles was conducted using various methods such as citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, cluster analysis, keyword analysis and three-field plot. The Scopus results were further validated using 297 articles produced by the Web of Science data set. It ensured the robustness of the results and generalizability of the findings across bibliometric data sets. Findings The findings first report the impactful articles, authors and institutions of employer and internal branding research, along with popular keywords used in this area. Next, the analysis reveals four major clusters and seven subthemes (i.e. employer brand and job seekers, employer brand and employees, employer brand and international human resource management (HRM), third-party employer branding, internal branding – conceptualization/review, internal branding – antecedents and consequences, internal brand management). Early research focused more on “corporate brandings,” whereas current research deals more with “employer branding: antecedents and consequences,” “employer branding conceptualization/review,” and “internal branding” and its subthemes. The employer and internal branding clusters have evolved largely independent from each other. This study offers future research directions and practical implications per cluster. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of both employer and internal branding research.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employer and internal branding research: a bibliometric analysis of 25 years

Lievens

Srivastava

2022

JPBM

Self Cite

“…, 2011) shared on social media platforms such as linkedIn or on crowdsource platforms such as Glassdoor (Pernkopf et al. , 2021; Saini and Jawahar, 2021). Since the company-dependent and company-independent information sources have different properties (Gupta and Saini, 2018), their influence on employer attractiveness and job pursuit intention is likely to be different and therefore, a study of this phenomenon may contribute to our understanding about the role of information source in influencing employer branding outcomes.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, the employer's creativity and innovation has also been studied as the attributes which can affect employer attractiveness (Styv en et al, 2022). These attributes can be communicated to job seekers through various information sources such as company websites and word-of-mouth (Uen et al, 2011) shared on social media platforms such as linkedIn or on crowdsource platforms such as Glassdoor (Pernkopf et al, 2021;Saini and Jawahar, 2021). Since the company-dependent and companyindependent information sources have different properties (Gupta and Saini, 2018), their influence on employer attractiveness and job pursuit intention is likely to be different and therefore, a study of this phenomenon may contribute to our understanding about the role of information source in influencing employer branding outcomes.…”

Section: Employer Attractiveness and Job Pursuit Intentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does information source interact with information content and valence in influencing employer attractiveness and job pursuit intention?

Ahamad¹,

2022

JOEPP

Self Cite

PurposeWhile the information source is likely to affect job search process, it is still unknown how the information source interacts with the information content and information valence. In this study, first, the authors examine the influence of information source, information content, and information valence on employer attractiveness and job pursuit intention; and second, the authors estimate the interaction of information source with content and valence of information on employer attractiveness and job pursuit intention.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted a 2 (information source: company-independent vs company-dependent) x 2 (information content: instrumental vs symbolic) x 2 (information valence: positive vs negative) between-subject factorial design to achieve the study’s research objectives, using a sample of 240 job applicants; and applied multivariate analysis of covariance for estimating the main and interaction effects.FindingsThe authors find a significant interaction of information source with the content and valence of information, indicating a differential effect of content and valence, depending on the information source. The study reveals that the effect of information content (i.e. symbolic vs instrumental) on employer attractiveness varies depending on the source of information (i.e. company-independent vs company-dependent), with the company-independent source having a higher effect than the company-dependent source.Practical implicationsConsidering that the information source has a differential effect on job seekers, it would be useful to account for such differences in designing recruitment communications. Results guide managers in deciding the appropriate recruitment information outlet for communicating symbolic and instrumental attributes. The use of symbolic attribute content is recommended for generating favourable evaluations about an employer.Originality/valueThis study is a novel attempt to examine on how information source interacts with information content type and information valence in influencing recruitment outcomes. The authors provide valuable insights to human resource managers or employer brand managers to design effective recruitment communications and leverage the company-independent information sources appropriately.

“…Third, there is virtually no research on the influence of employee recommendation of an employer as an employer of choice (Saini & Jawahar, 2019 , 2021 ) on employer attractiveness to potential job applicants. Fourth, these variables don't operate in isolation but are likely to interactively influence employer attractiveness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactive influence of work–life balance benefits, employee recommendation, and job attributes on employer attractiveness and job pursuit intentions: two experiments

Ahamad¹,

Jawahar

2022

Asian Bus Manage

Self Cite

Drawing on signaling theory (Spence 1978), we propose that communicating work–life balance benefits offered along with favorable employee recommendations and valued job attributes could be construed as signals organizations deliberately use to influence potential applicants' perceptions of employer attractiveness and enhance job pursuit intentions. We test these ideas in two experiments. In study 1, using carefully constructed vignettes to manipulate work–life balance (WLB) benefits, employee recommendation, and job attributes in a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design and with data gathered from 320 Indian MBA students, we found support for the direct and interactive effects of these variables on employer attractiveness. In study 2, using a 3 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design and data from 360 Indian MBA students, we examined the influence of three different alternative work arrangements, a form of WLB benefit, and how such benefits interact with employee recommendations and job attributes to influence job pursuit intentions. We discuss implications for theory, research, and practice.