Social networking information and pre-employment background check: mediating effects of perceived benefit and organizational branding

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this empirical paper is to identify the role of social networking information (SNI) on job candidates' pre-employment background checking (PBC) process. SNI was further divided into three elements: perceived availability of information (PAI), perceived accuracy of information (PACI) and perceived reliability of information (PRI). In addition, the authors employed two mediating variables: perceived benefit (PB) and organizational branding (OB) to study the influence of each element of SNI on PBC.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used primary data collected from a valid sample of 465 using a structured questionnaire survey selected through purposive sampling. For descriptive analysis, SPSS 24 and for testing the hypothesized relationships, structural equation modeling technique (with AMOS 24) were utilized.FindingsThe results indicated that only PAI had strong positive influence on PBC. The other two independent variables: PACI and PRI had insignificant positive influence on PBC. In case of mediators, OB was found to partially mediate the relationship between PAI and PBC while it did not mediate two other direct relationships. Further, PB did not mediate any relationship at all.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is expected to be useful for the academicians involved in investigating the role of SNI on PBC as a lucrative research topic.Practical implicationsThe hiring professionals can utilize the findings of this primary research as the guidelines for formulating effective social media background checking policies.Originality/valueUsing SNI for different HRM practices is comparatively new but a growing practice. However, the empirical investigation covering this area is almost absent in academia. This paper as one of the very initial attempts to reveal the role of SNI on PBC can fill that severe gap to some extent and guide future research attempts. Furthermore, the HR professionals are expected to be benefitted from the empirical results in formulating and implementing an effective media policy that will help them in utilizing the SNI in an efficient and rightful manner.

The Role of LinkedIn Profile on Hiring Preference: Evidence from Bangladeshi Employers

“…Therefore, all the hypotheses proved valid in the Bangladeshi job context represented by the Bangladesh employers. As usual, LinkedIn is widely being accepted and utilized SNS for either job search by the active passive job jobseekers [6,7] or searching and hiring competent job candidates [5,28,33]. As a populated country with a large number of job-seeking youths, the results of this study can represent the triumph of the acceptability of LinkedIn as job seeking and employee searching tool in both developed and developing counties alike.…”

“…Although several research studies were conducted focusing on the use of SNSs for searching candidates and hiring, only a few of those studies paid attention on LinkedIn. There are several theoretical and empirical studies that examined the job candidates' perceptions, behaviors and attitude for usage of LinkedIn and other popular SNSs [5][6][7][8][9][10]. On the other hand, some studies investigated particularly on the role LinkedIn profiles to discover the elements that professionals mostly focus on [11][12][13][14].…”

“…However, as a rational dispute, recruiters are often fairly and lawfully accused of looking for and accumulating personal information from the SNSs such as Facebook that was primarily formed as an individual and social networking platform, not meant to be a job oriented SNS such as LinkedIn. Since several studies indicated the ethical and legal consequences of cyber-vetting [16,17], recruiters are now consistently using SNSs such as LinkedIn to search and recruit competent job candidates [5][6][7][8]. It is particularly reasonable as LinkedIn was initially launched purposefully to permit the possible job candidates to be acknowledged by the hiring organizations.…”

The Relativism of Ethical Dilemma Decision Making

“…There are several social media with a designated purpose, such as Facebook for recreational purposes, LinkedIn for work-oriented purposes, and Twitter for posting a statement [3]. If the human resource wants to use social media for recruitment and selection purposes, LinkedIn will be more ethically acceptable.…”

“…and Instagram, can give input that a CV cannot provide, including personality, attitude, relationship with friends and family, and social influence [2]. Besides, social media are vast and cost-free information, so it is getting popular among human resources as a tool for recruitment and selection [3]. The company must consider several issues regarding employment selection using social media, such as privacy, validity, and reliability [2].…”