To accept or not to accept a job offer: Examining inaction inertia in an organizational context

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate inaction inertia in a job offer context. Across two studies, we examined the influence of two situational factors (Study 1) and one dispositional factor (Study 2) on inaction inertia in a job offer context. Participants were asked to imagine they had to pass up an initial offer in which they were interested, but that they received a similar but less attractive offer (lower salary) later. Study 1 findings revealed participants in the loss-framed condition were more likely to accept the second offer than participants in the neutral condition only when they were asked to imagine they were switching careers, versus being laid off. Study 2 results showed that maximizing tendency significantly and negatively predicted the likelihood to accept the second job offer. Exploratory analyses revealed that anticipated regret did not mediate the relationships between any of the factors and inaction inertia, suggesting that anticipated regret was not the causal mechanism underlying the occurrence of inaction inertia in the current research. Overall, this research shed light on the ways inaction inertia may be experienced in a job offer context. 2009). Van Putten et al. (2009) explored the differences between action-oriented people and state-oriented people and urged 634 | V C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jasp J Appl Soc Psychol. 2017;47:634-645.

Effects of quantity promotional frames on inaction inertia

“…A growing number of factors that influence inaction inertia have also been identified (e.g. Foster and Diab, 2017;Liu and Chou, 2021;Terris and Tykocinski, 2016;Kumar, 2004Kumar, , 2019Mathmann et al, 2017;Tykocinski and Pittman, 1998;van Putten et al, 2007;Zhang et al, 2016). However, existent studies have not examined the relationship between quantity promotional frames and inaction inertia and their mediators.…”

“…Previous research has found this effect occurs across product categories, formats and decision contexts and in other domains of human behavior (Arkes et al, 2002;Butler and Highhouse, 2000;Foster and Diab, 2017;Krijnen et al, 2020;Kumar, 2004;Liu and Chou, 2018, 2019a, b, 2021Terris and Tykocinski, 2016;Terris et al, 2020;Tykocinski and Pittman, 1998;van Putten et al, 2007;Zeelenberg and van Putten, 2005). Studies have also examined how individual characteristics, such as personality and motivation, affect the inaction inertia effect (Mathmann et al, 2017;Otto et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016).…”

Hospitality Fresh Graduates’ Competency and Hotel Job Offer Decisions

“…Candidates that meet the specific requirements set by HR managers have high possibility to be offered a job. Despite the fact that most literature focuses on the organizational perspective in offering a job, other studies have also examined the responses of potential candidate in accepting a job offer and the effect of timing that would change their decision (Becker et al, 2010;Foster & Diab, 2017). It all depends on the candidates' agreement on the terms and conditions in the job offer.…”

“…It all depends on the candidates' agreement on the terms and conditions in the job offer. Going through the process by which they were assessed would somehow affect their decision to accept or decline any job offer (Foster & Diab, 2017). On the context of the organization itself, several key elements were reviewed and examined which eventually comes to the final decision whether to offer or not the specified job vacancy (Chun-Hsi et al, 2008).…”

Foregone Opportunities and Choosing Not to Act: Replications of Inaction Inertia Effect

“…Inaction inertia effect has been used to explain many other phenomena such as product change aversion (Tykocinski & Pittman, 2001), procrastination (Pittman et al, 2007), suboptimal decisions regarding retirement savings (Krijnen et al, 2019), job offer negotiation (Foster & Diab, 2017), and international affairs (Terris & Tykocinski, 2016). As an example from education, students who missed an initial opportunity to submit an assignment early for a big bonus were more likely to end up never submitting that assignment at all (e.g., Pittman et al, 2007).…”