Untapped Relationship between Employer Branding, Anticipatory Psychological Contract and Intent to Join

Abstract

In the ever-changing business environment and fluctuating expectations of current generation from its employer, employer branding has become an important tool for organizations to establish themselves as the employer of choice amongst prospective employees. It is serving as the strategic tool for all the sectors to attract and retain the right pool of employees to gain strategic advantage and edge over competitors. The purpose of this article is to identify the dimensions of employer branding and its impact on the formation of anticipatory psychological contract (APC) and final intent of a candidate to join an organization. Using the qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews from final year students of MCA and B.Tech., it provides an insight into how various dimensions of employer branding lead to the formation of APC and generates the final intent among the candidates to join an organization. It comprehensively analyzes the relationship between all three constructs, employer branding, APC and a candidate’s intent to join an organization in the form of a conceptual framework. The result reflects the direct relationship between employer branding and a candidate’s intent to join an organization and indirect relationship with APC as a mediator between the two. It also demonstrates the direct relationship between employer branding and APC. Managerial implications of the study are also discussed.

Employer branding and psychological contract in family and non-family firms

“…Com base neste racional, é proposta a segunda hipótese de investigação: H2: Colaboradores de empresas familiares apresentam níveis de contrato psicológico superiores aos de colaboradores de empresas não familiares. Torna-se assim possível concluir que ambos os conceitos estão fortemente relacionados, uma vez que a imagem e reputação da organização (i.e., positiva ou negativa) pode influenciar os níveis de cumprimento do contrato psicológico (i.e., cumprimento ou violação) (Biswas & Suar, 2016;Ruchika & Prasad, 2019). Ainda que a literatura suporte esta relação, empiricamente esta ainda não foi testada para o contexto das empresas familiares, surgindo assim a terceira hipótese:…”

Psychological Contract: It’s Influence on Attrition in Manufacturing Sector

“…While considering previous literatures the present researchers have found an article in which Ruchika and Prasad (2017) tried to point out that the impact of a company's unique message, ability to stand out of the crowd and its strategy help in building a sense of trust, informal obligations and perceptions between the organization and its workers. This study concerned also highlighted some important factors which attract and retain talents in the organisation and help simultaneously in maintaining psychological contract and controlling attrition (Ruchika and Prasad, 2017). Tension or mental stress also has an effect on psychological contract.…”

The anticipatory psychological contract of management graduates: Validating a psychological contract expectations questionnaire

“…Delobbe, Cooper-Thomas and De Hoe (2016) and Payne et al (2008) studied the role of employees' anticipatory psychological contract in the socialisation process and found that the perception of obligations of prospective employees towards their future employer, prior to organisational entry, did affect their perception and involvement in some of the socialisation activities, specifically in terms of training and interactions with supervisors and peers. Other authors (including De Vos et al 2009;Eilam-Shamir & Yaakobi 2014;Gresse et al 2013;Linde & Gresse 2014;Ruchika & Prasad 2019) have also accepted that the anticipatory psychological contract plays an important role in the development of the exchange relationship between employer and employee and can be especially important in recruitment and talent retention (Zupan, Mihelič & Aleksić 2018). Sherman and Morley (2015) argue that to enhance our understanding of how the psychological contract is created, one should look through the theoretical lens of schema theory, which these authors consider an underdeveloped area within psychological contract research.…”

“…A great deal of attention has been given to how the psychological contract develops once an individual is employed (for instance Adams, Quagrainie & Klobodu 2014;O'Leary-Kelly et al 2014;Tomprou & Nikolaou 2011), but relatively little attention has been given to the anticipatory psychological contract that precedes employment, with only a few publications on this topic (for instance De Vos, Stobbeleir & Meganck 2009; Gresse & Linde 2020; Gresse, Linde & Schalk 2013;Linde & Gresse 2014). It should however be noted that there has been an increased call for research involving the anticipatory psychological contract in recent years (Bruins 2019;Janani 2019;Ruchika & Prasad 2019). Based on this, we aimed at developing and validating an instrument to measure the psychological contract expectations of graduate labour market entrees, which could enhance our knowledge of the anticipatory psychological Background: It was proposed that if we assess an individual's mental schema, it may facilitate a better understanding of the psychological contract formation process.…”