The influence of Social Media on Organisational Attraction

Sam Tatam
Supervised by Dr. Barbara Griffin

Word count: 7,259

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Organisational Psychology, Macquarie University, 2011

Abstract

To attract the best and brightest talent it is apparent that the use of social media in recruitment is becoming increasingly common (Levinson, 2010). However, despite the use of social media by organisations today, little is known about the influence of this choice of media on applicant attraction (Davison, Marasit & Bing, 2011). The current study addressed this gap in literature by assessing the impact of social media use via every several facet facets of the recruitment communications process, including those associated with the message receiver, the message sender and media related factors. The impact of social media on organisational attraction was assessed using two distinct methods. In Study 1, an explicit measure of attraction found that individual attitudes and use of social media were associated with attraction to organisations that recruit via this medium. Conversely, utilising ‘mock-up’ recruitment advertisements and an implicit measure of attraction in Study 2, these individual factors were not significant. While overall this study did not record a significant difference in attraction when recruiting on social media when compared to a generic website, it confirmed the importance of a number of factors previously associated with attraction and established a relationship between social media and several of these attributes. It is argued that the use of social media may be most influential in the later stages of recruitment, with it important that applicant privacy concerns and perceptions of credibility be addressed before it is most effective. The implications of this study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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The influence of Social Media on Organisational Attraction

In the midst of economic uncertainty and extensive restructures occurring in companies around the globe, the role of the recruitment function in attracting and selecting the best employees is becoming more important than ever in preparing organisations for long-term success (Beechler & Woodward, 2009). However, in this search for key talent it appears that organisational recruitment must not only contend with challenging markets and a shortage of quality candidates (Hughes & Rog, 2008), but also with considerable technological advancements in recruitment marketing, particularly an increase in organisational use of social media (Levinson, 2010). Despite this rapidly changing environment, recent commentary (Davison, Marasit & Bing, 2011) has exposed considerable gaps in modern personnel selection and recruitment literature, requesting further investigation into applicant reactions to organisational use of social media in recruitment and the relationship between social media use and job pursuit intentions. The current study aims to address this gap, determining whether individual attitudes towards social media, as well as specific organisational and media related factors, influence applicant attraction to organisations who recruit via social media. Ultimately, the goal of this study is to enhance understanding of the recruitment process and the impact of contemporary recruitment advertising, both areas that remain understudied (Aiman-Smith, Bauer & Cable, 2001; Avery & McKay, 2006).

Recruitment and organisational success

In today’s highly competitive global market, recruitment has emerged as a critical factor in organisational effectiveness (Turban, 2001). As the primary mechanism used by organisations to source and attract quality applicants, this field is also gaining increased interest amongst academics as companies seek to establish competitive advantage in response to shifting labour markets and challenging economic times. Barber (1998) describes the recruitment process as consisting of three phases; generating applicants, maintaining applicant interest and influencing job choice decisions. While each stage of this process is important, it has been recognised that the source through which an organisation makes initial contact with candidates, known as the applicant generation phase, is particularly significant (Zottoli & Wanous, 2000). With respect to recruitment related marketing, Allen, Van Scotter and Otondo (2004) argue that several elements are likely to influence an organisation’s success during this phase of recruitment; with these being the characteristics of the message sender, individual differences of the receiver, the message content, and the role of media in communicating the recruitment message. When specifically assessing the role of media, it is apparent that the nature of early exchanges between organisations and job seekers are changing due to developments in technology, the internet and social media (Davison et al., 2011).

Social media and recruitment

The rise of social media has created a fundamental shift in the way employers, recruiters and job seekers interact (Plummer, Hiltz, & Plotnick, 2011). Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social media sites as web-based services that enable people to construct online profiles or personas, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view their list of connections and the connections of others within the system. The recent exponential growth in the popularity of social media has influenced a number of human resource practices (Davison et al., 2011) and according to a 2010 Jobvite recruiting survey (Levinson, 2010), over 73% of companies are now using social media channels to support their recruitment strategy. Gallagher and O’Leary (2007) outline that the ability of social networking sites to integrate innovative mixed media as well as engage in bidirectional communication, enables recruiters to reach both passive and active job seekers, educating them with regards to company positions and establishing a reciprocal relationship. However, there is almost no empirical evidence of how the use of social media affects recruitment, and in particular organisational attraction during the applicant generation phase.

Research Question: Does an organisation’s use of social media in recruitment influence organisational attraction?

Recruitment communications as critical recruitment contact

Signaling theory (Spence, 1973) provides a theoretical explanation as to why recruitment marketing is so important when influencing an applicant’s impressions of organisations. According to this theory, when an individual does not have complete information or is uncertain about a particular role or organisation, they draw inferences from cues that are available. In the context of internet recruitment, Braddy et al. (2008) showed that applicants are likely to draw inferences about an organisation based on peripheral cues gained from its website. For example, if an organisation’s website is difficult to navigate, job seekers form a general negative impression of how other practices and policies are also implemented in that particular organisation (Braddy, Meade & Kroustalis, 2008). Therefore, as job seekers often possess limited information about companies during the initial stages of recruitment, they use the information available from company communications to determine whether or not to pursue employment with that organisation. Indeed, several authors (Allen et al., 2007; Gatewood et al., 1993) consider recruitment marketing as analogous to critical recruitment contact (such as an interview). This concept is central to the current study.

Social media use and organisational attraction

As previously mentioned, when specifically assessing the impact of recruitment advertising on organisational attraction, Allen et al. (2004) argue that its success is related to factors associated with the message sender (or organisation), the message receiver (or applicant), message content and media related factors. The current researchThis paper consists of two studies investigating the impact of social media in recruitment with respect to these factors. In the first study, a survey methodology and explicit measure of attraction is used to determine whether individual characteristics of the message receiver (or applicant) are associated with attraction to organisations who recruit via social media. Then, utilising a between-subjects experimental design, a second study will implicitly measure the effect of social media use on organisational attraction utilising ‘mock up’ recruitment advertisements. In this component of the research, attributes of the message sender (such as an organisation’s image) and the effect of media related factors (such as source credibility) are examined, in addition to the effect of individual characteristics of the message receiver. Consistent with previous research (Cober, Brown, Keeping & Levy, 2004), in the current study organisational attraction in the current study is conceptualised as the general attractiveness of and interest in an organisation as a potential employer, including the probability of application.

Study 1: The message receiver

With respect to characteristics of the message receiver, (or applicant), three factors have been identified as likely to influence organisational attraction when social media is used in recruitment: an individual’s level of social media self-identity, the extent of an individual’s past use of social media and individual privacy concerns. It is anticipated that these factors will influence reported attraction to organisations who recruit via social media and as such, an assessment of these characteristics comprise the first three hypotheses.

Social media self-identity

In psychological literature an individual’s self-identity has frequently been viewed as an important influence on behaviour, with Terry, Hogg & White (1999) defining self-identity as the extent to which engaging in a behavior is important to an individual’s self-concept. For example, if a person sees themselves as cautious, they are likely to behave cautiously (Holland, Hill & Cooke, 2009). There is considerable evidence linking self-identity to behaviour (or intent to behave) in areas as wide ranging as pedestrian safety (Evans & Norman, 1998), ‘green’ consumerism (Sparks & Shepherd, 1992), blood donation (Charng, Piliavin, & Callero, 1988) and voting behaviour (Granberg & Holmberg, 1990). When specifically applied to the context of the current study, Peeling & White (2009) recently discovered that an individual’s ‘social media self-identity’ was a significant predictor of both intentions to use social media and actual social media behaviour. When considering that prospective applicants are likely to pay particular attention to their general feelings or impressions of an organisation when deciding whether or not to pursue employment (Highhouse, Thornbury & Little, 2007), the current study predicts that individuals who identify more strongly with social media will report to be more attracted and likely to pursue employment with an organisation who also recruits via this medium.

H1: Individuals who identify themselves more strongly as a social media user will report greater attraction to organisations who recruit via this medium.

Past social media use

People like and are more attracted to things that are familiar, with several experiments showing that mere exposure to stimuli can produce feelings of attraction (Moreland & Zajonc, 1982). More specifically, it has been found that repeated exposure to a benign stimulus can actually enhance positive affect, and that affect can become attached not only to the original stimuli but also to associated stimuli (Zajonc, 2001). It has further been demonstrated that past behaviour is one of the greatest predictors of intention and future behaviour (Ouellette & Wood, 1998; Sutton, 2004), with Peeling & White (2009) reporting in their study on social media use that an individual’s past behaviour was the strongest predictor of that in the future. Based on this evidence and the established relationship between repeated exposure and attraction, the current study predicts that respondents who report using social media more frequently in the past will report to be more attracted and more likely to pursue employment with organisations who recruitrecruiting via social media.

H2: Respondents who report greater past use of social media will be more attracted to organisations who recruit via social media.

Social media privacy concerns

While social media networks may offer an attractive means for interaction and communication, there is little doubt that the growth of social media has tested and for some, completely disintegrated the boundaries of personal privacy (Boyd, 2008). Contemporary research suggests that up to 25% of managers are now using information from social networking sites to assess job candidates (Taylor, 2008 as cited by Kluemper & Rosen, 2009), accessing information typically off-limits in a traditional recruitment procedures such as candidate age, relationship status and leisure activity (Brown & Vaughn, 2011). In light of this considerable shift towards the use of social media in applicant screening, research (Peluchette & Karl, 2010) has also illustrated that concerns regarding personal privacy online differ considerably between individuals. Acknowledging the importance of applicant perceptions of recruitment procedural justice on organisational attraction (Chapman, Uggerslev, Carroll, Piasentin, & Jones, 2005; Ployhart & Ryan, 1997), the current study predicts that respondents with greater concerns regardingwho are more concerned with personal privacy will report to be less attracted to organisations who that recruit via social media when compared to those with fewer concerns.

H3: Individuals with greater concerns about personal privacy on social media will be less attracted to organisations that recruit via this medium when compared to individuals who are less concerned about personal privacy.

Methods

Respondents

A total of 163 respondents were recruited for the first study using a ‘snow ball’ technique starting with friends and contacts of the researcher. Of these respondents, 106 completed the items associated with the dependent variable (organisational attraction), therefore only these responses were used in the current analysis. Respondent’s mean age was 27.9 years (SD = 7.8), with 62.3 % being female. Of this sample, 27.4% reported that they were not an Australian resident.

Measures

Data were collected via an online (Qualtrics), anonymous survey (see Appendix A). All items, except for those assessing organisational attraction, were responded to on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

Social media self-identity: A three-item scale adapted from Peeling & White (2009) was used to measure respondents’ social media self-identity. A sample item was, “I am the kind of person who uses social media sites”. Coefficient alpha was .74.

Past social media use: A single item adapted from Peeling & White (2009) was used to measure past social media use. The item was, “In the previous week I made two or more unique visits to social networking sites almost every day”.

Privacy Concerns: To assess respondents’ privacy concerns with respect to organisational use of social media, a three itemthree-item scale was adapted from Verhooeven et al. (2009). A sample item was, “I have concerns about individual privacy when organisations use social media.” Coefficient alpha was .74.

Organisational attraction via social media: Three items[1] based on Cable and Judge (1996) and Cable and Turban (2003) were developed for this study to measure respondents’ explicit attraction to organisations via social media. A sample item was, “I am very likely to pursue a job position if it has been posted on social media (such as Facebook)”. Participants responded using a 7-point scale from 1 (Very Unlikely) to 7 (Very Likely). The coefficient alpha was .83.

Results

Means, standard deviations and correlations are reported in Table 1. With respect to reported attraction to organisations who recruit via social media, Australian residents (M = 4.18, SD= 1.42) were significantly less attracted than non Australian residents (M = 4.77, SD = 1.12), t(104) = 2.00, p .05), while when social media self-identity, past social media use and privacy concerns were included in a second model, 20.8% of the variance was explained (F(6,95) = 4.17, p