Category Archives: Organizational Reputation

Corporate Image, Attraction, and Top Talent

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Topic: Recruiting
Publication: International Journal of Selection and Assessment
Article: Does image matter to different job applicants? The influences of corporate
image and applicant individual differences on organizational attractiveness
Authors: W-C. Tsai & I. W-F. Yang
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

From a recruitment perspective, an organization’scorporate imagerefers to job seekers’ shared beliefs about the organization’s characteristics (i.e., attributes). These beliefs basically serve as information about the potential “employment conditions” within an organization and thus its corporate image can play a big role in determining whether or not it attracts top talent.  Recently, Tsai and Yang (2010) have extended the research on corporate image by arguing that corporate image is comprised of as many as four dimensions: (1) product image, (2) service image, (3) citizenship image and (4) credibility image.

So what exactly do these dimensions of corporate image reflect?

Product image – Job seekers’ perceptions of the innovativeness and quality of the
organization’s products.

Service image – Job seekers’ perceptions of the customer orientation of the
organization.

Citizenship image – Job seekers’ perceptions of the organization’s
involvement in environmental protection and community development.

Credibility image – Job seekers’ perceptions of the trustworthiness
and reliability of the organization.

Tsai and Yang’s results suggest that three of the four corporate image dimensions are important determinants of job seekers’ attraction to an organization: product, citizenship, and credibility.

Overall, Tsai and Yang’s results suggest that job seekers use several sources of information to infer attributes of different organizations that ultimately impact their attraction to those organizations.  This study can guide organizations to construct their employment advertisements, which should focus on the innovativeness and quality of the organization’s products, its involvement in community and environmental initiatives, and its track record of trustworthiness and reliability.

Tsai, W-C., & Yang, I. W-F. (2010). Does image matter to different job applicants? The influences of corporate image and applicant individual differences on organizational attractiveness. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 18(1), 48-63.

What do Job Ads Say About Your Organizational Culture?

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Topic: Compensation, Culture, Motivation, Rewards, Organizational Reputation
Publication: The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Article: Compensation as a Signal of Organizational Culture: The Effects of Advertising Individual or Collective Incentives
Author: K. Kuhn
Reviewed By: Lit Digger

It is commonly assumed that compensation and rewards systems reflect the cultures of the organizations that implement them, but what type of message is being received by your organization’s job applicants?

Kristine Kuhn (2009) conducted an experimental study to investigate how job advertisements’ simple statements about an organization’s compensation structure would affect applicant perceptions of organizational culture. In the same article, Kuhn conducted an additional study to see how job advertisement differences in compensation structure statements would affect applicants when they were forced to choose one organization over another. (Yes, this article was two-for-one – jam-packed with researchy goodness!)

Kuhn found that applicants were more likely to perceive an organization’s culture as individualist when that organization’s compensation structure statement suggested that employees would be rewarded for individual performance or skill. In contrast, applicants were more likely to view an organization’s culture as collectivist when that organization included a compensation structure statement suggesting that employees would be rewarded with profit  sharing across the company or from taking part in a high-performing team.  This is a notable finding because, aside from commonly held assumptions, little empirical research exists on this topic.

Kuhn also noted that some job seekers may be more likely to be high on idiocentrism, meaning that they would view themselves as, in her words, “independent entit[ies]” such that personal achievements would naturally take precedence over group achievements. (For you curious cats, the alternative to this would be allocentrism, which involves viewing yourself in relationship to others and having a more interdependent worldview).  Regarding this idea, Kuhn found that the relationship between idiocentrism and the applicant’s attraction to a company was affected by the applicant’s perceptions of the company’s culture in the following way:

· If I perceive the company’s culture to be highly individualistic, and the more idiocentric I am in my worldview, the more likely I am to be attracted to that company.

· On the other hand, if I perceive the culture as not very individualistic, and the less idiocentric I am in my worldview, the chances are greater that I will be attracted to that
company.

So perceptions of organizational culture MATTER, especially when job applicants are forced to choose one organization over another (Sound like the real world to you?  Sure does to me).  And if perceptions of organizational culture are affected in part by the language used in job advertisements, editors beware! If you’re sending the wrong message to your job applicants, you’ve just missed your first (fairly inexpensive and easy) opportunity to give that potential newbie a realistic job preview, and you’re risking one more head on your end-of-the-year turnover count.

So think of this as an opportunity. Consider your organization’s compensation structure, the message it’s sending to your current employees, and the message that’s being received by your job applicants.  If all of the above are in alignment with your organization’s values and intentions, proclaim away… and may the best applicant win.

Kuhn, K. (2009). Compensation as a signal of organizational culture: The effects of advertising individual or collective incentives. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20 (7), 1634-1648.

Effective recruiting…and the environment?

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Topic: Recruiting, Organizational Reputation
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (SEP 2009)
Article: Effects of pro-environmental recruiting messages: The role of organizational reputations.
Authors: T. S. Behrend, B. A. Baker, L. F. Thompson
Reviewed By: Sarah Teague

Effective recruitment is crucial to the development of a cohesive workforce and a successful organization. It directly affects the quality of a potential applicant pool. With the explosive growth of Internet users in recent years, web sites have become a preferred recruiting method. They provide a way for organizations to reach mass quantities of potential applicants at relatively low cost in terms of both time and money.

The current article examined the effects of including a pro-environmental message on a corporate website on applicants’ perceptions of a fictitious organization. In this case, the term pro-environmental message refers to a construct called corporate social performance – essentially the commitment to various stakeholders, including the greater community. Participants in the study were shown a corporate web site that either did or did not include a pro-environmental message. Individuals who were shown the web site with the message saw the company as more prestigious and were more likely to pursue a job with that company.

Organizations that emphasize their commitment to the greater community will draw more applicants than those who do not, providing them with a much larger applicant pool and allowing them to be more selective.

Behrend, T. S., Baker, B. A., & Thompson, L. F. (2009). Effects of pro-environmental recruiting messages: The role of organizational reputations. Journal of Business and Psychology, 24(3), 341-350.

Ashes, Ashes, Organizations All Fall Down!

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Topic: Change Management, Organizational Reputation
Publication: Academy of Management Journal (DEC 2008)
Article: Good fences make good neighbors: A longitudinal analysis of an industry self-regulatory institution
Author: M.L. Barnett, A.A. King
Reviewed by: Katie Bachman

Cmh_1_lg In
these “interesting” economic times, it seems like every company is struggling
to overcome challenges within their organizations. Bad news: You need to be
worried about what your competitors struggle with too! In a recent article in
the Academy of Management Journal,
Barnett and King describe the influence of reputational spillover on
organizations. The nuts and bolts of their argument is that a) consumers have a
hard time telling similar companies apart and b) when something goes wrong in
one company, it can taint others by association. For example, if you think back
to the months after 9/11, Americans didn’t just stop flying on United Airlines,
they stopped flying on airplanes. Tragedies
that garner negative publicity are likely to hurt many companies within their
industry.

Interestingly,
there is a way to ameliorate the negative consequences when something like this
happens and it may not be what you think. While companies may want to
differentiate themselves from a tainted company (a short-term option), in the
long term, companies would do well to band together. By keeping tabs on each
other and forming some sort of self-regulatory institution, companies can keep
away from bad publicity by keeping their competitors from making errors.
Everyone benefits when no one’s screwing up. 

Barnett, M.
L., & King, A. A. (2008). Good fences make good neighbors: A longitudinal
analysis of an industry self-regulatory institution. Academy of Management
Journal, 51(6), 1150-1170.