“Do I really want to work here?”
The influence of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication
on Student’s Job Choice Intentions and Attraction taking
Individual Ethical Orientation and Social Identity Consciousness
into account
Master Thesis
Submitted by Wiebke Hallerberg
On the 3th of February 2016
At University of Amsterdam
Graduate School of Communication
Supervisor: mw. dr. I.R. (Iina) Hellsten
Master Communication Science Student number: 11104961 Maasstraat 140,
1078 HP Amsterdam
Abstract
This study builds on prior research examining the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication on organizational attractiveness for future job seekers. To test if communicating about CSR has an influence on student’s job choice intentions and perceived attractiveness of an organization, an online experiment with survey was conducted. Signaling and Social Identity theory were used as main concepts to hypothesize a positive effect of CSR on student’s job choice intentions and perceived attractiveness, moderated by ethical orientation and social identity consciousness.
For this purpose students (N=200) were randomly assigned to two fictional job advertisements of a sports company either including CSR communication in the description of their mission, or not talking about CSR. Results revealed that communicating about CSR had a significant positive effect on student’s attractiveness as well as job choice intentions. In this context neither a student’s ethical orientation or social identity consciousness had a significant influence on the perceived attractiveness or job choice intentions for an organization communicating about CSR. The present study confirms prior findings of the importance of CSR communication for organizations in employer branding processes and further suggests including CSR in job advertisements focusing on the next working generations.
Introduction
„There is growing evidence that a company’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities comprise a legitimate, compelling and increasingly important way to attract and retain good employees“ (Bhattacharya, Sen & Korschun, 2008, para. 1). Corporate Social Responsibility is defined by the European Commission as “the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society” (http://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/corporate-social-responsibility_de). According to Bhattacharya et al. (2008) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication can be useful to attract future employees. The line „Do good and talk about it“ is the motto in the discussion of Corporate Social Responsibility. According to Freeman’s theory, stakeholders are “any group or individuals that can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organization’s objectives“ (Freeman, 1984, p. 46). In this case companies, which are acting in critical business lines, are under more pressure to fulfill the expectations of stakeholders to act socially and environmentally fair. Therefore more and more companies are following the idea of „license to operate“ by being committed to society or the environment. As a consequence CSR is becoming a part of a company's strategy. On top, the so called Generation Y (people born after 1980) are particularly likely to wish more flexibility, meaningful jobs, professional freedom, higher rewards and a better work – life balance than older employees do (Elving, 2013). Especially the aspect of looking for a meaningful job can be linked to a Corporate Social Performance of organizations. Following this paper will concentrate on the stakeholder group of students as future job seeker’s.
Many companies are affected by the so-called “War of Talents” and therefore have to have a good image to attract future employees. According to the research of Net Impact in 2012 “What workers want” to almost two-third of students making a contribution to society and making a better world is essential to their ideal job. Furthermore relating to a study of Montgomery and Ramus (2003) more than 90% of the 279 questioned MBA students from two European and three North American business schools would forgo financial benefits in
order to work for an organization with a better reputation for Corporate Social Responsibility and ethics. The reason for this can also be found in the concept of social identity consciousness, where people are said to identify with organizations because of contributing to their self-esteem and self-consistency needs (Highhouse, Thornbury & Little, 2007).
Relevance of topic and Research Intentions
In recent years CSR became a major topic in research. A lot of research has been done so far on the effects of CSR on organizational effectiveness either focusing on enhancing financial performances or the influence on employer commitment (Kim et al., 2010) but there is little research so far on how CSR can affect individuals and can have external potential to attract future employees (Greening & Turban, 2000). This paper builds upon the findings of Albinger and Freeman (2000) and Greening and Turban (2000), who support the relationship between Corporate Social Performance activities and organizational attractiveness and the studies of Judge and Bretz (1992), Scott and Lane (2000) and Cable and Judge (1996), who show an impact of reputation and value congruence between applicant and organization on job choice.
CSR is a dynamic topic and its presence and related expectations of stakeholders are constantly rising in terms of climate change and environmental crises. Following the research topic needs to be addressed again with the target group of students, who are the next working generation and are expected to be more concerned with socially responsible businesses because of self-realization and identification with their future employers. As CSR is becoming a more popular idea in society this paper contributes to research on how students evaluate CSR as a relevant factor in searching for a job. Further the paper offers by drawing on social identity (Taijfel & Turner, 1979) and signaling theory (Spence, 1974; Rynes, 1990), a current insight into the possible moderating effects of ethical orientation and social identity consciousness of students on job choice intentions. Following two main research questions are developed:
1. How does CSR communication influence student’s job choice intentions and attractiveness to an organization?
2. How is this relationship influenced by individual ethical orientation and social identity consciousness?
Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Corporate Social Responsibility Communication
During the last decade different definitions were developed in research of the meaning of CSR. Following there is no general definition, which still leads to discussion in this research field (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). In this context most of the research in CSR is oriented towards the four-dimensional pyramid developed by Carroll (1991). Carroll is defining CSR as follows: „The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point of time“ (Carroll, 1991, p. 283). The model describes 4 categories of responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic. Carroll highlights the importance of acknowledging all four categories when planning CSR activities.
Figure 1. The pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility (Schwartz, Carroll 2003, p. 504).
The first level of the pyramid builds the economical frame and relates to the profit orientation of an organization, which needs to produce and sell profitable goods to ensure its
existence. This production process has to be achieved in a legal context, which is shown in the second level of the pyramid. Above follows the ethical perspective, which demands morally correct action and respectful handling with all stakeholders involved in the business. Whereas the compliance of the ethical level is expected from society, the fourth level includes philanthropic activities, which are based on a voluntary support of local communities and society (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). When talking about CSR, this paper addresses the last two levels of the pyramid, because an ethical and philanthropic orientation exceeds the obligation towards society of only acting legally and economically fair. In this context a Corporate Social Performance (CSP) of an organization can take different forms and is defined as a “multidimensional construct encompassing organizational activities related to treatment of employees, the natural environment, workplace diversity, customer's, product and other issues” (Backhaus, Stone & Heiner, 2002, p.293).
Employer Branding and Recruitment
The term “Employer Branding” results in the application process of branding principles to human resource management (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004). In this context Ambler and Barrow (1996, p.187) define Employer Branding as the “package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company”. Organizations are constantly facing the challenge to find qualified employees due to demographic changes that limit the applicant tool to chose from (Dohm, 2000). In the “War of Talent” and shortages in various labor markets, standing out from competitors has become a key challenge for organizations (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). Rynes (1991) highlights the fact that applicants initial decisions are based on general impressions of organizational attractiveness due to the little information offered in early job choice processes. Therefore job seekers are using job advertisements as an information source for making application decisions (Highhouse et al., 1999). Different content of job advertisements have the potential to influence job seeker’s organizational attitudes (Walker et al., 2008). Relating to this
organizations use employer-branding strategies to attract and retain high quality recruits, who also engage in the culture and strategy of the firm (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). The reason is the chance of transferring a favorable image as a good place to work through the employer brand (Backhaus, Stone & Heiner, 2002). Vos (1992, p.24) defines the corporate image as “the image of the organization as it is experienced by the various publics” and highlights the presence of different images perceived by different stakeholders. Research has shown that a positive image can attract better and more qualified applicants (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Chapman et al., 2005). Collins and Stevens (2002) suggest that organizations with a positive image create competitive advantages by attracting a larger and more qualified number of applicants. Lemmink, Schuijf & Streukens (2003) support this statement by highlighting the influence of a good corporate image on job choice intentions of applicants.
In this context Lievens and Highhouse (2003) differentiate in instrumental and symbolic attributes in the employer branding discourse. Following instrumental attributes are defined as objective, concrete and factual attributes that the job or organization either has or does not have. Contrary symbolic attributes refer to subjective, abstract and intangible attributes that applicants assign to organizations because of perceived symbolic information of the company (Lievens, Van Hoye & Anseel, 2007). Slaughter et al. (2004) found that symbolic image dimensions were related to organizational attractiveness. In relation to CSR, socially responsible attributes in a job advertisement would refer to symbolic attributes and therefore might lead to a higher attractiveness of this company. Referring to still little research about the effectiveness of recruitment activities, it is needed to take a closer look at variables that might influence applicant attraction (Walker et al., 2008). Social identity and signaling theory offer a first approach to understand the underlying processes of job attraction and decision processes.
Social Identity and Signaling Theory
Henri Taijfel and John Turner originally formulated the social identity theory in 1979. They used the concept of social identity to explain intergroup behavior. A social group is defined „as a collection of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category, share some emotional involvement in this common definition of themselves, and achieve some degree of social consensus about the evaluation of their group and of their membership in it” (Tajfel & Turner, 1986, p.15). In this case groups are seen as an important source of self-esteem and belonging. Based on social categorization humans divide the world into in-group (us) and out-group (them) to increase self-image. The reason for this behavior is seen in the cognitive process of linking similar characteristics together. In this context people try to differentiate themselves between groups and try to find similarities in the same group (McLeod, 2008). Kim et al. (2010) found that CSR can lead to a feeling of identification with a company, because working for a socially responsible firm can create a higher self-image. Further following and relating to Backhaus et al. (2002) social identity theory can be used as a foundation to explain that prospective job seekers see Corporate Social Performance as an important factor to select a self-enhancing employment setting. Celani and Singh (2011) suggest the potential of social identity for researchers to identify conditions and variables, which lead to a more favorable interpretation of certain signals. In this case job seekers might use the CSR policies of the company to gain own prestige and an in-group feeling for a particular organization because of identifying with its ethical values.
At the same time signaling theory as first developed by Spence (1973) takes a similar approach but the focus is on how the sender communicates and how the receiver interprets the signal. In this case signaling theory is mainly concerned with reducing information asymmetry between sender and receiver (Spence, 2002). When transferring the signaling concept to this research, we are talking about the organization sending signals through employer branding with CSR elements to potential employees as receivers of the recruitment
signals. Rynes (1991) highlights the importance of sending the right signals in the recruiting process, because applicants interpret received information as possible working conditions in the organization due to the limited offered information about the company. In this case social policies may attract future applicants by sending signals demonstrating organizational commitment and social goals (Greening & Turban, 2000).
Corporate Social Performance and Organizational Attractiveness
Based on the findings that CSR cannot only influence employees but also external stakeholders (Ellen et al., 2006; Yoon et al., 2006), research found a positive relationship of Corporate Social Performance and organizational attractiveness. Vaiman, Scullion and Collings (2012) propose CSR as a critical factor in attracting and retaining talented workforce. Lin et al. (2012) found that organizational citizenship has the potential to attract job seekers demonstrating positive expectations of career success. Behrend et al. (2009) found that job applicants are more likely to intend job pursuit intentions at organizations with environment-related engagement on their recruiting websites, because of having a higher level of organizational prestige. The reason for these findings is that among different signals, applicants are more attentive to salient and distinctive information when comparing other organizations. Following CSR can be seen as an important signal for job applicants (Joo, Moon & Choi, 2016). With the increasing communication about socially responsible behavior in recruitment materials, this information will possibly be a competitive advantage in attracting job seekers to organizations with socially responsible signals (Albinger & Freeman, 2000). Greening and Turban (1997, 2000) used signaling and social identity theory to identify the positive link of CSP and employer attractiveness due to a more favorable gained reputation. CSR related information could demonstrate values and norms of how it would be to work at this particular organization (Backhaus et al. 2002). In this context Rupp et al. (2006) stated that individuals expect themselves to be treated fairly as well when perceiving a respectfully and fairly interaction of the organization with the society. This leads to the wish
of wanting to be affiliated with ethically and morally good organizations. Having the state of the art of Corporate Social Performance and attractiveness in mind the first hypotheses are developed:
H1. Students are more likely to be attracted by organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than organizations without CSR communication.
H2. Students have higher job choice intentions with organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than organizations without CSR communication.
Above tangible aspects in the recruiting process, the congruence between an organization and a job seeker’s self image represents another important factor. Further only few studies looked at mediating or moderating effects in the CSR-organizational attractiveness discourse (Joo et al., 2016).
Ethical Orientation and Social Identity Consciousness as moderators
The ethical fit can be an important factor for attracting and keeping employees to work in specific environments (Kim & Park, 2011). Based on the findings of Aiman-smith, Bauer and Cable (2001), that environmental orientation moderates the relationship between the environmental stance of a company and job pursuit intentions, job applicants personal values are important variables to take into account when researching organizational attractiveness. The reason for this are the different expectations held by applicants when looking for a job. By reaching a person-organization fit, their expected needs can be fulfilled (Aiman-smith et al., 2001). In this context Kristof (1996, p.4) defines P-O fit as the “compatibility between people and organizations that occurs when at least one entity provides what the other needs or they share similar fundamental characteristics, or both”. The findings of Cable and Judge (1996) support the argument of person-organization fit by showing the preference of job seekers to work for organizations that have the same “personality”. Also Judge and Bretz (1992) highlight that job seekers are affected by the value alignment between their
personalities and perceived organizational attributes by choosing job’s, which are similar to their own value orientation. These findings are based on the Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) framework of Schneider (1987), which is built on the idea that attitudes are a result of a congruence between attributes of individuals and environment. Following a P-O fit is present when a person and an organization have the same characteristics and ethical ideals. Turban (2001) showed in this context that an applicant's familiarity with the recruiting organization is also positively associated with being attracted to the organization. Further Finegan and Theriault (1997) highlight the fact that the more an employee’s personal values are reflected in an organization’s ethical orientation, the more positive is the evaluation of the organization. These findings can be used in this paper for using the individual ethical orientation of students as a moderator in the relationship of CSR and job choice attraction and intention:
H3. Students with a higher ethical orientation are more likely to be attracted by organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than students with a lower ethical orientation.
H4. Students with a higher ethical orientation have higher job choice intentions with organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than students with a lower ethical orientation.
On the basis of symbolic attributes as presented in the study of Lievens and Highhouse (2003), research found that social-identity consciousness can also play a major role in evaluating symbolic attributes as attractive while seeking for a job. Ashforth and Mael (1989) demonstrate that people identify with organizations to strengthen their esteem and self-image. “People identify with organizations as a means of expressing themselves and acquiring social approval” (Highhouse, Thornbury & Little, 2007, p. 136). In this context two social-identity concerns of future job seekers were developed. Firstly “social adjustment” deals with
the applicant’s wish to impress through belonging to an impressive organization with a high status. On the other side a “value-expression consciousness” represents the idea of expressing social values to the outside by affiliating with respectable organizations. Following social-adjustment consciousness is other-focused whereas value-expression consciousness deals with personal morality. Relating to the stated research questions, this paper will focus on the value-expression consciousness scale, because Highhouse, Thornbury and Little (2007) proposed further research on the influence of people high in value-expression consciousness and their attraction to more socially conscious organizations with ethical policies in their main mission. In the end „understanding the relation between organizational characteristics and attraction requires an understanding of both the jobseeker’s inferences about the organization, and his or her standing on the social-identity consciousness dimensions“ (Highhouse, Thornbury & Little, 2005, p.143). Following the last hypotheses is build:
H5. Students with a higher social identity consciousness are more likely to be attracted by organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than students with a lower social identity consciousness.
H6. Students with a higher social identity consciousness have higher job choice intentions with organizations having CSR communication in their job advertisement included than students with a lower social identity consciousness.
The following conceptual model (Figure 2) is developed on the basis of the presented theoretical background and the six stated hypotheses
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Figure 2. Conceptual Research model.
Methods Research Design and Procedure
The research questions and hypotheses were tested with a between subject online experiment with questionnaire. The experimental design included two groups because of using two conditions: experimental with CSR communication and control without CSR communication. The study used a cross-sectional analysis as the data was collected at a specific point of time in the first week of December 2016. The research design follows a deductive approach, because quantitative cross-sectional data was used (Bryman, 2014). Further the stated hypotheses were built on an extant literature research. In this context the paper aimed to test the relationship between CSR communication in job advertisements and job choice intentions and attractiveness of students. Above that ethical orientation and social identity consciousness were tested as moderators in this model. The sample was collected through convenient snowball sampling by sending the online experiment via email and social media networks, mainly Facebook, to reach a high number of bachelor and master students. Further the network of the students of University of Amsterdam was used to find respondents. In this case bachelor as well as master students were the target group of this research, because
Corporate Social Responsibility Communication Organizational Attractiveness Job Choice Intention Ethical Orientation Social Identity Consciousness
bachelor students already achieve a valid university degree without having done a master program. Following nowadays bachelor students are already looking for jobs as well during their last year of studies. When sending the link for the experiment, which lead the students to the website Qualtrics (qualtrics.com, 2016), respondents were asked to further share the link with their student network. The experiment was offered in English.
Sample
The original sample size consisted of 265 students starting the survey. After deleting the dropouts, non-students and participants taking under two minutes for finishing the experiment, the final sample contained 200 valid respondents. The time cut of two minutes was chosen, because the dataset indicated a salient time difference after two minutes showing all other respondents taking more time for the experiment. This information was used to count respondents taking under two minutes as invalid answers, due to not taking enough time qualitatively answer the questions. The age ranged from 18-35 years with a mean age of 24 years. 64% of the respondents were female and 35,5% were male. The majority of the respondents had a German national background (71,5%) and was also studying in Germany (65,5%). The sample comprised 112 master students and 88 bachelor students, from which 86% were moderately to extremely interested in a traineeship. A randomization check demonstrated that the final sample size was equally divided into two groups either assigned to the manipulation group (N=100) or the control group (N=100). Further an independent t-test showed no significant differences in age for the two groups t (198) = -0.8, p = .936, 95% CI [-.762, - .702]. A Chi-square test showed no significant difference between the conditions of CSR for gender (N=200) = .073, p = .301.
Measurements
In order to test the presented research model, several measures were needed: organizational attraction, job pursuit intention, ethical orientation and social identity consciousness. Further gender, education level and interest in traineeships were tested as
control variables. To measure the different concepts, already existing and tested scales were used and slightly adapted for the specific research intentions of this paper. All used scales exceed a Cronbach’s alpha of α = 0.7 in the original studies, which is an indication for a reliable construct to measure (Field, 2014). In this case the coefficient relates to the internal consistency reliability of the test. However a reliability test with factor analysis was conducted for all scales before starting the analysis
Dependent variable
CSR communication was used as the manipulation in the experiment by designing one job advertisement communicating about CSR efforts of the organization and one job advertisement without CSR communication included, which was shown to the control group. According to the findings of Backhaus et al. (2002) environment, community relations, and diversity created the largest change in opinions about a firm. Following the proposed three elements of Backhaus et al. (2002) were also used when designing the job advertisement including CSR communication (see appendix A).
Independent variables
Organizational attractiveness was assessed by taking the five items of the organizational general attractiveness scale used in the study of Highhouse, Lievens and Sinar (2003). The items were used to measure an attitude or expressed effect towards an organization, which also suited the research intentions for this paper. Example items were "For me, this company would be a good place to work” or a reversed item was “I would not be interested in this company except as a last resort”. All items were measured by using a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. Cronbach’s alpha of the organizational attractiveness measure was very high with a coefficient of α= 0.887.
Job Choice Intention was measured with the five items of the Intentions to Pursue scale used in the same study of Highhouse, Lievens and Sinar (2003) like the attractiveness scale. In contrast to organizational attractiveness, job choice intention is operationalized with
more active statements, which imply further action and overcome the passive feeling of attractiveness. Example items were "I would accept a job offer from this company” or "I would make this company one of my first choices as an employer”. All items are tested with a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. The Cronbach’s alpha of the original job pursuit intention measure was α= 0.803.
Moderating variables
Ethical Orientation was measured with the Perceived Role of Ethics And Social Responsibility (PRESOR) scale often used and recommended for ethical judgments in different decision processes, because of having an acceptable reliability and validity. In this case the internal reliability of the PRESOR subscales has generally ranged from α= 0.6 to α= 0.7 (Singhapakdi et al., 1995, 1996). Although the PRESOR scale was originally constructed to measure ethical behavior in relation to long-term organizational effectiveness and success (Singhapakdi et al. 1995, 1996), it can be linked to research in ethical judgments and intentions as well (Vitell, 2003). It is seen as a key construct, because ethics have to be perceived as an important attribute first before considering ethics in decision processes (Vitell, 2003). Singhapakdi et al (1995) found three factors and labeled them ‘‘Good Ethics Is Good Business’’, “Profits Are Not Paramount” and “Quality and Communication”. This paper is oriented towards the paper of Etheredge (1999), who proposed a two-factor solution to measure the concept by only taking 9 instead of 14 items. The first factor contained five items with an original reliability of α = 0.75 and was labeled “Importance of Ethics and Social Responsibility”. Example items were “Being ethical and socially responsible is the most important thing a firm can do” or “Business has a social responsibility beyond making a profit”. The second factor with four items was named “Subordination of ethics and social responsibility” with an original Cronbach’s α = 0.73. An example statement was „To remain competitive in a global environment, business firms will have to disregard ethics and social responsibility“. The last four items were reverse scored to ensure that higher values indicated
a higher stance on ethics and social responsibility. The reliability for this scale was high with a Cronbach’s alpha α = 0.805.
Social Identity Consciousness was assessed by measuring one of the two factors found by Highouse, Thornbury and Little (2007). In their original study they developed two factors derived from Jones and Pittman’s (1982) distinction between “self-promotion” and “exemplification” named “Concern for Social Adjustment” and “Concern for Value Expression” to measure the construct social identity consciousness. For the purpose of this study only the items measuring the “Concern for Value Expression” are used, because value-expression concerns focus on the job seeker’s interest of expressing to others socially approved values through affiliation with respectable employers. An example item for this scale was “I would not work for a company with a bad image”. All items were measured using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 5= Strongly Agree). The reliability for this subscale was acceptable with a Cronbach’s α = 0.713.
Control variables
Gender was used as a control variable as previous research in this field included it (Cable & Judge, 1994; Greening & Turban, 2000; Judge & Bretz, 1992). Especially gender was proposed by Burton (1999) as an important variable for future research in corporate social responsibility orientation. In this context Smith, Wokutch and Harrington (2001) demonstrate in their research that women have a higher ethical orientation than men. Also Aiman-Smith et al. (2001) tested gender in their study about the influence of ecological image on organizational attractiveness and found that females were more attracted. The reason for this can be found in the argumentation of Backhaus, Stone and Heiner (2002) and Chapman et al. (2005), who describe the historically based higher difficulties for women in finding a career, which makes women more sensitive to social responsibility.
Further study level (bachelor/master) was included as control variable, because Albinger and Freeman (2000) argue in their paper that people with a lower education do not
receive the same information about CSR. Evans and Davis (2011) also support this argument by indicating that CSR education leads to a better knowledge for giving meaning to provided CSR information. Education level was measured by the two categories Bachelor and Master. Experiment
For the purpose of the research a job advertisement for a traineeship at a fictional sportswear company named „SportsPRO“ was developed (see Appendix A). A traineeship was chosen as a job offer, because it was seen as appealing to and suitable for bachelor and master students. The content of the job advertisement was oriented towards real traineeship vacancies of big sports brands. According to Backhaus et al. (2002) the most important elements of CSR communication in making a change in opinions were environment, community relations and diversity. These topics were used to describe the CSR part in “Our mission” of the job offer, which was only shown to the treatment group of the experiment. The overall job description and qualifications were written for a wide range of study backgrounds to no limit the distribution possibilities to only specific students. The respondents were randomly assigned to the control (Appendix B) or treatment group (Appendix A) and were asked to imagine that a real company offered the traineeship. After carefully reading the job advertisement, respondents were asked to evaluate the attractiveness and job pursuit intentions of the job advertisements.
Before starting the experiment, the moderators were tested by asking the respondents to answer the PRESOR scale for measuring ethical and social responsible orientation and the value-expression concern scale for measuring social identity consciousness.
Finally demographic data including education level, study fields and general interest in a traineeship were assessed.
Manipulation Check
To ensure the effectiveness of the manipulation in the CSR condition two questions were asked as control question right after showing the job advertisements. To test whether the
included CSR communication was an effective manipulation, the item taken by Gully et al. (2013) “This company is environmentally responsible” and the self-created item “This company is socially responsible” were asked on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1=Strongly Disagree and 7= Strongly Agree). Both items were computed as one variable and renamed “manipulation check” after loading on one factor and showing a Cronbach alpha of α = 0.81. The following independent t-test indicated a significant difference t (198) = -9.5, p = .000, 95% CI [-1.67, -1.09] of variances between the means of the Non-CSR (M=3.90, SD=1.08) and CSR group (M=5.29, SD=0.98). Following the manipulation was successful.
Data Analysis
Before starting the moderation analysis a factor analysis with oblimin rotation for all used items was run to ensure that the used scales only measure one concept. Further a reliability analysis is performed to test if a scale consistently reflects the intended measuring construct (Field, 2014). A principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the items of all four used variables indicated six factors with an eigenvalue above 1 instead of four factors. The point of inflexion lies between factors 4-6 in the scree plot. However the four components explained 54.32% of variance, which was assumed high enough due to the sufficient alpha levels for all used scales. Further only the items of the job choice intention scale and the attractiveness scale correlated positively on the same components. The reason for this could be the similarity of question types in the two scales. Because of the high Alpha levels (see Appendix D) and relating to the reliable use of the scales in previous research no items were deleted and the original scales were kept. Further deleting single items would not have improved the Alpha levels.
Before starting the analysis the variables job choice intention, attractiveness, ethical orientation and social identity consciousness were computed and mean centered. Mean centering minimalizes the effect of multicollinearity. All six hypotheses were tested in two separate multiple hierarchical regression analysis for each of the two dependent variables
attractiveness and job choice intention using the program SPSS version 22.0. The moderators ethical orientation and social identity consciousness as well as the control variables age, gender and study level were included in both regression models. A multiple hierarchical regression analysis was chosen, because two moderators were used. It allows to explain how much more variation in the dependent variable can be explained by the addition of one or more independent variables. In this context the effect of the manipulated CSR variable and the moderating interactions over and above the effects of the control variables could be tested.
Results
A hierarchical multiple regression must fulfill eight assumptions to test if the data fits the regression model. The first two assumptions relate to the chosen measurements, where dependent and independent variables have to be on scale level. Following CSR as the independent variables was recoded in 0= No CSR and 1= CSR. Further the control variables gender and study level had to be recoded in dummy variables as well to convert categorical variables in scale variables. The other six assumptions were tested for both hierarchical multiple regression models. No assumptions were violated as the following statistical observations indicated: There was linearity assessed by partial regression plots between CSR, ethical orientation and social identity consciousness as the predictor variables and the separate dependent variables. A Durbin-Watson statistic of 1.79 for the first and 1.96 for the second regression model was assessed to test the independence of residuals. The independence of errors could be approved, as the Durban-Watson lies between one and three. Further homoscedasticity of residuals, which is the equal error of variances, was given by visually controlling scatterplots. Multicollinearity was checked by analyzing the variance inflation factor (VIF) and tolerance levels. In this context all VIF values were lower than 10 and tolerance levels greater than 0.1. Following no evidence for multicollinearity was found. There were no significant outliers greater than 3 standard deviations, no leverage values greater than 0.2, and values for Cook’s distance above 1. Finally histograms supported the last
assumption of normality. All dependent variables were normally distributed. As all regression assumptions were met, the two multiple hierarchical regression analyses could be performed. CSR and Attractiveness
To test the hypotheses if ethical orientation (EO) and social identity consciousness (SIC) moderate the relationship between CSR and attractiveness a hierarchical multiple regression analysis with four models was developed. Model 1 contained the control variables age, gender and study level (StudyL). The second block included the independent centered variable CSR. The third model included the centered moderators. Model four added the interaction terms, to identify a possible interaction effect of the moderators and CSR on the dependent variable attractiveness. The detailed results of the regression analysis are presented in table 1 below:
Table 1
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Predicting Attractiveness From CSR, Age, Gender, Study Level, Ethical Orientation and Social Identity Consciousness.
Attractiveness
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Variable B b B b B b B b Constant 3.57** 3.64** 3.56** 3.504** Age -.00 .01 -.01 -.02 -.00 -.01 -.00 -.00 Gender -.17 .11 -.21 -.13 -.24 -.15 -.25 -.16 StudyL -.00 -.01 .00 .00 -.02 -.01 -.02 -.01 CSR .42* .28 .42* .28 .42* .28 EO -.01 -.01 .01 .01 SIC .13 .10 .12 .09 CSRxEO .14 .08 CSRxSIC .13 .05 R2 .01 .09 .10 .11 F .84 4.86* 3.58* 2.99* ΔF .84 16.70** 1.02 1.22 Δ R2 .01 .08 .01 .01 Note. N=200. All variable were centered at their means.
The full regression model including all variables (model 4) to predict attractiveness proves to be statistically significant, F (8, 191) = 2.99, p < .005, adjusted R2= .07. Following the model can be used to predict attractiveness. 10% of the variation in attractiveness can be explained on the basis of CSR, the moderators and control variables (R2 = .01). Only the addition of CSR to the prediction of attractiveness (Model 2) led to a statistically significant increase in R2 of .08, F (1,195) = 4.86, p < .005. In this case 80% more variation in attractiveness could be explained by adding CSR to the regression model. Following only the independent variable CSR had a moderately strong association with attractiveness, b= .28; SE = .10; p = .000; 95% CI [.22; .62]. The results confirm the direct effect between CSR and attractiveness, which supports hypothesis 1. The inclusion of the interaction terms in model 4 did not lead to a significant improvement of the model ΔR2= .01, p > 0.05. Following the hypotheses 3 and 5 relating the moderating effects of ethical orientation and social identity consciousness could not be supported, because no significant interaction effect could be found. In addition age, gender and study level were not related to the dependent variable and had no significant influence on the direct effect between CSR and attractiveness.
CSR and Job Choice Intentions
To test the hypotheses of the moderating effects of ethical orientation and social identity consciousness between CSR and job choice intention, the same 4 models were used in a multiple hierarchical regression analysis only changing the dependent variable.
The overall model including all variables was significant, F (8, 191) = 3.53, p< .005, adjusted R2= .09. Following the model can be used to predict job choice intentions. 13% of the variation in job choice intentions can be explained on the basis of CSR, the moderators and control variables (R2 = .13 ) as presented in model 4. Similarly to the first regression model only model 2, which added CSR showed a statistically significant increase in R2 of .12, F (1,195) = 6.87, p < .005. Following hypothesis 2 could be supported. 90% more of the variation in attractiveness could be explained by adding CSR to the regression model.
Hypotheses 4 and 6 relating the moderating effects also had to be rejected. Further age, gender and study level had no significant effect on the direct relationship of CSR and job choice intention. The detailed results of the regression analysis are presented in table 2 below: Table 2
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Predicting Job Choice Intention From CSR, Age, Gender, Study Level, Ethical Orientation and Social Identity Consciousness.
Job Choice Intention
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Variable B b B b B b B b Constant 3.87** 3.93** 3.91** 3.89** Age -.02 -.07 -.02 -.08 -.02 -.07 -.02 .07 Gender -.06 -.05 -.09 -.07 -.12 -.09 -.12 -.09 StudyL -.15 -.13 -1.4 -1.4 -1.5 -1.2 -1.5 -1.2 CSR .37** .30 .38** .31 .38** .31 EO .03 .04 .03 .04 SIC .04 .04 .03 .03 CSRxEO .04 .03 CSRxSIC .07 .03 R2 .03 .12 .13 .13 F 2.21 6.87** 4.65* 3.53* ΔF 2.05 20.18* .32 .28 ΔR2 .03 .09 .00 .00 Note. N=200. All variable were centered at their means.
*p < .05. **p < .001
Although the results did not show any interaction effects, looking at the means of the moderators (Appendix D), showed interesting tendencies of student’s ethical values and characteristics. In this context students had a relatively high mean score when asking for their ethical orientation relating organizational behavior (M=5.13, SD= .59). Further the scores on the social identity scale were above average (M=3.87, SD= .89).
Discussion
Building on the findings of Turban and Greening (2000), Albinger and Freemann (2000) and Backhaus, Stone and Heiner (2002), this study could positively answer the first main research question asking: How does CSR communication influence student’s job choice
intentions and attractiveness to an organization? The findings support the first two hypotheses and demonstrate that students have higher job choice intentions and feel more attracted to organizations communicating about CSR in their job advertisements than to organizations not communicating about their social responsible activities. These findings are in line with previous research indicating that a higher social performance of organizations leads to a higher attraction among job seekers. Further signaling and social identity theory support these findings and can be used to explain the higher scores in attraction and job choice intentions for the CSR condition. In general people are more attentive to salient and distinctive information when looking for a job (Joo, Moon and Choi, 2016). This statement can be transformed to this study when recognizing CSR communication as a salient and distinctive information in job advertisements compared to communicating only traditional job attributes. As the tested sample belongs to the Generation Y (people born after 1980) students might especially be attentive to CSR communication, because of aiming to find a meaningful job (Elving, 2013; Montogomerry and Rasmus, 2003).
Relating to social indentity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) students might get a feeling of identification with an organization when knowing about their social values. As Kim et al. (2010) indicated this feeling could create a higher self-image and prestige feeling for that particular organization. Using Signaling theory (Spence, 1973) as a starting point for explaining the discovered effects, communicating about CSR could send signals to students about that particular organization about having an ethical behavior in general. This signal might be interpreted as having good working conditions for employees as well (Backhaus et al., 2002). Students could expect when the organization is acting socially with external stakeholders and the community that they might be treated fair as well when working there. Interestingly age, gender and study level had no influence on the presented findings. In contrast to the argumentation of Aiman-Smith et al. (2001) and Chapman et al. (2005), who assumed women to be more sensitive to social responsibility, because of historically having
more difficulties in finding a job, women didn’t significantly differ in their job choice intentions or perceived attractiveness. The reason for this can be the time difference of more than 10 years between the studies and this study. Nowadays women and men are having more equal chances for job positions. Further no differences where found in the attractiveness and job choice intentions between bachelor or master students. The argumentation of Albinger and Freeman (2000) that lower educated people receive less information about CSR is not relevant anymore. The concept of CSR has become more prominent in the last decade (Du et al., 2010). In this case Corporate Social Responsibility generates the same attention for bachelor as well as master students when looking for a job. Future research could compare students with employees already working for a long period in an organization.
This study also investigated whether respondent ethical orientation and social identity consciousness moderated the effect of CSR communication on attraction and job choice intention. The second research question could be answered in the way that the main effect was not moderated by student’s ethical orientation and social identity consciousness as hypothesized. In contrast to literature (Aiman-smith et al., 2001; Judge and Bretz, 1992), which highlights the person-organization fit in terms of value alignment with an organization when intending to pursue a job, students higher in ethical orientation had no higher job choice intentions or perceived attractiveness with the organization communicating about CSR. The reason for this might be that respondent’s with a lower ethical orientation still recognize an organization’s social responsibility as an attractive characteristic when looking for a job, because it may work as a signal for a good place to work. Further also student’s social identity consciousness had no influence on the relationship of CSR and job choice intention or attraction. As this study was the first using social identity consciousness as a moderator as suggested by Highhouse, Thornburry and Little (2007) no comparison to similar studies can be made. However the results demonstrate that student’s wishes to externally express their personal morality didn’t significantly increase their job choice intention or attractiveness with
an organization communicating about CSR. Student’s having a high social identity consciousness might be especially attracted by different external signals of organizational values than CSR like prestige or financial attributes.
Managerial Implication
The study gives a current insight into the influence of CSR communication on student’s perceived attractiveness and job choice intentions when looking for a job. The results indicate that students feel more attracted and would more likely pursue a job with an organization communicating about CSR. As the student sample came from various study backgrounds and were bachelor as well as master students, the results should be taken into account by human resource departments and communication practioners when conceptualizing employer-branding strategies. When the organization is active in CSR activities like taking environmental responsibilities or being socially engaged in community projects, it should actively communicate about it in their job postings. Results showed that CSR communication was even appealing to students having lower ethical expectations about organizations. Following communicating about CSR in job advertisements can be effective to attract high-qualified job seekers with different personalities. Especially when looking for graduates from universities, communicating about CSR can make a difference to stand out as an attractive employer.
Limitations and Future Research
Although this study had a relatively big sample size (200), some limitations have to be considered when interpreting and discussing the results. The majority of respondents were German and also studying in Germany. The online experiment was only distributed in English language, which might have caused understanding problems of single questions.
In this context, a more heterogeneous sample of nationalities would have improved the external validity. Furthermore when asking about ethical orientation and personal values, social desirability might significantly have affected the validity as mentioned by Randall and
Fernandes (1991) when using self-report surveys for research into ethics topics. Future research could include the Social Desirability Scale of Reynolds (1982) to control for this effect. In this study social desirability was not tested to not exceed the time limit needed for finishing the experiment.
Relating to the experimental manipulation a traineeship for a sports company might not have been appealing to every student. Although 86% of students indicated that in general a traineeship would be moderately to extremely interesting for them, these results might have occurred due to a feeling of job uncertainty in the future. The presented limitations might have biased the collected results in attractiveness and job choice intentions for both conditions of the job advertisement. Future research could either focus on students from only one study background to ensure the applicability of the job advertisement (Kim et al., 2010) or do a comparable study with different study fields having adjusted job advertisements for every study background presented. Finally students represent a highly educated target group, which might be more familiar with the CSR concept than less educated people. Following the results cannot be transferred to a wider population.
Conclusion
The present study gives a timely update on similar studies examining the influence of CSR on job seekers job choice intentions and perceived attractiveness. Due to dynamic changes in the working environment, the job market and values in different generations, studies like this have to be repeated regularly. This study contributes to the wide field of research in external CSR communication and supports the findings and potential of CSR communication for attracting future employees. Although no moderating effects could be found, the results also gave an insight to a relatively high ethical orientation of current students in general. This shows the attention of students for ethical values in the job environment. Following implementing and communicating CSR activities internally and externally to employees and job seekers, can contribute to a favorable organizational image, which might help to attract
high quality workforces. However it would be interesting to repeat similar studies with a more heterogeneous sample or compare samples with different charactestics relating nationality or education to improve external validity. In conclusion this study could be considered as an important update and motivate to further research of CSR in the employer branding process. In this way today’s society might have an influence on forcing organizations towards a higher orientation relating Corporate Social Responsibility.
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Appendix Appendix A
Job advertisement: CSR condition
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