THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND BRAND
AWARENESS ON THE WILLINGNESS TO APPLY DURING DIFFERENT
CAREER STAGES
Choice-based Conjoint AnalysisMaster Thesis MSc Marketing
Master’s Thesis | 2
Abstract
The aim of this study is to research potential applicants’ preferences regarding the job attributes that were included in this study. A choice-based conjoint analysis is conducted with the following job attributes: (1) corporate social responsibility engagement, (2) brand awareness, (3) salary level, (4) promotion opportunities, and (5) job security. Since the first three attributes are to a great extent established in literature, the main focus of this study is on the impact of CSR engagement and brand awareness on the willingness to apply. Moreover, this study researches the moderating effect of the career stage a respondent is in on the relationship between the job attribute and the willingness to apply.
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CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION ... 4
GOAL AND RESEARCH QUESTION ... 5
THESIS OUTLINE ... 5
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 6
LITERATURE REVIEW ... 6
CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES ... 10
3. METHODOLOGY ... 14
CONJOINT ANALYSIS ... 14
RESEARCH DESIGN... 15
METHODS FOR ANALYSIS... 17
4. RESULTS ... 19
DESCRIPTIIVE STATISTICS ... 19
ANALYSIS FINAL DATASET ... 19
5. GENERAL DISCUSSION ... 27
REFERENCES ... 30
APPENDICES ... 37
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1. INTRODUCTION
Job seeking is and has been an ever-growing important aspect of people’s work lives and nowadays this happens in an increasingly global market context (Lopez-Kidwell et al., 2013). There has been a major change in the way people get access to vacancies and job postings in recent years, especially due to the enormous rise of social media networks focussing on recruitment, like LinkedIn. A staggering number of three million new jobs get posted on LinkedIn every month (van de Ketterij, 2017). In the same article, van de Ketterij (2017) shows that the amount of active users grows by twenty million every month. Moreover, the Dutch Office for National Statistics sees a substantial increase in the number of vacancies in recent years (CBS, 2018). These numbers show that the pool out of which one has to choose the job that suits best is rapidly increasing in size. Therefore, the job seeking process as a whole is far more extensive than it was years ago.
Corporate social performance has become a bigger and bigger point of attention amongst academics and practitioners (Duarte et al., 2014). Moreover, prospective applicants are concerned more and more about corporate social performance whenever they are considering a company to apply for a job (Lis, 2012). Montgomery and Ramus (2003) found that a significant part of people were even willing to forgo financial benefits in order to work at a company that has a better reputation for corporate social responsibility matters and ethics.
When it comes to brand awareness, DelVecchio et al. (2007) showed that job seekers have a greater desire to work for strong brands. This desire is so important for job seekers that firms with strong brands can even pay their executives substantially less compared to firms with weaker brands (Tavassoli et al., 2014). Based on the knowledge about the drivers of willingness to apply, human resource managers can build a recruitment strategy that may provide the right person with the right job offer. This study focuses on how such a recruitment strategy can be optimized when a potential applicants’ prior experiences with a brand or company is known, for example as a consumer. These prior experiences with a brand or company constitute their brand awareness.
Master’s Thesis | 5 Next to that, the differences between people in different career stages when it comes to the job search process will be researched. The biggest contribution to the career stages theory was made by Super (1957, 1984), where he constructed the so-called life-span, life-space model. In this model, Super suggests that individuals undergo different, subsequent, stages of career development in their lives – exploration, establishment, maintenance, and eventual disengagement. Since this research pays attention to the labour force, i.e. the people that are still working, the disengagement phase will be excluded from this study. This study investigates the impact of the career stage of a potential applicant on the value they give to the job attributes included in this study. Especially for companies it is interesting to know the differences between potential applicants that are in different career stages in the way they value the drivers of willingness to apply, so they can adjust their job offers based on this knowledge.
Goal and research question
The main goal of this research is to gain insights in the impact of brand awareness and corporate social responsibility on the willingness to apply across different career stages. The problem statement is formulated in a main research question as follows:
“To what extent does brand awareness and knowledge of the corporate social performance of a brand or company impact the willingness to apply across different career stages?”
This research conducts a choice-based conjoint analysis. A survey will be carried out in order to generate data to analyse. In this survey, respondents (n = 194) will be given multiple job offers out of which they have to choose their most preferred one, given the stated choice setting. Based on this survey, the goal is to investigate the relative utility the respondents place on the different attributes of the job offers.
Thesis outline
After this introduction, the theoretical basis of this research will be established and it provides the hypotheses as presented in the conceptual framework in chapter 2. In chapter 3 the methodology that is used to conduct this research will be explained. After that, the results of the research and the analyses of the data will be given in chapter 4. In chapter 5, to round off this report, the general discussion will answer the main research question, provides managerial implications, and will show the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.
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2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background about the relevant topics of this research and based on this theoretical background the conceptual model and its hypotheses will be established. The first concept that will be illustrated is the dependent variable, the willingness to apply. After that, corporate social responsibility and brand awareness will be discussed. Hereafter, three more generic job attributes will be discussed: salary level, promotion opportunities, and job security. In line with the thesis’ research goal, these latter three will only be briefly addressed. In addition, their effects are more established in literature. To round off this chapter, the hypotheses will be stated and assembled in the conceptual model.
Literature review
Willingness to apply
As mentioned in the introduction section of this report, the job seeking process has become more extensive and far more difficult in recent years. For many job seekers, the search process starts with feelings of uncertainty about their capabilities to do well in a specific job because they might be unsure about other potential job alternatives, the number of applicants they have to compete with, or their relative position to other applicants (Rynes, 1991).
Therefore, recruitment practices are of utmost importance for a company. Recruitment can be defined as the activities an organization carries out in order to identify and attract potential employees (Cascio, 1991). The recruitment process is two-fold; the aim is to attract both quality and quantity in terms of potential applicants. By doing so, the companies’ recruiters can choose the best and most qualified applicant from a large pool. Having such a large pool of qualified applicants is important for organizations, since it results in the fact that they can be more selective, which results in more effective hiring and post-hire outcomes for the organization and the individual in terms of increased performance (Carlson et al., 2002).
Willingness to apply is the dependent variable in the conceptual model (for model, see figure 1) of this study, which will be discussed later in this chapter. The willingness to apply is expected to measure participants’ intentions to apply for the job (Acarlar & Bilgiç, 2013). This variable is binary by nature, the potential applicant either applies for a proposed job, or not.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Master’s Thesis | 7 be defined as ‘the organizational actions and policies that consider several types of stakeholders and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance’ (Aguinis, 2011). In other words, CSR focuses on different types of stakeholders, also stakeholders from outside the organization, and on outcomes that go beyond firm or financial performance. CSR activities are increasingly embedded in organizations in order to position their corporate brand favourably in the eyes of consumers and other stakeholders, for example through their annual reports (Sweeney & Coughlan, 2008). In contrast, communicating about the CSR practices an organization undertakes might also harm the organization, mainly because CSR communication might trigger scepticism and cynicism under stakeholders (Schlegelmilch & Pollach, 2005).
The study of Montgomery & Ramus (2003) showed that a significant part of their research population was willing to forgo financial benefits when they got the opportunity to work for an organization with a better reputation for CSR and ethics related matters. This is supported by Zukin & Szeltner (2012), who found that approximately 50% of the respondents were willing to take a 15% pay cut in order to work for a company that was perceived to be environmentally and socially responsible. With the organization’s ultimate recruitment goal in mind, which is attracting a large pool of qualified applicants, the pursuit of having a positive CSR image on potential applicants is very important. Moreover, positive CSR perceptions will make the employees feel more connected to the company, will make them work more productively and the employees have significantly lower intentions to quit (Ghosh & Gurunathan, 2014).
This is supported by the research of Jones et al. (2014), that argues that a good CSR image enhances job seekers’ interest in applying because of the perceived pride of being associated with a responsible organization, the perceived value fit with the organization, and the positive expectations the job seeker has about the way the organization treat its own employees. In this regard, theory is unambiguously; CSR has a large impact on a company’s attractiveness to potential applicants (Greening & Turban, 2000; Cable & Turban, 2001).
Brand awareness
Master’s Thesis | 8 According to Keller (1993), brand awareness consists of two concepts; brand recognition and brand recall. Brand recognition is about the extent to which someone is able to recognize a brand given a set of brands and brand recall is the extent to which someone is able to remember a specific brand, given a product category (Keller, 1993). Aaker (1996) amplified this by constructing multiple levels of brand awareness. These levels are brand recognition, brand recall, top of mind, brand dominance, brand knowledge and brand opinion. These levels can be seen as subsequent steps a consumer moves through, where every step increases the consumers’ brand awareness (Gill & Dawra, 2010).
Brand awareness has an positive impact on the organizational perceptions held by individuals (Lemmink et al., 2003). Moreover, Yasin et al. (2007) found that higher levels of consumers brand awareness improves the likelihood that the brand is kept in mind when a consumer is in a purchase situation. This is supported by Macdonald & Sharp (2000), who argue that products that are familiar are regularly favoured by customers. Therefore, one can say that a favourable brand awareness is a critical tool to increase the customer evaluation in a positive way.
Job attributes
In this section, three job attributes will be discussed; salary level, promotion opportunities and job security. Based on theory, these three attributes are viewed as most important and therefore incorporated in this study.
Salary level
The salary level is an important factor in the job seeking process, as it is involved in most research in the field of recruitment practices. Research often shows that the job satisfaction of a person, so not the satisfaction with the pay, is generally associated with the pay level (Liu et al., 2010). Moreover, the other way around, the failure to provide an adequate monetary compensation leads to dissatisfaction and eventually even turnover (West & Berman, 2009).
However, this apparently logical relationship is also debated in literature. The self-determination theory shows that more extrinsic motivations, such as monetary compensation, may also decrease a workers’ job satisfaction to some extent (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Moreover, Judge et al. (2010) found in their analysis that salary had a modest relationship with job satisfaction. Given this contradicting findings, it shall be useful to provide additional evidence as to which extent monetary compensation is valued by potential applicants in the job seeking process.
Promotion opportunities
Master’s Thesis | 9 commitment intention to that industry that provides better career prospects. In this study this will be downscaled from an industry-level to a company-level, to investigate the impact of career prospects that are generally offered by the company in dispute.
In contrast, Judge & Breitz (1992) suggest that promotion opportunities can also be seen as undesirable in the eyes of a potential applicant or worker because it can be seen as a pressure to perform. However, for the purpose of this research, the specific reasons why some individuals might regard promotion opportunities as undesirable are out of scope.
Job security
The last attribute is the job security, specifically in terms of the length of a contract. Job security can be defined as the employment stability and job continuity within an organization (Probst, 2003). Kronenburg et al. (2013) found that contract length is significantly associated with higher job satisfaction. Moreover, in the same article, the authors found that shorter contracts should be avoided in order to prevent the decrease of job satisfaction. Prior research suggests that lower levels of job security, or job insecurity in this case, have a negative impact on employees’ psychological well-being and their subsequent work behaviours (Sverke et al., 2002), or might even be a job stressor (De Witte, 1999).
Career Stages
In this research we assess to which extent the career stage a potential applicant is in has a moderating effect on the relationships between the five drivers of willingness to apply and the willingness to apply in general. The backbone of the career stage theory is the life-span, life-space theory by Super (1957). According to this theory, there are four stages in a person’s vocational career: exploration, establishment, maintenance, and eventually decline. Next to Super’s theory, Levinson et al. (1978) came up with four ‘life areas’: childhood (0-20 years), early adulthood (20-40), middle adulthood (40-60), and late adulthood (over 60). In prior research, age is the most common used career stage indicator. However, Super (1957) also included job tenure as an indicator to assess which career stage a person is in.
Master’s Thesis | 10 1991). Thus, people in mid- and late-career stages might be expected to commit more to the company they work for, compared to the early career stage.
To date, no clear consensus exists among researchers about the operationalization of career stages. Guided by the work of Super (1957), this study operationalizes career stages based on age and work tenure. The people in the exploration phase are younger than 24 years and have work experiences of less than 5 years. The establishment phase consists of people that are between the age of 25 and 44 and have work experiences of 6 to 20 years. The last phase, the maintenance phase, consists of people older than 45 years and have more than 21 years of work experience.
Conceptual model and hypotheses
To overview my logic, figure 1 shows the conceptual model of this research. The attributes of the job offer on the left side of the conceptual model are the independent variables. The career stage a potential applicant is in will be analysed to examine moderating effects, the dependent variable is the willingness to apply. The arrows that connect the variables represent the hypotheses.
Figure 1 - Conceptual model
The theoretical background of the conceptual model and the way these hypotheses are developed is presented below.
Master’s Thesis | 11 companies they regard as socially responsible than with companies with a poor CSR reputation (Greening & Turban, 2000; Tsai et al., 2014).
Aguinis & Glavas (2017) found that CSR provides employees with the notion to be able to work outside of one’s specific job and organization and therefore regard CSR as an ideal conduit for employees to find meaningfulness through work. An individual’s pursuit to find meaningfulness in life is often attained through work (Rosso et al., 2010). Moreover, Duarte et al. (2014) found that a high level of engagement in CSR practices had a positive impact on both the perception a potential applicant has about a brand and on their intention to apply for a job. Alniacik et al. (2010) support these findings by stating that applicants feel more attached and willing to apply for a specific job when they perceive a company to behave in a more socially responsible way, than they feel with companies that are not so much perceived as socially or ethically responsible. These studies have resulted in the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: When a company engages more in corporate social responsibility matters, this positively
affects the willingness to apply.
According to Collins & Stevens (2002), the awareness and associations a potential applicant has with an employer significantly and positively influences the behaviour of a potential applicant and the choices he or she makes. This is supported by a study conducted by Gatewood et al. (1993), who found that graduates show greater intentions to apply for a company they were exposed to during their coursework at university.
An outcome of brand awareness often is organizational attractiveness (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). Collins & Kanar (2013) define organizational attractiveness as the subjective set of evaluations that constitutes the attractiveness of a brand in a person’s mind. A similar concept is organizational identification, which can be defined as ‘the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization’ (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). Riketta & Van Dick (2005) argue that organizational identification positively impacts individuals’ affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job involvement, and their intention to join a certain company. This is supported by Ellison (2003), who states that organizational identification serves as an important source of recruitment. Thus, these assumptions result in the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2: Higher brand awareness positively influences the willingness to apply.
Master’s Thesis | 12 (1985) state that extrinsic might also decrease job satisfaction to some extent. However, based on the most existing literature, the following is hypothesized.
Hypothesis 3: A higher salary level positively affects the willingness to apply.
As discussed earlier in this chapter, there is some discussion about whether career prospects or promotion opportunities have a positive or negative impact on the perception a potential applicant has about a certain company. On the one hand, Wan et al. (2014) found that people put great value on the career prospects offered and ‘the more the better’. In contrast, Judge & Breitz (1992) argue that it might enhance feelings of stress, since they feel they have to perform well. However, the expectation is that these feelings of stress arise at a small number of people, and not for everybody. Therefore, the following hypothesis was constructed.
Hypothesis 4: When more promotion opportunities arise in the upcoming years, this positively affects
the willingness to apply.
Perceived job security was found to have a significant and positive impact on employee health (Kuhnert et al., 1989). Moreover, these authors found that including perceived job security in general models of stress and well-being might improve the understanding of work performance. In other words, people tend to look for a situation in which they are secure about their professional lives and also their future job security. In this study this relationship is investigated as well and is hypothesized as follows.
Hypothesis 5: Higher job security positively affects the willingness to apply.
Now, the development of the hypotheses regarding the moderating effect of the career stage of a respondent will be discussed.
Leveson & Joiner (2014) researched the importance of CSR practices a company undertakes in the eyes of graduates. They found that these graduates value extrinsic rewards (like salary) significantly more than CSR values. CSR related matters were not front-of-mind in these graduates’ job choice decisions. Moreover, Rupp et al. (2018) found a significant and positive effect of age and work tenure on the CSR perception an employee has. Based on these theories, one can argue that people in later career stages seek for more purpose in their working lives, which could be attained by working for a socially and ethically responsible organization. Therefore, the following is hypothesized.
Hypothesis 6a: People in late career stages value corporate social responsibility engagement higher
Master’s Thesis | 13 Wilden et al. (2010) reported that applicants with more work experience were way more cynical about branding, whereas inexperienced applicants valued working for a strong brand in terms of a contribution to their curriculum vitae. Based on this, the following is hypothesized.
Hypothesis 6b: People in early career stages value branding higher than people in later career stages.
Feldman et al. (2006) found that salary specification was more influential for junior job applicants’ decisions, who were mostly newly graduated job seekers. Moreover, they found that seniors do not look for such information since they have more experience with predicting those salary ranges. Based on this study, the following hypothesis is being researched.
Hypothesis 6c: People in late career stages value salary level higher than people in earlier career stages.
Sturges et al. (2000) found that long-term career prospects was a major factor in a graduates’ evaluation of a company. This is supported by earlier research that found that most students subscribe to a more bureaucratic view of career prospects (Pitcher and Purcell, 1997). Therefore, the following hypothesis was constituted.
Hypothesis 6d: People in early career stages value promotion opportunities higher than people in later
career stages.
According to Cohen (1991), people that are in later career stages have the aim to ‘settle down’. They have less interest any more in changing jobs. People in early stages of their professional career have a career in front of them and they have the time to aim for the best. Based on this assumption, the following hypothesis was created.
Hypothesis 6e: People in late career stages value job security higher than people in earlier career
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3. METHODOLOGY
In this chapter the methods used to analyse the data will be explained. The form of analysis that is used in this study is a choice-based conjoint analysis. A choice-based conjoint analysis is a specific type of conjoint analysis and it will be explained in this chapter why this is a suitable method in this study. After that, the research design will be explained. To round off this chapter, the methods used for the analyses will be explained.
Conjoint analysis
A conjoint analysis is mostly used as a marketing research methods that analyses customer trade-offs when buying certain products or services (Green et al., 2001). Generally, conjoint analyses consist of a representation of a product with multiple attributes and respondents are asked to choose the alternative they prefer the most. Given these evaluations of a set of alternatives, a conjoint analysis estimates preference parameters, like part-worth importance (Green & Srinivasan, 1978). Moreover, Green et al. (1978) state that these differences in the evaluated importance of the specific attributes help researchers study consumer’s evaluation of products.
This study translates conjoint analysis from a marketing specific setting to a more blended setting of marketing and recruitment matters. Over time, researchers have developed multiple different types of conjoint analyses. According to Natter & Feurstein (2002), these different types of conjoint analyses can be broadly divided in two approaches: rating-based approaches and choice-based approaches. In rating- or ranking-based conjoint analysis respondents are asked to rate or rank multiple alternatives. Choice-based approaches require respondents to choose the most preferred option. This latter type of conjoint analysis, the choice-based approach, will be used in this study and will therefore be explained further in detail.
Choice-based conjoint analysis
Master’s Thesis | 15 However, based conjoint analyses face some summons to contest. A respondent of a choice-based conjoint study must process a lot of information before making a choice, because they should base their decision on all the attributes that are shown. Another difficulty of this type of conjoint analysis is that only a limited number of attributes can be used. Pullman et al. (1999) argue that respondents may base their preference on only a few attributes instead of all, if too many attributes are included in the choice design. Therefore, Green and Srinivasan (1990) recommend researchers not to use more than six attributes. As mentioned, in this conjoint study five attributes are incorporated.
Choice model
In this study, a multinomial logit (MNL) model is used to analyse the data. This kind of model gives the probability of choosing an alternative as a function of all alternatives that were available in the choice design (McFadden, 1986). A logit model was chosen for this study because the odds of an event to occur can be explained better by using the odds ratio in the logit model than in the probit model (Wiersema & Bowen, 2009). Eggers et al. (2018) explain the usage of a MNL model as follows: choosing an object i from a choice set with S alternatives is presented in terms of choice probabilities p:
𝑝(𝑖|𝑆) = exp(𝑉𝑖) ∑𝑗∈𝑆exp(𝑉𝑖)
(1)
When assuming a normal distribution of the error term, one can use a multinomial probit model (Haaijer et al., 1998). This probit model is characterized by multiple integrals and very difficult estimation procedures. Therefore, the MNL model is mostly used in the choice-based conjoint analyses, since it has a compact form.
Research design
This section will clarify the actual design of the research that will be conducted. The survey that will be conducted is explained here and in particular the design of the choice model will be discussed.
Data collection
A survey was performed to collect the data needed for the analysis. The choice-based conjoint survey has been conducted online by making use of the software of Preference Lab. The survey was distributed in November and December 2020. Social media was used to approach the respondents. The data from the Preference Lab survey was imported to R Studio. In R Studio, the results were analysed. A full overview of the choice tasks is provided in appendix 1.
Master’s Thesis | 16 age, and their work tenure. In the next section, the design of the choice model will be elaborated on further.
Experimental design
In the experimental design, respondents were displayed twelve choice tasks. Every choice task consists of three job offers out of which the respondent had to choose the most preferred one. The choice tasks start with the following question: “If these are the job offers that you have received, which one
will you choose? If you do not find any of the job offers appealing, please still choose the one most preferred.”
A total of five attributes were incorporated in the choice tasks. Each attribute has two or three possible levels. A job offer consists of all five attributes, but the levels of the attributes varied over the different job offers. Table 1 shows the attributes and their levels.
Attribute Levels Salary level Promotion opportunities Job Security CSR engagement Brand awareness 1. 25% below average 2. Average for this position 3. 25% above average
1. 1 promotion opportunity in 5 years 2. 2 promotion opportunities in 5 years 1. Short-term contract
2. Long-term contract 3. Permanent
1. Low: “Negative press reports about CSR issues”
2. Average: “Nothing mentioned about CSR engagement” 3. High: “Rewards for CSR engagement”
1. Low: “You have never heard about this brand and also your
peers do not know this brand.”
2. High: “Your peers know this brand and hold it in high regard”
Table 1 - Attributes and attribute levels
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Methods for analysis
Logit model
In order to do analyses based on the collected data, a logistic regression was performed. Although the logistic regression is quite similar to an ordinary least squares regression, the difference is in the outcome of the dependent variable (Lehman et al., 1998). In ordinary least squares regression the outcome is continuous, whereas in logistic regression the outcome is dichotomous. The formula that is used for the analysis of this study is:
𝑊𝐴𝑖= α + β1CSRi+ β2BAi+ β3Si+ β4Pi+ β5JSi+ β6CSi+ εi (2)
The coefficients β1 (CSR), β2 (brand awareness), β3 (salary level), β4 (promotion opportunities), and β5 (job security) are about the attributes that are incorporated in the choice-based conjoint analysis. The coefficient β6 is about the career stages, where a moderating effect is expected. In this model, a positive coefficient means that the probability the event will occur is increasing, and on the other hand a negative coefficient means that the probability the event will occur is decreasing.
The analyses will be split up in two parts: a model without the (possible) moderating effects of career stages and a model with those moderating effects. For both models, two assumptions will be tested in order to evaluate the model. First, the assumption of the independence of errors will be tested by running a Durbin-Watson test in a linear regression model. Secondly, the dataset will also be tested for multicollinearity. Since this study used a model with multiple predictors (5 attributes and moderating variables) a high relationship between the variables and therefore the possibility of multicollinearity was not expected. However, this will be evaluated by testing the data on multicollinearity by the variance inflation factor (VIF).
Relative importance
In this study, the relative importance indicates to what extent the respondents value each attribute when making a decision to apply or not. More general, the relative attribute importance is a first indicator of which attribute is influencing respondents’ choices the most (Eggers et al., 2018). The relative attribute importance is mainly important since it allows researchers to draw conclusions regarding one predictor with respect to another (Johnson & LeBreton, 2004).
Based on the range of the part-worth utility levels of the attributes, the difference between the highest and lowest value, the relative importance of each attribute can be calculated. To calculate the relative importance of an attribute 𝑤𝑛, the worth utility of an attribute is divided by the sum of all
part-worth attributes (Wittink et al., 1990; Eggers et al., 2018):
𝑤𝑛 =
max(𝛽𝑛) − min(𝛽𝑛)
∑𝑁 (max(
𝑖=1 𝛽𝑖) − min(𝛽𝑖))
Master’s Thesis | 18 In this study, the part-worth utilities are presented by the β-estimates of the logistic regression, and the relative importance across all attributes add up to a 100%.
Coding
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4. RESULTS
In this chapter the results of this study will be discussed. This chapter will be structured as follows. First, the descriptive statistics will be mentioned. After that, the analysis of the model without the moderating variables is evaluated, also with the subsequent relative attribute importance of this model. After that, the model will be complemented with the moderating variables regarding the career stage of a respondent.
Descriptive statistics
In total, 194 respondents filled in the survey in November and December 2020. The average time participants took to fill in this survey was 6.5 minutes. Results from people that rushed through the survey (completion time of below 2 minutes) and results from people that did not complete the survey entirely were excluded. The table below shows the generic demographic information about the respondents.
Characteristic (n=194) Frequency Percentage (%)
Gender male 82 42.3 female 112 57.7 other 0 0 Age class 16-25 67 34.5 25-45 66 34.0 46> 61 31.4
Work tenure 0-5 years 98 50.5
6-20 years 37 19.1
>21 years 59 30.4
Table 2– Descriptive statistics
Based on their age and work tenure, the respondents were put in one of the three career stages. When the age class and the work tenure class did not match, the age class was decisive. The choice to make this division was made based on prior research (Super, 1957; Levinson et al., 1978). This resulted in the following division: exploration (n=68), establishment (n=66) and maintenance (n=60).
Analysis final dataset
Model without moderating variables
Master’s Thesis | 20 test this assumption a Durbin-Watson test in a linear regression was performed. This test gave a result of 2.658. This indicates that, to some extent, negative correlation was present between the variables. According to Chen (2016), if residuals are close to the value of 2, which is the case in our model, it does not cause great problems. This dataset also was tested for the possibility of the occurrence of multicollinearity. The data was analysed on multicollinearity by the variance inflation factor (VIF). If one of the VIFs exceeds 5 or 10, then that is an indication that the variables in the model were poorly estimated since they had multicollinearity issues (Montgomery & Peck, 1982). The largest VIF score can be seen as the best indication of whether multicollinearity would be an issue in a dataset (Cropper, 1984). The largest VIF score that was measured in the dataset of this study was 1.001. Thus, the dataset did not show any issues regarding multicollinearity.
Attributes Beta Standard error
CSR Low -1.246*** 0.053 Average 0.347*** 0.039 High 1.594*** 0.041 Brand awareness Low -0.258*** 0.030 High 0.258*** 0.030 Salary level Below average -1.249*** 0.053 Average 0.303*** 0.039 Above average 1.552*** 0.041 Promotion 1 opportunity 2 opportunities Job security -0.166*** 0.166*** 0.030 0.030 Short-term -1.001*** 0.050 Long-term 0.458*** 0.039 Permanent 1.459*** 0.039 Note. p = .000. *** = p < 0.01, ** = p < 0.05, * = p < 0.1 Table 3- Model without moderating effects
Master’s Thesis | 21 our model should be less negative, because otherwise it would not predict choices better than a random, NULL model. The estimated model had a log-likelihood value of -1493.2. The aim is to see if this difference is significant. In order to test this, a likelihood ratio was performed: 𝑋2 = 2 * (-1493.2 –
(-2557.6) = 2128.8. This test is significant (p < 0.001), therefore we can say that the estimated model predicts significantly better than the random, NULL model.
Next to the likelihood ratio, another measure is used to assess the model fit. This is the McFadden R2 value. The McFadden R2 can be computed as follows: R2 = 1 – (LLmodel / LLNULL). In this study, the R2 = 1 – (-1493.2 / -2557.6) = 0.416. According to Eggers et al. (2018), values exceeding 0.2-0.4 are acceptable. Thus, also this measure tells us that the goodness of fit of our estimated model is decent.
After the goodness of fit of the estimated model was assessed, the hypotheses were tested. The results of the logistic regression without the moderating variables can be found in table 3.
Corporate social responsibility (Hypothesis 1)
Hypothesis 1 is about the corporate social responsibility and was stated as: When a company engages
more in corporate social responsibility matters, this positively affects the willingness to apply.
The results show that the respondents derive significantly more (β=1.594) utility from a company that engages to a high extent in CSR compared to average (β=0.347) or low (β=-1.246) CSR engagement. This tells us that a company that engages more in CSR matters, is valued higher by the respondents and therefore is positively affects the willingness to apply. Based on that, hypothesis 4 is accepted as well.
Brand awareness (Hypothesis 2)
Hypothesis 2 is about the effect of brand awareness, and was stated as: Higher brand awareness
positively influences the willingness to apply.
The positive coefficient (β=0.258) for a high brand awareness reflects that the respondents derive significantly more value from a high brand awareness than from a low brand awareness. Therefore, one can argue that a higher brand awareness positively affects the willingness to apply and that is why hypothesis 5 is accepted.
Salary level (Hypothesis 3)
Hypothesis 3 was stated as follows: A higher salary level positively affects the willingness to apply.
Master’s Thesis | 22 (β=-1.249). These results indicate that a higher salary level does affect the willingness to apply in a positive way. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is accepted.
Promotion opportunities (Hypothesis 4)
Hypothesis 4 was stated as follows: When more promotion opportunities arise in the upcoming years,
this positively affects the willingness to apply.
When looking at the results, one can see that also the promotion variable denotes a positive and significant coefficient (β=0.166). This means that the respondents value two promotion opportunities in the upcoming 5 years higher than only one promotion opportunity. Although the coefficient is small, the significance level allows to accept hypothesis 4.
Job security (Hypothesis 5)
Hypothesis 5 was stated as follows: Higher job security positively affects the willingness to apply.
Regarding the contract type, the results indicate that the respondents derive significantly more utility (β=1.459) from a permanent contract than from a term contract (β=0.458). Moreover, a long-term contract is valued higher than a short-long-term (β=-1.001) contract. Therefore, we can argue that a higher job security positively affects the willingness to apply. Thus, hypothesis 5 is also accepted.
Relative importance
In the methodology chapter, the calculations regarding the relative attribute importance were demonstrated. The logistic regression showed the relative importance of the five attributes. Results of this analysis can be found in table 4.
Attribute Relative importance
CSR 31.7%
Brand awareness 5.7%
Salary level 31.3%
Promotion opportunities 3.7%
Job security 27.5%
Table 4– Relative attribute importance
Master’s Thesis | 23
Model with moderating variables
Here, the results of the model with the moderating variables regarding the career stage of a respondent will be discussed. Before the hypothesis for this model were tested, the assumptions underlying the logistic regression were tested. The first assumption that was tested was the assumption of the independence of errors. In order to test this assumption a Durbin-Watson test in a linear regression was performed. This test gave a result of 2.657. This indicates that, to some extent, negative correlation was present between the variables. As mentioned before, if residuals are close to the value of 2, which is the case in our model, it did not cause great problems (Chen, 2016). This dataset was also tested for the possibility of the occurrence of multicollinearity. The data was analysed on multicollinearity by the variance inflation factor (VIF). The largest VIF score that was measured in the dataset of this study was 2.404, that. Thus, also no problems regarding multicollinearity, because Montgomery & Peck (1982) state that issues arise if VIF scores exceed 5 or 10.
Career stage
Exploration Establishment Maintenance Attributes Beta Standard
Master’s Thesis | 24 Moreover, like the first model, also this model significantly outperforms the random, NULL model. In order to assess this, a likelihood ratio was performed, which was significant (p < 0.01). A McFadden R2 value of 0.422, which was attained by this model, also shows that the goodness of fit of this model is sufficient. In table 5 the results of the model with the moderating variables can be found.
Before the hypotheses are tested, the relative attribute importance for the different career stages was assessed as well. In the methodology chapter, the calculations regarding the relative attribute importance were demonstrated. The logistic regression showed the relative importance of the five attributes for the different career stages. Results of this analysis can be found in table 6.
Career stage
Exploration Establishment Maintenance Attribute Relative importance Relative importance Relative importance
CSR 29.8% 28.7% 38.3%
Brand awareness 8.9% 5.2% 9.1%
Salary level 31.5% 37.0% 29.2%
Promotion opportunities 7.0% 4.6% 2.7%
Job security 22.7% 24.7% 20.6%
Table 6 – Relative attribute importance
Table 6 shows some differences between the valuation of the attributes between the respondents in different career stages. When looking at the ranking of the attributes, the relative attribute importance of the exploration and establishment phase did not differ a lot. The respondents in both career stages relatively attach the most value to salary, followed by CSR engagement and job security. The respondents in the last career stage, the maintenance stage, were found to relatively attach the most value to CSR engagement. Especially the big difference between the valuation of CSR engagement under respondents in the maintenance stage (38.3%), and the respondents in the exploration phase (29.8%) and the establishment phase (28.7%) stands out.
Now, the hypotheses regarding the moderating effects of the career stage a respondent is in are evaluated.
Career stage and CSR (Hypothesis 6a)
Hypothesis 6a was stated as follows: People in late career stages value corporate social responsibility
engagement higher than people in earlier career stages.
Master’s Thesis | 25 for the respondents in the exploration stage (β=0.923) and the establishment stage (β=0.844). However, the relative attribute importance of CSR engagement is showing much bigger differences. The relative attribute importance for CSR engagement for the maintenance stage (38.3%), is much higher than for the exploration stage (29.8%) and the establishment stage (28.7%). One can conclude that people in late career stages relatively derive more value from CSR engagement than people in earlier career stages. Therefore, hypothesis 6a is accepted.
Career stage and brand awareness (Hypothesis 6b)
Hypothesis 6b was stated as follows: People in early career stages value branding higher than people
in later career stages.
The exploration stage (β=0.353) has the highest coefficient with regard to a high level of brand awareness, compared to the establishment stage (β=0.183) and the maintenance stage (β=0.259). However, the relative attribute importance of brand awareness across the three career stages do not show large differences between early and late career stages. Only the middle career stage, the establishment stage, has a much lower relative attribute importance for brand awareness (5.2%). Hypothesis 6b is therefore rejected; there is no difference in the derived value from brand awareness across the three career stages.
Career stage and salary level (Hypothesis 6c)
Hypothesis 6c was stated as follows: People in late career stages value salary level higher than people
in earlier career stages.
The coefficients for a high salary level for the exploration stage (β=1.108) and for the establishment stage (β=1.085) are a lot higher than for the maintenance stage (β=0.708). This contradicts the hypothesis and the relative attribute importance supports this contradiction. The respondents in the maintenance stage show the lowest relative valuation of salary level (29.2%), compared with the respondents in the exploration stage (31.5%) and the establishment stage (37.0%). Hypothesis 6c is rejected, because the respondents the maintenance stage derive the least utility from salary level, compared to the early and middle career stage.
Career stage and promotion opportunities (Hypothesis 6d)
Hypothesis 6d was stated as follows: People in early career stages value promotion opportunities
higher than people in later career stages.
Master’s Thesis | 26 The relative attribute importance of promotion opportunities for the respondents in the exploration stage (7.0%) is higher than for the other two career stages (establishment: 4.6%; maintenance: 2.7%). Thus, hypothesis 6d is accepted.
Career stage and job security (Hypothesis 6e)
Hypothesis 6e was stated as follows: People in late career stages value job security higher than people
in earlier career stages.
The results show that the respondents in the maintenance stage derive less value from job security (β=0.333), compared to the respondents in the exploration stage (β=0.716) and the establishment stage (β=0.611). Consequently, the relative attribute importance of job security is the lowest for the respondents in the maintenance stage (20.6%), in comparison with the respondents in the exploration stage (22.7%) and the establishment stage (24.7%). This contradicts with the hypothesis and that is the reason that hypothesis 6e is rejected.
To conclude this chapter, an overview of the results of the hypotheses testing can be found in table 7. This table briefly shows for every hypothesis if it is supported or not.
Hypothesis Supported
H1 When a company engages more in corporate social responsibility matters, this
positively affects the willingness to apply.
H2 Higher brand awareness positively influences the willingness to apply.
H3 A higher salary level positively affects the willingness to apply.
H4 When more promotion opportunities arise in the upcoming years, this
positively affects the willingness to apply.
H5 Higher job security positively affects the willingness to apply.
H6a People in late career stages value corporate social responsibility engagement
higher than people in earlier career stages.
H6b People in early career stages value branding higher than people in later career
stages.
H6c People in late career stages value salary level higher than people in earlier
career stages.
H6d People in early career stages value promotion opportunities higher than
people in later career stages.
H6e People in late career stages value job security higher than people in earlier
career stages.
Master’s Thesis | 27
5. GENERAL DISCUSSION
In the previous chapter, the results of this study were showed and the hypotheses were tested. This chapter focuses on the generalizability of these results. First, the study and the results will be summarized and the findings are put in perspective to prior literature. Secondly, some managerial implications will be provided in order to come up with recommendations that might help companies to improve their marketing and recruitment strategies. To round off this chapter and this report, the limitations and directions for future research will be discussed.
The main aim of this study was to determine the impact of CSR engagement and brand awareness on the decisions of people to apply for a job at a certain company. In order to do this, this research examined the job attributes of corporate social responsibility engagement, brand awareness, salary level, promotion opportunities and job security. Using a choice-based conjoint analysis, respondents were asked to choose multiple times between three choice sets with a different division of the job attributes. The logit model without moderating effects, that was established in regard to this choice-based conjoint study, showed that CSR engagement and salary level were the dominant factors that decided whether a respondent would apply or not. When the moderating role of career stages was introduced to the analysis, this demonstrated that the derived utility of CSR engagement for the respondents in the latest career stage was the highest. The derived utility of brand awareness did not differ between the respondents of different career stages.
Consistent with the finding of Rosso et al. (2010), people tend to seek for meaningfulness in life through work. Furthermore, prior research was quite consentient regarding CSR; CSR has a positive impact on the attractiveness of a company towards potential applicants (Duarte et al., 2014; Alniacik et al., 2010; Greening & Turban, 2000; Cable & Turban, 2001) This study confirms those finding by showing (1) a significant and positive impact of CSR engagement on the willingness to apply and (2) the relative attribute importance was the highest for CSR engagement. Especially for people in later stages of their careers, working for a company that is perceived to behave socially or ethically responsible is important to them (Rupp et al, 2018).
Master’s Thesis | 28 found between salary level and willingness to apply and this attributes was valued second highest by the respondents.
The valuation of working for a brand they were aware of in terms of organizational attractiveness or identification has a significant and positive impact on the willingness to apply (Riketta & Van Dick, 2005). Although the impact of brand awareness was modest, as expressed by the relative attribute importance, this study confirms that brand awareness does matter when considering applying for a job. Wilden et al. (2010) reported that people in earlier career stages valued working for strong brands more in terms of a contribution to their curriculum vitae. This study, however, did not find evidence to support this finding. No difference was found between the respondents in different career stages regarding the valuation of working for a strong brand.
Now, the outcomes of the study are connected and recommendations to companies are given in order to improve their marketing and recruitment strategies. This research can be used by marketing managers and recruiters for different reasons. The findings of this study show that the perception a potential applicant has about a company, specifically regarding the corporate social performance, is very important in attracting a pool of qualified workforce (Carlson et al., 2002). Marketing managers should therefore focus on spreading the message about the socially and ethically behaviour of a company, especially when they try to attract older and more experienced people. A communication strategy can be established based on this understanding.
When it comes to the work field of recruiters, the job attributes salary level and job security were found to be relatively important. Recruiters should therefore put more emphasis on these two attributes, because the study showed that potential applicants derive the most utility from this. According to Cohen (1991), people in later career stages tend not to take many risks and show high levels of organizational commitment. However, in this study, job security was as important for early as for late career stages. Although the derived utility from having more promotion opportunities was higher for respondents in earlier career stages, the importance of salary and job security did not differ a lot between the different career stages. This implicates that the search for relative calmness in working careers is the same across all people.
Master’s Thesis | 29 were not included in this study. Assembling these other influencers into one study might provide a more complete image. Moreover, the extent to which the attributes interact with each other (can companies with a positive CSR image pay their executives less?) is interesting to research on further.
Although a choice-based conjoint analysis suits this study very well, there might be some details regarding this type of analysis that could be improved in future studies. Vriens et al. (1998) found that viewing the information in a conjoint analysis more visual than textual might impact the selection of a certain alternative. A suggestion for future research might be to provide more (visual) information in the choice sets that are offered to the respondents.
Master’s Thesis | 30
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Appendix 1
Survey
IntroductionHallo!
Bedankt voor het deelnemen aan het onderzoek voor mijn Master scriptie. Het zal ongeveer 5 tot 10 minuten duren om deze vragenlijst in te vullen. Uiteraard worden de antwoorden zorgvuldig
behandeld en zullen alle antwoorden volledig anoniem blijven.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Jeroen Balk
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Master Student Marketing
Explanation
Stel je voor dat je op zoek bent naar een (nieuwe) baan. Dit kan je eerste baan (als je geen werkervaring hebt) zijn, maar het kan ook zijn dat je een andere baan zoekt. Er zullen meerdere vacatures worden getoond. Ik wil je vragen om telkens de meeste aantrekkelijke te kiezen. Ook als je geen vacature écht aantrekkelijk vindt, wil ik toch vragen om een keuze te maken.
Elke vacature zal de volgende dingen bevatten:
Salaris
Aantal kansen op een promotie in de volgende 5 jaar Baanzekerheid als in de lengte van een contract
De mate waarin een bedrijf aan maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen doet Naamsbekendheid van het merk/bedrijf
Ondanks dat het voor dit onderzoek niet uitmaakt om wat voor baan het gaat, kun je ervan uitgaan dat deze baan een standaard hoeveelheid werkuren en vakantiedagen heeft.
Master’s Thesis | 38
