Master Thesis Defense

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1 | 24-06-2018

Master Thesis Defense

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility

and Brand Awareness on the Willingness to

Apply during different Career Stages

Jeroen Balk – S2679507

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Introduction

› Job seeking process becomes more extensive

› Substantial increase in number of vacancies

› Rise of LinkedIn

› Question rises: What do people value the most

when seeking a job?

› Does this change when people…

▪ …get older?

▪ …get more experienced?

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Literature & concepts (1)

› Prior research found that people seek for

meaningfulness through work

▪ A company with a high level of CSR engagement

positively impacts a potential applicants’ perception.

› Relationship between brand awareness and

organizational attractiveness/identification

exists in literature

▪ But, do prior experiences with a certain brand (e.g. as a

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Literature & concepts (2)

› More general drivers of willingness to apply

that are established in literature, but from an

empirical point of view still important to include

▪ Salary level

▪ Promotion opportunities

▪ Job security (in terms of contract length)

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Moderator variable

› Willingness to apply may depend on the

career stage of the potential applicant

▪ Based on age and work tenure

› According to the ‘Life-span, life-space theory’

(Super, 1957) there are four career stages:

▪ Exploration: entering job market, keeping options open

▪ Establishment: develop stable life

▪ Maintenance: ‘settling down’, relative calmness

▪ Decline: retire

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Methodology

› Choice-based Conjoint Analysis

› Usually used to analyze customer trade-offs when buying products or services

› Representation of a product with multiple attributes and levels and forces respondents to choose the alternative they prefer

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Methodology

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Methodology

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Results

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Results

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Discussion

› Implications

› Constitute a marketing/recruitment strategy based on showing the CSR performance of a company

› Theoretical implication for recruiters in order to attract a large pool of qualified workforce

› Acknowledge differences between (potential) employees and act according to it

› Limitations and further research

› Incorporating more attributes in the study might give a more complete image

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Let’s move on to the fun part!

Master Thesis Defense