Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Startups can face significant challenges when attracting new talent due to their less established reputation and job seekers’ perceived uncertainty regarding their career prospects. Recruitment webpages are a key tool for startups to project an appealing organizational image to potential candidates, typically by showcasing the company’s culture, values, employee benefits, and commitment to diversity and inclusion. However, there is limited research about the effectiveness of such information in attracting talent to startups. For example, although there exists evidence that diversity cues presented during the recruitment process may attract applicants, most studies focused on surface-level diversity (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation) instead of deep-level diversity (e.g., values, ideas, viewpoints). Moreover, the existing findings in organizational attraction may not fully generalize to startup environments, because individuals drawn to such environments may have distinct motivations and priorities. Drawing on signaling theory, our main research questions are: (1) how do organizational culture attributes (masculine vs. feminine), types of employee benefits (family-friendly vs. financial wellness benefits), and diversity cues (surface-level vs. deep-level diversity) on recruitment webpages affect job seekers’ attraction to and evaluation of startup companies? (2) how do individual differences (e.g., demographics, personality traits) among job seekers moderate such effects? To answer these questions, we propose a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject online experiment in Qualtrics with approximately 350 job seekers recruited through Prolific. Participants will first answer questions about their demographics and personality traits (e.g., Big Five, risk propensity). They will then be instructed to imagine looking for job opportunities on a fictional startup’s “Careers” page. The content of this page will be randomized to reflect different combinations of organizational culture attributes, employee benefits, and diversity cues. They will then complete a survey including validated measures of person-organization fit, organizational attraction, perceived legitimacy of the company, intention to submit a job application, etc. Data collection is expected to conclude by October 2024. Through MANCOVA and multiple regression analyses with cleaned data, we will examine a series of main effects (e.g., greater attraction to startups with a feminine culture) and moderating effects (e.g., surface-level diversity attracting more minority job seekers; family-friendly benefits appealing more to women). Our findings will advance our understanding about talent attraction in startups, which is understudied in entrepreneurship literature. The results of this study will offer practical insights for startups’ efforts of designing recruitment strategies and enlarging applicant pool, which can further help them become an employer of choice.
Date
11-9-2024
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Included in
Exploring the influence of organizational culture, benefits, and diversity statements on talent attraction in startups
Startups can face significant challenges when attracting new talent due to their less established reputation and job seekers’ perceived uncertainty regarding their career prospects. Recruitment webpages are a key tool for startups to project an appealing organizational image to potential candidates, typically by showcasing the company’s culture, values, employee benefits, and commitment to diversity and inclusion. However, there is limited research about the effectiveness of such information in attracting talent to startups. For example, although there exists evidence that diversity cues presented during the recruitment process may attract applicants, most studies focused on surface-level diversity (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation) instead of deep-level diversity (e.g., values, ideas, viewpoints). Moreover, the existing findings in organizational attraction may not fully generalize to startup environments, because individuals drawn to such environments may have distinct motivations and priorities. Drawing on signaling theory, our main research questions are: (1) how do organizational culture attributes (masculine vs. feminine), types of employee benefits (family-friendly vs. financial wellness benefits), and diversity cues (surface-level vs. deep-level diversity) on recruitment webpages affect job seekers’ attraction to and evaluation of startup companies? (2) how do individual differences (e.g., demographics, personality traits) among job seekers moderate such effects? To answer these questions, we propose a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject online experiment in Qualtrics with approximately 350 job seekers recruited through Prolific. Participants will first answer questions about their demographics and personality traits (e.g., Big Five, risk propensity). They will then be instructed to imagine looking for job opportunities on a fictional startup’s “Careers” page. The content of this page will be randomized to reflect different combinations of organizational culture attributes, employee benefits, and diversity cues. They will then complete a survey including validated measures of person-organization fit, organizational attraction, perceived legitimacy of the company, intention to submit a job application, etc. Data collection is expected to conclude by October 2024. Through MANCOVA and multiple regression analyses with cleaned data, we will examine a series of main effects (e.g., greater attraction to startups with a feminine culture) and moderating effects (e.g., surface-level diversity attracting more minority job seekers; family-friendly benefits appealing more to women). Our findings will advance our understanding about talent attraction in startups, which is understudied in entrepreneurship literature. The results of this study will offer practical insights for startups’ efforts of designing recruitment strategies and enlarging applicant pool, which can further help them become an employer of choice.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology