Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Recruitment materials, such as job advertisements, provide prospective employees with cues regarding an organization’s values, climate, and person-organization fit. Jobs ads including statements communicating an organization’s commitment to equal employment opportunities and workforce diversity can shape applicants' perceptions of organizations, and subsequently their intention to pursue employment with that organization (Brown et al., 2006; Heath et al., 2023). The job of the signaler in organizations is to properly convey organization values to reduce uncertainty and project the culture of the organization (Spence, 1973). Thus, job ads may serve as both a mechanism for communicating job vacancies but also as an organizational signal to prospective employees. This signaling may be particularly consequential as organizations navigate increasing political polarization and changing legislation. This increase in polarization creates an asymmetry between applicants perceived organizational beliefs and values and actual organizational behavior. In the current study, we examine whether diversity-related recruitment signals differ across organizational and political contexts in U.S. higher education. As part of a larger systematic content analysis of university websites, trained raters coded employment materials from a national sample of 150 universities. The present analysis focuses on two recruitment indicators: (1) whether employment postings included a nondiscrimination statement and (2) whether institutions communicated a commitment to recruiting or hiring a diverse workforce. Institutions will be categorized by organizational type (public, private secular, or private religious) and state government partisan control. We will present descriptive analyses and binary logistic regressions examining whether organizational type and state government partisan control predict the likelihood that institutions communicate each recruitment signal in their job ads. We will also examine whether the association between state political context and recruitment signaling varies by organizational type. Results will be presented within the context of recent federal executive actions and policy changes affecting organizational diversity and equal-employment language. Findings will contribute to research on recruitment and organizational signaling by identifying institutional and political contexts associated with higher education employers' public communication of diversity-related values. Implications for I-O psychology and human resource practice will focus on how organizational and political environments may shape recruitment messaging, employer branding, and the information available to prospective applicants when evaluating organizational fit.
Date
November 2026
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Included in
Organizational and political contexts of diversity signaling in higher education recruitment
Recruitment materials, such as job advertisements, provide prospective employees with cues regarding an organization’s values, climate, and person-organization fit. Jobs ads including statements communicating an organization’s commitment to equal employment opportunities and workforce diversity can shape applicants' perceptions of organizations, and subsequently their intention to pursue employment with that organization (Brown et al., 2006; Heath et al., 2023). The job of the signaler in organizations is to properly convey organization values to reduce uncertainty and project the culture of the organization (Spence, 1973). Thus, job ads may serve as both a mechanism for communicating job vacancies but also as an organizational signal to prospective employees. This signaling may be particularly consequential as organizations navigate increasing political polarization and changing legislation. This increase in polarization creates an asymmetry between applicants perceived organizational beliefs and values and actual organizational behavior. In the current study, we examine whether diversity-related recruitment signals differ across organizational and political contexts in U.S. higher education. As part of a larger systematic content analysis of university websites, trained raters coded employment materials from a national sample of 150 universities. The present analysis focuses on two recruitment indicators: (1) whether employment postings included a nondiscrimination statement and (2) whether institutions communicated a commitment to recruiting or hiring a diverse workforce. Institutions will be categorized by organizational type (public, private secular, or private religious) and state government partisan control. We will present descriptive analyses and binary logistic regressions examining whether organizational type and state government partisan control predict the likelihood that institutions communicate each recruitment signal in their job ads. We will also examine whether the association between state political context and recruitment signaling varies by organizational type. Results will be presented within the context of recent federal executive actions and policy changes affecting organizational diversity and equal-employment language. Findings will contribute to research on recruitment and organizational signaling by identifying institutional and political contexts associated with higher education employers' public communication of diversity-related values. Implications for I-O psychology and human resource practice will focus on how organizational and political environments may shape recruitment messaging, employer branding, and the information available to prospective applicants when evaluating organizational fit.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology