Social-identity functions of attraction to organizations

This article examines the self-presentation goals that underlie attraction to organizations. Expanding on Lievens and Highhouse’s (2003) instrumental vs. symbolic classification of corporate attributes, a theory of symbolic attraction is presented that posits social-identity consciousness as a moderator of the relation between symbolic inferences about organizations (e.g., this company is dynamic and innovative) and attraction to those organizations. A measure of social-identity consciousness is developed, and a series of studies confirmed two dimensions, labeled concern for social adjustment and concern for value expression. Preliminary evidence supports the validity of the measure and its role in moderating attraction to symbolic features of well-known firms.     

Social Identity Change During an Intergroup Merger: The Role of Status,Similarity, and Identity Threat

Conducted during the merger between two hospitals, this longitudinal study (N = 149) revealed that at both Time 1 (i.e., questionnaire completed 12 months prior to the merger) and Time 2 (completed 1 year after the merger had been implemented), employees from the low-status premerger organization generally reported lower adjustment to the merger. Whereas Time 2 identity threat predicted lower and decreased identification with the new merged organization and perceptions of a common in group identity, perceived similarities between the merging organizations at Time 2 predicted higher identification with the new merged organization and higher perceptions of a common in group identity.     

The influence of ethnic identity on perceptions of organizational recruitment

This study adapts an information processing perspective and incorporates the construct of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1990) into research on perceptions of one method of organizational recruitment, the use of recruitment brochures. Based on theory in developmental and cross-cultural psychology, we posited ethnic identity moderates the impact of recruitment brochures on recruitment outcomes (i.e., inferences about the organization and job pursuit intentions). Quantitative and qualitative data provided moderate support for this proposition. Regardless of race, individuals with higher levels of ethnic identity made more positive socio-emotional inferences about the nature of work life in an organization (i.e., the organization’s treatment of employees and the relationships among employees) and had greater job pursuit intentions when recruited with a brochure that contained a diversity initiative than when recruited with a brochure without a diversity initiative.     

Investigating the Role of Goal Orientation in Job Seekers’ Experience of Value Congruence

There is still limited understanding of how goal orientations influence the association between value congruence (VC) and organisational attraction for job seekers. We address this issue by investigating the impact of individuals’ goal orientations on the VC–attraction relationship. Our investigation using different measurement approaches to congruence across two studies also allowed us to examine the implications of different methods to operationalising VC in job search contexts. Two prominent types of goal orientation in job search—learning-approach goal orientation (LAGO) and performance-avoid goal orientation (PAGO)—were hypothesised to moderate the relationship between VC and organisational attraction. In study 1, value congruence based on direct molar perceptions displayed a stronger positive relationship with attraction among low LAGO individuals. Study 2, using separate atomistic judgments of person and organisational values, also demonstrated that LAGO moderates the effects of VC on attraction. However, the form of moderation effects varied across different types of work values (i.e., relationships and security). These findings demonstrate the need to contextualise the study of job seekers’ VC within a goal-striving context, where different ways of operationalising VC can also shed more light on the psychological processes underlying judgments of congruence.     

Initial Attraction to Organizations: The influence of trait inferences

Organization personality perceptions have been defined as the set of personality characteristics associated with organizations. Previous research supports five distinct factors of organization personality perceptions: Boy Scout, Innovativeness, Dominance, Thrift, and Style. The purpose of this research was to understand how individuals' initial attraction to firms is influenced by their perceptions of the degree to which firms display these traits. Results of the present investigation indicated that organization personality perceptions accounted for significant variance in initial organizational attraction, after controlling for perceptions of the degree to which the jobs at the organizations offer traditional attributes. In addition, several self‐rated Big Five personality characteristics interacted with dimensions of organization personality perceptions to influence attraction. Implications for the use of organization personality in future recruitment research are discussed.     

Identity Problems,Ego Strengths,Perceived Stress,and Adjustment During Contextual Changes at University

We present a 2-year time-lag study in which Canadian and Spanish students’ perceptions of stress, identity problems, and psychosocial maturity (ego strengths) were examined in relation to academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment to university under different conditions of macro-environmental disruption (i.e., academic and economic) and no disruption (stability). In the academic disturbance context, students reported increased stress and the economic disruption situation was associated with greater identity problems. The expected relationships were found among the variables in the study. Students reported greater social maladjustment at university related to economic disruption in comparison with the academic and no disruption contexts. Ego strengths moderated the relationship between perceived stress with academic and social adjustment, respectively. In other words, delayed psychosocial development in conjunction with high perceived stress was associated with deficient academic and social functioning at university. The findings are considered in terms of psychosocial development and the role of proximal and distal perception of stressors in the functional well-being of university students.     

Applicant Reactions to Selection Events: Four studies into the role of attributional style and fairness perceptions

In four studies, applicants’ (N = 478) organizational attractiveness perceptions and recommendation intentions following selection outcomes were measured. In three field studies, actual applicants’ perceptions were measured in authentic, high‐stakes application contexts, both preprocedure and postoutcome. A fourth, hypothetical, study was added to increase internal validity. Consistent positive relationships between procedural fairness and reactions were found. Further, attributional style moderated the distributive fairness–attractiveness relationship in the field studies, but not in the laboratory study. In general, optimistically attributing applicants reported higher organization attraction than less optimistic individuals when the outcome was perceived as fair, but lower attraction when the outcome was perceived as unfair. For recommendation intentions, results were less consistent. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Web-based recruitment in the Millennial generation: Work–life balance,website usability,and organizational attraction

In this digital era, traditional recruitment efforts have increasingly been supplemented with or replaced by recruiting applicants on the Web. Concurrently, organizations are increasingly adapting to younger individuals from the Millennial generation as they enter the workforce. We combine these salient issues to examine Web-based recruitment of the Millennial generation by assessing predictors of organizational attraction. Using a sample of Millennials (N = 493), we found that perceptions of both work–life balance and website usability incrementally predicted attraction, when controlling for perceptions of other organization characteristics. In addition, person–organization fit mediated these relationships. These findings speak to the importance of examining how aspects of Web-based recruitment influence Millennial applicants.     

Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: the critical role of career opportunities

This study examines antecedents and behavioral outcomes of employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We first propose that employees' past participation in formal developmental activities and experience with developmental relationships positively relate to their perceptions of organizational support for development. We then propose that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the relationship between organizational support for development and employee performance and turnover. Using a sample of 264 exempt-level employees and their supervisors, we found that participation in training classes, leader-member exchange, and career mentoring were each positively related to employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We also found support for the moderator hypotheses. Specifically, development support positively related to job performance, but only when perceived career opportunity within the organization was high. Further, development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. Our study demonstrates that social exchange and career motivation theory work together to explain when and how employees' perceptions of organizational support for development relate to turnover and job performance.     

So what do you think of the organization? A contextual priming explanation for recruitment Web site characteristics as antecedents of job seekers’ organizational image perceptions

Although job seekers’ organizational image perceptions can influence attraction to recruiting organizations, little is known about how these perceptions are formed or modified. To address this research gap, the authors drew from research in social cognition theory and demonstrated that recruitment Web site characteristics influenced the development and modification of organizational image perceptions via a priming mechanism. Results of two studies showed that having technologically advanced Web site features and depicting racially diverse organizational members served as contextual primers and influenced participants’ organizational image perceptions. Results also revealed that participants’ familiarity with recruiting organizations moderated the effects of these Web site characteristics on several dimensions of organizational image such that effects were weaker for more familiar organizations. These findings suggest that organizations can manage job seekers’ organizational image perceptions through strategic recruitment Web site design; however, such attempts may be tempered by job seekers’ familiarity with the organization.     

Testing the basic socio‐structural assumptions of social identity theory in the gender context: Evidence from correlational studies on women's leadership

Given negative social identity, different perceptions of the structure of an intergroup relation (i.e., stability, legitimacy, permeability) should be related to different identity‐management strategies (i.e., social competition, social creativity, or individual mobility) depending on group identification. This is among the basic tenets of social identity theory (SIT). There is surprisingly little empirical support for these postulates in the context of one of the most central group identities: gender. Using a sample of women in leadership positions in Spain (N = 649), we tested relations between structural perceptions and identity‐management strategies in a pilot study. Structural equation modeling yielded empirical support regarding social competition, but little for social creativity or individual mobility. Identity‐management strategies were related to one organizational outcome (i.e., identification with the organization). The preregistered main study is intended to replicate and extend these findings using a different sample while improving several of the measures used.     

Corporate Social Responsibility, Applicants’ Individual Traits, and Organizational Attraction: A Person–Organization Fit Perspective

The purpose of this study is to explore whether different aspects of corporate social responsibility (i.e., economic, legal, and ethical) have independent association with job applicants?? attraction to organizations and how applicants combine the information. Further, from a person?Corganization fit perspective, we examine whether applicants are attracted to organizations whose corporate social responsibility (CSR) reflects their differences in ethical predispositions (i.e., utilitarianism and formalism) and Machiavellianism. Using factorial design, we created scenarios manipulating CSR and pay level. Participants read each scenario and answered questions about their attraction to the organization depicted in the scenario. We found that each aspect of CSR had an independent relationship with organizational attraction and the probability of accepting a job offer. Participants combined information from each type of CSR in an interactive, configural manner. Applicants with different ethical predispositions and Machiavellianism personality were affected by CSR to different extents. Understanding how job applicants evaluate CSR information may give managers an opportunity to influence applicant attraction. Further, our study shows that organizations may be able to maximize the utility of their CSR investments by selectively conveying CSR information in recruitment brochures that are attractive to their ideal applicants. This is the first study to examine how job applicants form their perception based upon different configurations of the multiple aspects of CSR. In addition, this is the first study to examine the moderating effect of individual differences in ethical predispositions and Machiavellianism on the relationship between CSR and applicant attraction.     

Illness perceptions are the main predictors of depression and anxiety symptoms in patients with chronic pain

Depression and anxiety symptoms in chronic pain are associated with adverse clinical outcomes, and appear highly related to patient’s illness perceptions as well as with marital adjustment. This study aimed to investigate the predictive value of pain variables, marital adjustment and illness perceptions on depression and anxiety in patients with chronic pain. Two hundred patients were recruited from a pain unit in a public hospital in the north of Portugal. Patients completed a questionnaire that assessed illness perceptions (IPQ-Brief), marital adjustment (revised dyadic adjustment scale), depression and anxiety symptoms (hospital anxiety depression scale) and pain variables (pain intensity and pain disability index). Depression and anxiety symptoms were associated with pain intensity, pain-related disability, marital adjustment and illness perceptions. Results from hierarchical regression showed that illness perceptions contributed significantly to depression and anxiety symptoms over and above the effects of pain intensity, pain-related disability and marital adjustment, after controlling for gender. In multivariate analyses, pain intensity, pain-related disability and marital adjustment were uniquely related to depression and anxiety symptoms, whereas specific illness perceptions were uniquely related to depression symptoms (identity, treatment control, emotional response and coherence) and to anxiety symptoms (identity, emotional response and concern). Perceptions of greater symptomatology (identity) and of emotional impact, and lesser perceptions of treatment control and understanding of chronic pain (illness comprehensibility) were significantly associated with increased depression symptoms. Perceptions of greater symptomatology (identity), emotional impact and greater concern were associated with anxiety symptoms. These findings indicate that the contribution of illness perceptions was greater than that made by traditional covariates, and may therefore be a useful basis for future psychological interventions.     

Applicant Attraction: The role of recruiter function,work–life balance policies and career salience

This study examined the impact of salient identity, career path and recruiter functional area [internal human resource (HR) personnel vs external recruitment company] on perceptions of organizational attraction with a sample of young, inexperienced job seekers. Two hundred and one participants responded to a questionnaire and rated their attraction to two different job advertisements. The results partially supported the first hypothesis; applicants perceived a job opportunity in an organization that offered either a flexible career path or a dual career path as significantly more attractive than a position in an organization that offered a traditional career path. There was no support for the second hypothesis that identity salience would interact with career path. The results showed that recruiter functional area had no impact on attraction to the organization. It was concluded that flexible HR policies increase applicants' perceptions of organizational attraction during the initial stages of the recruitment process. Practical and research applications are discussed.     

Event justice and social entity justice: A cross-lagged analysis

IntroductionThe life of organizations is punctuated by a wide range of managerial decisions (e.g., hiring and selection procedure, performance appraisal, new working methods). Facing such events, employees evaluate the fairness of the situation experienced (event justice). They can also examine the fairness demonstrated by a specific entity, such as the organization or the supervisor (social entity justice). So far, little is known about how justice judgments about events vs. entities are related to each other, especially in a context of organizational change.ObjectiveBuilding on decision-making and organizational justice literature, we investigate the directionality of the causal relationships between event justice and social entity justice within a context of organizational change in a Belgian company (a significant reorganization at the level of the organization chart resulting in different changes for employees).MethodsWe used two samples (team leaders and executives) and realized a cross-lagged panel analysis with two measurement times.ResultsThe study shows that, in both samples, employees’ fairness perceptions about their organization (social entity justice) influence their interpretation of the fairness of subsequent events involving the organization (event justice).ConclusionBuilding and fostering a climate of justice is therefore of primary importance to organizations, since global fairness perceptions about the organization may help employees to perceive a specific event, such as an organizational change, as being fair.     

Recruiting on Corporate Web Sites: Perceptions of fit and attraction

This study adopted a person–organization (P–O fit) framework to investigate job seeker attraction to organizations in the context of e‐recruitment. Recruitment information posted on real corporate web sites was presented to active job seekers (N=120) in order to better understand reactions to online recruiting. Participants examined one of three corporate web sites and completed questionnaires about their perceptions of web site usability, subjective P–O fit, and organizational attraction. In addition, occupational preference, internet experience, organization size and location were used as control variables. For female participants, perceptions of web site usability and subjective P–O fit were both positively related to attraction, with subjective P–O fit mediating the relationship between web site usability and organizational attraction. These relations were not found for male participants. Implications for future empirical research and recruitment practice were discussed.     

Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice,interactional justice,perceived organizational support,and supervisory trust

Organizational justice researchers recognize the important role organization context plays in justice perceptions, yet few studies systematically examine contextual variables. This article examines how 1 aspect of context--organizational structure--affects the relationship between justice perceptions and 2 types of social exchange relationships, organizational and supervisory. The authors suggest that under different structural conditions, procedural and interactional justice will play differentially important roles in determining the quality of organizational social exchange (as evidenced by perceived organizational support [POS]) and supervisory social exchange (as evidenced by supervisory trust). In particular, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between procedural justice and POS would be stronger in mechanistic organizations and that the relationship between interactional justice and supervisory trust would be stronger in organic organizations. The authors' results support these hypotheses.     

Waving the Flag: National Symbolism,Social Identity,and Political Engagement*

This research examined the psychological underpinnings of concern for national symbols and ritualistic‐ceremonial activities or “symbolic involvement.” We propose and test a distinction between symbolic and “instrumental” involvement or concern for the functionality of national institutions and their capability to provide instrumental benefits to citizens. Items comprising the two constructs were found to be empirically distinct, evidenced by statistically reliable and orthogonal dimensions in exploratory factor analysis. Moreover, evidence based on divergent patterns of relations with various forms of national membership indicates that symbolic and instrumental involvement are rooted in distinct motivational concerns related to identity expression and object appraisal, respectively. These findings suggest that national symbolism evokes a psychological attachment to the nation as an abstracted social entity, but not as a concrete functional system.     

INTERSECTIONAL POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: APPRECIATION FOR INTRAGROUP DIFFERENCES AND SOLIDARITY IN DIVERSE GROUPS

This article introduces an intersectional approach to political consciousness and presents data to demonstrate its importance for predicting solidarity in diverse social change organizations. Women activists ( N = 174) completed measures of political consciousness, diversity, and solidarity. As expected, women differed in the degree to which their political consciousness reflected intersectionality (sensitivity to intragroup differences arising from intersections of social identities, such as ethnicity with gender) and singularity (focus on intragroup similarities arising from a shared social identity, such as gender). Although high group diversity related to lower solidarity, the content of political consciousness moderated the negative association of diversity to solidarity. High diversity had a negative association with solidarity only when political consciousness reflected a high degree of singularity and a low degree of intersectionality. These findings challenge the common assumption that diversity undermines a group's ability to work together and suggest that, when appreciation of difference is an important aspect of an individual's identity, solidarity with a social change organization may be greater when group diversity is high rather than low.     

Person–organization fit effects on organizational attraction: A test of an expectations-based model

This study investigates the mechanisms that explain why person–organization (PO) fit impacts organizational attraction. Adopting Edwards and Cable’s (2009) approach, an integrative model is developed around the idea that experiencing value congruence during the recruitment process perpetuates certain expectations about future work environments and employer relationships. These expectations in turn have a positive impact on organizational attraction. Evidence from a longitudinal study on a sample of job seekers suggests that expected opportunities for value expression and need fulfillment offered the most viable explanations of value congruence effects. The implications of important observed differences in the experience of PO fit between job seekers and full-time employees are discussed.