Differentiation is key: should employers offer something unique or the same yet better?

ABSTRACT

Researchers agree that employers should differentiate themselves from their competitors to become the employer of choice. However, from the recruitment literature, it is not clear how employers should differentiate their employment offers. Building upon the structural alignment theory, we investigated in two experimental studies whether offering something unique (i.e., non-alignable attributes; e.g., offer a benefit package when competitors do not) or offering the same yet better (i.e., alignable attributes; e.g., offer a bigger benefit package than competitors) is the most effective differentiation strategy for employment offers and whether this depends on job seekers’ work experience. Offering the same yet better affected job seekers’ preferences more positively than offering something unique in lowly complex judgement and decision-making situations (Study 1) as well as in highly complex judgement and decision-making situations if job seekers had more work experience (Study 2). Hence, our findings suggest that differentiation strategies matter: employers should differentiate by offering the same yet better, particularly when they look for highly experienced job seekers in highly complex judgement and decision-making situations.     

Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Information Technologies. Some Ethical Observations—A Comment on Chalgoumi et al.

This comment on Chalgoumi et al.’s article “Information Privacy for Technology Users with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Why Does It Matter?” focuses on the concept of autonomy in order to expand the scope of the ethical discussion. First we explore the conceptual and practical relations between privacy and autonomy. Following this, we address the issue of underfunding of information technology for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in terms of distributive justice and provide some potential policy solutions.     

What’s in a word? Using construal-level theory to predict voice endorsement

ABSTRACT

Voice endorsement is a pivotal means by which employees can influence leadership processes and the organization at large. Up till now, research on voice endorsement has lacked unified theoretical frameworks that can shed light on antecedents of voice endorsement in a more integrative way as well as help identify new and relevant antecedents in a systematic and theory-based manner. We propose that construal-level theory can serve as one such unifying framework and showcase this potential by applying it to voice endorsement. Drawing on construal-level theory we propose that when an employee frames his/her voice messages in a manner that is compatible with the psychological distance between the employee and the supervisor, the supervisor will find the employee’s voice messages easier to process and, consequently, will be more likely to endorse them. Three experiments using different manipulations of voice message frame and psychological distance, and a mini meta-analysis of the three experiments, provide support for our construal compatibility hypothesis and initial evidence for the experienced ease-of-processing logic. We discuss how our construal-level approach to voice endorsement can shed light on previous findings as well as open up new avenues for future research.     

Electronic mail,a new written‐language register: A study with French‐speaking adolescents

The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which the linguistic forms used by adolescents in electronic mail (e‐mail) differ from those used in standard written language. The study was conducted in French, a language with a deep orthography that has strict, addressee‐dependent rules for using second person personal pronouns (unfamiliar and familiar forms). Data were collected from 80 adolescents ages 12 to 15 in a natural situation where they had to introduce themselves by e‐mail to two addressees (peer/teacher). Participants were divided into two groups (skilled/unskilled in computer‐mediated communication). Their emails contained a large number of orthographic deviations (the most frequent being neographic forms). Participants skilled in computer‐mediated communication (CMC) deviated more than unskilled ones did. The number of orthographic deviations was not linked to the participants' standard writing ability. The personal‐pronoun data clearly showed that adolescents used the familiar form of ‘you’ (tu) to address the peer and the unfamiliar form (vous) to address the teacher. We conclude that, for adolescents, e‐mail constitutes a distinct written‐language register. Nevertheless, the e‐mail register seems to follow the pragmatic rules of standard spoken and written interaction.