The study of this research investigated the effect of social media on the intention of job pursuit. The participants of this survey (N=317) were voluntarily recruited from the college students, graduates and job seekers in Taiwan, and the electronic questionnaires were distributed via the Internet in the present study. The elements of the mediation in this research design combined corporate reputation (CR) with two factors of employer knowledge, employer familiarity (EF) and employer reputation (ER), to estimate the indirect effect between social media and intention of job pursuit. The evidences confirmed that positive message in social media positively influence (a) corporate reputation, (b) employer familiarity and (c) employer reputation; in turn, which will relate to increase the intention of job pursuit; moreover; (d) the relation between social media and intention of job pursuit was affirmed in the research of this study, and both of the proposition in this study were validated by using the method of simple regression and path analysis.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Content
Acknowledgements
Abstract
Content
List of tables
List of illustrations
1. Introduction
1.1. Research Background and Motive
1.2. Research gap
1.3. Research Objectives and Research Question
1.4. Research Process
2. Literature Review
2.1 Social Media
2.2 Social Media and Human capital
2.3 Employer branding
2.4 Employer Branding and Recruitment
2.5 Social Media, Employer Branding and Recruitment
2.6 Measurements and theoretical framework
2.7 Research Model
3. Methodology
3.1. Participants
3.2. Study design
3.3. Constructs Measurement
3.4. Research procedure
3.4.1. Obtaining positive message in social media
3.4.2. Factor Analysis
4. Results obtained and Analysis
4.1. Demographical analysis
4.2. Comparing means-ANOVA Analysis
4.3. Path Analysis
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
6. Limitations
7. Bibliographical References
8. Appendices
List of tables
Table 2.1.1 Kapla and Haenlein (2010) Classification of social media
Table.3.3.1 The acronyms of construct measurements and questions
Table.3.4.2.1 Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) - factor loading
Table.4.1.1 Demographical analysis
Table.4.2.1 Result of ANOVA Analysis
Table.4.3.1 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by corporate reputation (CR) - Path analysis
Table.4.3.2 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by employer familiarity (EF) - Path analysis
Table.4.3.3 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by employer reputation (ER) - Path analysis
Table.4.3.4 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) -Simple Regression analysis
List of illustrations
Fig.2.7.1 the research model of this study
Fig.3.4.1.1 Word frequency shares of “suggestions” in two representative ways in Chinese in Google books corpus
Fig.4.3.1 the correlation with simple regression analysis
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr. Steffen Roth for his constantly encouragement and suggestions; and the author would like to show the appreciation for the author’s family of their supports and with deeply thankfulness. In addition, the author especially wants to thank to Wei-hang and Mi-mi who embolden the author and provide supports and strengths to let her have the power to conquer the difficulties. Finally, the author would like to thank those people who participated in this survey to offer their precious opinions and time and become the evidence of this study.
Abstract
The study of this research investigated the effect of social media on the intention of job pursuit. The participants of this survey (N=317) were voluntarily recruited from the college students, graduates and job seekers in Taiwan, and the electronic questionnaires were distributed via the Internet in the present study. The elements of the mediation in this research design combined corporate reputation (CR) with two factors of employer knowledge, employer familiarity (EF) and employer reputation (ER), to estimate the indirect effect between social media and intention of job pursuit. The evidences confirmed that positive message in social media positively influence (a) corporate reputation, (b) employer familiarity and (c) employer reputation; in turn, which will relate to increase the intention of job pursuit; moreover; (d) the relation between social media and intention of job pursuit was affirmed in the research of this study, and both of the proposition in this study were validated by using the method of simple regression and path analysis.
1. Introduction
1.1. Research Background and Motive
In increasingly competitive employment markets, all of the organizations contend for gaining economic profit and survive by means of persistent competitive advantage. Human capital is vital for them to sustain their superiority. For the purpose of being a resource for the dominance in the competitive market, “the selection of human capital needs to have a high level of competence and willingness to show productive behavior” (Wright et al. 1994; Sivertzen et al. 2013). Recruitment constituted by series of practices and activities within the organization whose primary objective is to appraise and catch the potential employees’ attention to further enhancing their intention and becoming one of the members in the organizations. Therefore, “developing strategies to become an employer of choice and to increase the number of applicants per advertised vacancy can facilitate the recruitment of suitable employees and provides a strategic advantage to the firm” (Wilden Gudergan and Lings 2010). It is greatly significant for companies to attract job seekers’ intention for persuading them to make the decision for their job pursuit because the companies have no choice to select and recruit the candidates if the job seekers do not take the initial step.
To attract the attention from job seekers, the first interaction with the company is a key antecedent to generating applicants. Allen, Mahto and Otondo, (2013) indicate that the only interaction that potential applicants have with the organization is with recruitment communication from sources such as Web sites in the earliest stages of recruitment; thus, social media becomes more active in the labor market as a considered factor for job seekers.
Nowadays, social media has already embedded in our daily life; those technologies were highly published and create a virtual world as a second life, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blogs and social networking sites. “With social networking Web sites becoming more prevalent, especially among individuals in the workforce, use of them is becoming more common in employment hiring and retention decisions” (Elzweig and Peeples 2009). Moreover, bulk information in social media becomes much more powerful to change the viewpoint of people towards to the organizations. Previous researchers find that the use of social media positively related to corporate reputation, more than that, the organizations could utilize social media to enhance the intention for applying the job and attract the potential employees and passive job seekers as well (Allen, Mahto and Otondo, 2013).
The relationship between reputation and the intention of job pursuit refers to employer branding which is an indispensable element as a recruiting tool. There are several studies in the employer branding, which is an emerging field combined with marketing and human resource. And there are varieties of types to label employer branding, for example: image, reputation, attractiveness, and brand equity (e.g. Collins and Stevens, 2002; Berthon et al., 2005; Allen, Mahto and Otondo, 2013). When the organization highlights its high-equity brand in the firm via social media, it can facilitate the performance of recruitment to attract the potential talents to applying the job, and allow the organization to attract and retain the best human capital. A study from DelVecchio et al. (2007) find that “the opportunity to build a powerful résumé leads job seekers to view job opportunities with strong brands more favorably than those with weaker brands and the researchers also indicate that the recruiter should use their brand as a recruiting tool”. Therefore, the above-mentioned studies and my observation towards present status are the motives that arouse me to develop this study.
1.2. Research gap
Many researchers have studied brand equity and corporate reputation (e.g. Backhaus 2004; Kim, York and Lim 2011; Collins and Stevens, 2002; Wilden, Gudergan and Lings, 2010). Some studies also have been predicted the brand equity or corporate reputation toward to intention of job pursuit (e.g. DelVecchio et al. 2007). In addition to this, some of the researches have been conducted other elements, such as salary (e.g. Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012), product awareness (e.g. Collins 2007), diversity climate perceptions (e.g. Avery et al. 2013), to the intention of job pursuit.
With recent growing importance of social media, some researchers have been studied social media (e.g. Bohnert and Ross 2010; Leidner, Koch and Gonzalez, 2010; Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels 2009) to corporate reputation (e.g. Allen, Mahto and Otondo 2007) for the intention of job pursuit (e.g. Baum and Kabst 2014; Franca and Pahor 2012; Allen, Mahto and Otondo, 2007). However, none of the study on the relationship between social media and job-pursuit intention via employer branding utilize real incident to validate the theory; nevertheless, there is no study link social media with employer familiarity toward the intention of job pursuit. As a result, there is no previous researchers have studied before.
1.3. Research Objectives and Research Question
The objective of this study is to investigate social media to the intention of job pursuit through employer branding and identify the relevance of social media and the intention of job pursuit in the reality through existed corporate. I will analyze the relevance of their first impression of the messages in social media and the intention of job pursuit via regarding corporate reputation, employer branding and familiarity. This study extends the research on social media to explore the moderating effect of corporate reputation, employer familiarity and employer reputation on the intention of job-pursuit to actual corporate Moreover, most of the previous studies regarding social media, employer branding and recruitment focus on the recruiting websites and the ethical issues in the recruitment process. There is no previous study focus on the relationship between social media and intention of job pursuit through the perspective of employer branding.
Therefore, based on the previous studies and researches, I come up with several questions in my mind: if the job seekers perceive this kind of information from the Netizen, for example, if they receive this message through the social networking websites, what will they think of this kind of messages in social media? Will the messages in social media change their perception of corporate’s reputation and their employer branding so as to impact on their intention of job pursuit? There is no previous research have studied before, and in the research of this study; thus, I will focus on the relevance between them and also develop the research question based on the previous literatures and studies mentioned, here is the research questions of this research:
How social media influence intention of job-pursuit opportunity through messages regarding corporate reputation, employer branding and familiarity focusing on new generation?
1.4. Research Process
The first discussion of this study will address the conceptual background on social media regarding human capital and recruitment to explore and determine the questions and framework of this study. Second, reviewing and drawing on theory and findings related to reputation, branding and the intention of job pursuit as a foundation and basis is to establish the proposition, framework of the research model and the research design in this study. Afterwards, I will have a data collection with credibility by means of sampling and testing the questionnaire to confirm the questions. Finally, I will analyze and verify the data to conclude the result from the design of this study then check the authenticity of my research questions and proposal in this study to make conclusion and recommendations.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Social Media
”Social media on the basis of the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 is a ‘people-focused’ web, embracing core elements of the philosophy and practice of modern HR and people management - conversations, interpersonal networking, personalization, authentic voice and individualism” (Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey 2009) and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (Kapla and Haenlein 2010). Kapla and Haenlein (2010) indicate that “Social Media represent a revolutionary new trend that should be of interest to companies operating in online space-—or any space, for that matter”. Social media is a virtual world, such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, virtual social worlds and multimedia online gaming, which allows internet users increase their participation and collaboration between others, and social media also provides high degree of openness for the Netizen and organizations to have the access for their content and applications. ”Good examples include the emergence of open-source course material, online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia and web browsers such as Firefox and Google’s ‘Chrome’” (Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey 2009).
There are several advantages to enhance organization’s performance via social media, for example: Gordon Brown is the first British Prime Minister to utilize social media as a tool for sharing his ideas to make the action of his opinions. According to the speech made by Gordon Brown to the Government Leaders’ Forum Europe in January 2007, Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, claimed that more the 100 million people were using popular online communities such as MySpace and YouTube, with new blogs being developed every second, so creating a new interdependent and connected world ‘that we talk now, not just as Adam Smith did, of a wealth of nations but a wealth of networks’ (Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey 2009), and he uses YouTube to broadcast his ideas in 2008. Even the prime minister is getting actions through social media to create the value, not to mention HR professionals.
However, many believe that the social networking sites began with Facebook and MySpace (Peslak, Ceccucci, and Sendall 2010) due to its rapid expansion. Nowadays, the social networking sites have already used by millions of population widely. According to Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels (2009), there are approximately 50 social networking Web sites each have more than one million registered users, and several dozen smaller, though significant, sites also exist (e.g. Wikipedia 2008). In 2009, there were more than 175 million had already registered the on line social networking sites, Facebook (Kapla and Haenlein, 2010), and it have already reached 1.1 billion accounts registered on Facebook in 2014. In addition, Kapla and Haenlein (2010) also indicate that “the term, Facebook addict, was included in the Urban Dictionary, a collaborative project focused on developing a slang dictionary for the English language”. The core of a social networking site consists of personalized user profiles (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels 2009). “In 2014, social media sites and blogs reach 8 out of 10 of all the United States Internet users, and account for 23 percent of all time spent online” (Sheth 2014); thus, the rapidly growing population of net users in social media plays an important role in recent status.
“Social networking sites could connect people with others who share similar interests” (Peslak, Ceccucci, and Sendall, 2010) and provide the users to build their own network with their friends or business interaction. “Social networking Web sites (SNW) such as MySpace and Facebook are designed for people to locate friends and to interact with others online to discuss hobbies and similar social interests; many people create Web pages on these popular Web sites” (Raacke and Bonds Raacke 2008; Bohnert and Ross 2010). Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels (2009) indicate that typical social networking sites allow a user to build and maintain a network of friends for social or professional interaction, for example, blogs. On the other hand, most of the social networking sites offer the referral process to recommend the users sending the invitations for those people have not registered before by convenient interface. The interface of the referral usually links to members’ frequent account, such as e-mail and Facebook, so that allows the members refer the social networking sites to their friends easily.
However, the research of this study accords to the classification from Kapla and Haenlein (2010) who indicate that social media is divided into six types: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds and virtual social worlds; which classification of this scheme is combined with the dimension between the degree of self-presentation/self-disclosure and social presence/ media richness, the chart below illustrates their scheme to classify social media (Kapla and Haenlein 2010) please find the following table for more detail clarification of Kapla and Haenlein ‘s classification :
Table 2.1.1 Kapla and Haenlein (2010) Classification of social media Social presence/Media richness
illustration not visible in this excerpt
2.2 Social Media and Human capital
The users of social media also possess the power to control for their contents, activities, and even their identities on the websites, which means that the net users could choose to be anonymous with high freedom to create a new identity for them. One of the features for social media is its decentralization and democratization: Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey (2009) indicate that ”social media is a decentralized ‘architecture’, relying on distributed content, applications and computers rather than a centralized system controlled by managers or IT departments, and decentralization is necessary for wider participation, openness and positive network effects”. However, many HR professionals worry about the characteristics of social media, which have the possibility to damage the corporate’s prestige through negative effect from the misbehavior of their organizational members, bad comments and negative comments regarding the organizations; which will lead to the difficulties for the organizations to attract and recruit the potential employees and talents from the perspective of early recruitment due to the disability of controlling corporate messages in social media.
On the contrary, the organization can utilize the features of social media to create a positive effect for the performance of recruitment. Not only that Social media possesses the power of electronically word of mouth to spread the messages positively in order to influence the employees and potential employees of their enthusiasm; but also Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey (2009) indicate that “social media participates in and encourage online communities that discuss your employer brand”. Social media combined with human resource and people management could be one of the added values for the organization. In addition, Sheth (2014) also found that “recruitment effort must take into consideration the shift to mobile and social media”. There are more and more people obtaining smartphone, and the device of applications on smartphone becomes more and more popular all over the world. Several studies from the previous researches find that “it is more effective listening to understand employees and other internal stakeholders through richer social media research; promoting the use of employee blogs and online discussion forums to raise issues that are important to employees, so surfacing authentic employee voice rather than responses to attitude survey” (Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey 2009); and the corporates could keep up the employees and partner organizations with important areas within the organization by means of creating corporate blogs and social networking websites. This way of communication within the corporates could increase the extent of richness of messages and the use of social media, and help the organizational members to learn key knowledge and efficiently update the relevant information to them so as to improve their performances.
From the perspective from HR professionals, there are more and more employers utilize social networking sites to screen the candidates. Bohnert and Ross (2010) also found that “a job applicant with either a family-oriented or a professional-oriented on social networking websites will receive more favorable ratings than an applicant with an alcohol-oriented on social networking websites”.
2.3 Employer branding
“The concept of the employer brand, adapted from marketing theory, has increasingly become the focus of organizations towards developing their image as an employer of choice”, thereby enabling the recruitment and retention of the best possible workforce (Arachchige and Robertson 2011). Employer brand is based on the development of employer attractiveness, the perceived benefits identified by potential employees within the organization. Berthon, Ewing, and Hah (2005) identify “employer attractiveness as the set of envisioned benefits that a potential employee sees in working for a specific organization”; thus, the merit and superiority of the employer brand is closely concerned with employer attractiveness. Collins and Kay Stevens (2002) define “employer brand image as potential applicants' attitudes and perceived attributes about the job or organization”. “In addition, a more (vs. less) creative ad leads to more positive perceptions of brand ability and future development possibilities, which influences the overall attractiveness of the brand as a potential employer” (DelVecchio et al. 2007). Previous studies also have already shown the importance between employer branding and recruitment process. Knox and Freeman (2006) examined the correlation between employer brand and recruitment, and found that “the overall attractiveness of the employer brand image will positively correlate with application intention among graduate recruits, but the attributes between the recruits and the recruiters are different”. Kim et al. (2012) also indicate that “positive hospital's image generates a higher level of employment brand equity, including intangible and tangible, will have a positive influence on MDs' intentions to pursue job opportunity, and which helps to achieve high levels of employment brand equity and attract future doctors to apply for jobs”. In the marketing field, Rosengren and Bondesson (2014) found that the “advertising’s attribution to firm is not limited to effects on consumers and investors, but also encompasses the labor market; and the they also found that the advertising influences perceptions of brand equity, which will in turn influences perceptions and the general attractiveness of the brand as an employer”.
According to Wilden, Gudergan and Lings (2010) and Thorne (2004),”Knowledge of employer branding in the context of recruitment is the package of psychological, economic, and functional benefits that potential employees associate with employment with a particular company”. Several researchers also declare that “the most vital assets of the organizations are brands and human capitals, and that the development of these intangible assets is an important task for marketers and human-resource managers” (Sutherland, Torricelli, and Karg 2002; Wilden, Gudergan and Lings 2010). And the companies must dedicate effort to their employer-branding strategies to ensure that these brand signals convey the desired message to the employee market (Wilden, Gudergan and Lings 2010). Therefore, it is more and more prevalent for both HR professionals and marketers to notice the actions of their recruiting activities on branding with each other so as to align with their efforts and the corporate needs to create a distinctive and powerful employer brand for designing the jobs in order to generate a positive results for the requirement of employee and the firm. Thus, the optimal way to improve and redefine the recruitment method is to utilize employer brand, which is an irreplaceable way to attract the right potential employees and separates their prominent identity from other employers in the job market.
2.4 Employer Branding and Recruitment
However, if the potential employees perceive incorrect information about the employers, which will cause a risk to the organization and the potential employees will reduce the notice even remove the consideration of the employers and replaced by the other employers because they will regard this employer as a high risk so as to reject joining the organization. Wilden, Gudergan and Lings (2010) quoted Collins and Stevens (2002) that “sending appropriate signals, via employer branding, is one means that prospective employers can reduce potential employees’ information costs associated with this search, and the exposure to early recruitment activities was positively related to job seekers’ attitudes and perceived attributes”. Hence, from the perspective of job seekers, the job seekers tend to search more information to conquer the difficulties of asymmetric information. It is not easy for job seekers to enter the initial stage of job market; the reason is that it is a hardship for them to assess and get the complete information, for example, the quality of employers and the intact information of the companies, the whole information of the industry and the job market and so on. Consequently, it is obvious for the potential employees, as the target group for the employers, to distinguish the perspective employer, which contains a set of particular images in the contextual relation of employer marketing. Knox and Freeman (2006) also collated the key attributes of employer brand image in graduate recruitment (see appendix 5), and Roth (2014b) also indicates the importance of distinction and social differentiation. In the initial recruitment process, it will be attractive for the applicants if there is high level of similarity of the culture, value or personality with an organization; these symbolic features will arouse the attention from potential employees and the possibility of pursuing the job will increase. The reason is that the job seekers will select the company based on limited information, and the incomplete information will be the sources for them to identify the impression of recruiting company and influence their decision in the early stage of recruitment process. Not only that Rynes and Cable (2003) demonstrate that “the initial attraction to an organization occurs when they perceive congruence between their own values or personality and what the organization presents as its culture for the job applicants”. But also Wilden, Gudergan and Lings, (2010) indicate that “information asymmetry and signaling theory have potential applications in employment markets, as would-be employees rarely have perfect information about a prospective employer”.
In additions, previous studies also show several set of images that will attract potential employees and talents; for example: Holliday Wayne and Casper, (2012) indicate that “understanding the inferences made from these organizational cues suggests that “employee-centered HR practices and, likely, other signals of organizational support, such as supportive relationships with coworkers and supervisors, are instrumental for effective college-student recruitment””. And some of the job seekers have a high inclination to pursuit a company with strong reputation in pay and benefits, this image will make an associative connection with supportive culture and have a well treatment to employees; in addition, some of the job seekers would be prone to apply the company with intense reputation for work-family efforts which will make the applicants believe that this company with work-family efforts of high reputation possesses a supportive culture to their members in the organization. In the previous studies of attraction, the researchers also assert that messages conveying supportive work environment, challenging and interesting work, and location will be most predictive of attraction for the job seekers (Turban et al. 1998), and Individuals may be attracted to organizations that they perceive as large, well known, and prestigious because they feel that as members of such organizations, they, too, gain credibility and prestige (Backhaus 2004).
On the other hand, the corporate could utilize employer branding to enhance the familiarity with the job seekers and catch their attention in the early stage of recruitment. Cable and Turban (2001) developed employer knowledge including three dimensions, employer familiarity, employer reputation and job information, and the identification of employer knowledge is on the basis of consumer-based brand equity theory. In the early stage of recruitment process, distinct recruitment practices, recruiting activities and the information obtained by job seekers will impact the varietal employer knowledge’s dimension so as to influence the result of application and recruitment performance within the organization. The employer’s knowledge from job seekers critically impact on the decision and choice to the recruitment company. Employer knowledge is the perception from job seekers with regard to the recruiting corporate as an employer, and it is on the basis of the potential employees’ information and sources about the recruiting company. However, excepting the information from the recruiting company; the only way that job seekers could reduce the degree of lacking intact information is to develop the employer’s knowledge through unofficial channels to get the sources and information. On the other hand, to avoid incorrect information through these channels, it is critical for the recruiters to reveal and expose their employer brand image and information to persist the correct image they want to demonstrate and emphasis the particularity of their brand image for the job seekers via non-recruitment pipelines. Nevertheless, the aim of this action is to strengthen the familiarity between the applicants and the company so as to attract the potential employees and find the right talents. Previous researchers also find that cooperate could utilize several ways to enhance and reinforce the employer familiarity from the job seekers. For example, “product awareness—job seekers’ familiarity with the company’s products or services—may increase job seekers’ familiarity with the organization as an employer and create favorable perceptions of the company’s reputation as an employer” (Barber 1998; Cable and Turban 2001;
Collins and Han 2004; Collins 2007), and Collin (2007) found that “companies are unlikely to benefit from high-information recruitment practices unless they have done something to create this initial employer familiarity”; on the contrary, “low-information recruitment practices and product awareness act as substitutes to create initial employer familiarity and positive employer reputation beliefs”.
What is more is that “reputation is an organization’s set of socially constructed characteristics” (Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafse 2013), and employers pursue the company’s name as a brand, which is defined as employer branding, so that they can attract talents in the markets, reinforce its employer attractiveness and enhance corporate’s reputation in order to facilitate the recruitment process for the organization. Corporate reputation plays an important role to motivate job seekers to send their CV for apply the job vacancy in action. Moreover, “prestige is the prominent factor to select their entry-level job and influence their intention of job pursuit when they have the initial interaction with the companies or the information regarding the job vacancy” (DelVecchio et al. 2007; Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012). The job seekers will assess indirectly and directly the recruiting company through people’s opinion and perceptions to the company. Those opinions and recommendations from public create the corporate’s reputation, which impacts on the perception of job seekers. Besides, the positive corporate’s reputation strengthens the job-pursuit intention of job seekers via informal communication.
At the same time, the job seekers could also assess the suitability between the recruiting company and themselves. It is important to note that, “in the early stages of job search, college students are heavily influenced by the opinions of friends and classmates” (Kilduff 1990; Collins 2007).The job seekers will discuss with their good friends, family relatives and even the Netizen as an important recommendation to exchange their ideas and generate their assessment to their intention of job pursuit. The job seekers are often unable to possess the knowledge of the corporate with a complete viewpoint; thus, the corporate reputation will be the important assessment and guide to lead their decision for applying the job. Chenerson Group (2001) also showed that “more than three quarters of the respondents said that they would rather work for a company with an excellent reputation than for a company with poor reputation - even if they were offered a higher salary” (Franca and Pahor, 2012), and Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) also indicate that “high corporate reputation has a positive relation with the potential employee’s intention to apply for the job. Those potential employees will evaluate the positive result about the recruiting company and draws the conclusions about the corporate’s action to their decision”.
There are several elements of their evaluation and previous researchers manifest the features that could attract the potential employees. For example, it is vital for the HR professionals to consider the establishment of powerful employer brand in terms of compensation during they make the decision of human resource strategy, especially for the undergraduates. Most of the job seekers regard corporate reputation as a source to assess the working conditions within variety of organizations when they consider several job opportunities from different recruiting companies. Holliday Wayne and Casper, (2012) also found that “college students were more likely to pursue employment with a firm that had a strong reputation for work-family practices because they believed that those practices would help them be better employees—not because work-family programs would give them more opportunity to be a better family member”. And it is important to note that “economic and ethical citizenships are the most relevant ones to explain corporate reputation, while legal citizenship may be a critical one in terms of job advancement prospects” (Wang 2013). Moreover, there is a strong impact between the employer reputation and undergraduate students for the number of job-pursuit applications. However, “this cannot assume that there is a positive relation between the quality of candidates that applied and the employer reputation” (Franca and Pahor 2012).
2.5 Social Media, Employer Branding and Recruitment
The authenticity of employer brand and the corporate’s value is one of the focal elements to the job seekers in the early stage when they first entering the job market. In the aforementioned studies has shown that “the importance of brand and reputation has recently become salient in the labor market including the recruitment process” (Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen 2013). Sheth (2014) indicates that 75% of the recruiting managers convey that the reputation impacts on the recruitment process; in addition, not only 83% of the job seekers are wary of working for a company with negative reputation, but also 55% of the applicants declare that they would reconsider their job application if the company had negative press. Therefore, with this high percentage of reputation awareness, previous researchers also conclude set of images that will attract the job seeker’s attention to pursuit the job in the recruiting company. Further, “these elements of brand image were significantly related to application intentions and actual decisions” (Collins and Stevens 2002). The reputation is one of the key factors that the college students make the decision to pursuit the job, the reason is that they expect to work in a company with high level of reputation which will motivate their intention to work and enhance their job performance. For example; Holliday Wayne and Casper (2012) find that “college students desire to work for organizations where they will be valued, cared for, and supported, and having a stronger reputation in compensation, work-family, and diversity all increased this perception”.
On the other hand, if the job seekers feel high degree of familiarity with the corporate via the messages in social media and they also find the identical patterns from the messages; the level of entering initial recruiting process will increase due to the raising attraction. “The notion of similarity drives much of what we know about initial attraction to employers and job choice” (Backhaus 2004). And Backhaus (2004) also indicates that “the job seekers would look for descriptions of attributes that match their own, and the initial connection could strengthen the corporate identification so as to enhance the familiarity and similarity so that the job seekers will be attracted to pursuit the job opportunities”. In other words, the job seekers and the potential employees will assess a variety of public information regarding recruiting company and make the decisions on the basis of the fitness and congruence of values, culture, and personality between the recruiting company and their own. Moreover, the feature of social media, such as, social networking sites, blogs and wikis, originated from part of the belief that the possession of sharing similar, familiar or even identical ideas and perspectives can generate a strong impact and power to influence the attractiveness from the job seekers. The job seekers feel high level of familiarity with the employers in the corporate via the social media will urge their intention of job pursuit. Baum and Kabst (2014) indicate that “recruitment websites give potential applicants the opportunity to obtain a lot of information” and “websites are a richer information source than printed recruitment advertisements, and these recruitment messages and materials that provide more information about the job and organization characteristics should positively influence applicant attraction to the organization” (Allen, Mahto and Otondo 2013). Thus, the uncertainty from job seekers will decrease and the attitude toward the recruiting company will positively increase and the idea of pursuing the specific job vacancy in the particular organization will increase as well.
However, due to the asymmetric information as this study mentioned based on the previous study, the job seekers will access from different channels to make sure the authenticity of the information from the organizations and recruiting company. In the beginning stage of recruitment process for the job seekers, it is usual to induce their anxiety due to fragmented information; thus, “the applicants are attempting to reduce the uncertainty associated with making important decisions with only incomplete information available” (Allen, Mahto and Otondo 2013). Recent technology advances have already changed the way people communicate and the channel people assess to get the information. The advent of Internet has already developed into one of the most widespread paths for the job seekers to collect and acquire the sources. Therefore, more and more job seekers through the internet in order to know more information about the recruiting company; more and more job seekers start to focus on the information related to recruitment in social media. Joldrichsen (2009) also suggests “the job seekers to utilize the blogs that reference using social Networking sites in the hiring process, as an example of the connective power of horizontal communication in relaying vital information” (Patrick 2009; Seale 2009). In addition, “use of social media is increasingly used in employer branding campaigns and in the recruiting process” (Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen 2013). Moreover, Sheth (2014) quoted a TweetMyJobs survey that “more than 2,000 job seekers and 400 company representatives found that 29 percent of job seekers use social media as their primary tool for job searching, and 45 percent of companies plan to invest more in social recruiting”, and “web sites provide these seekers the ability to engage in extremely cost-effective searches to garner extensive information about numerous organizations” (Allen, Mahto and Otondo 2013). Thus, it is prominent for the recruiters to focus on the impacts on social media to employer branding so as to reach more effectively recruitment performance, and it is more and more popular for the job seekers to obtain the sources in social media. Therefore, the research of this study will link social media and employer branding to investigate their relevance; and the proposition in the study of this research is:
P: The messages in social media will affect (1) corporate reputation, (2) employer familiarity and (3) employer reputation, in turns; it will influence (4) the intention of job pursuit.
2.6 Measurements and theoretical framework
The study of this research adopts two of the dimensions of employer knowledge from Cable and Turban (2001) and combines with one mediator from Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) Model. Two dimensions of the employer knowledge are employer reputation and employer familiarity. As the aforementioned studies mentioned that prestige is the prominent factor to select their entry-level job and influence their intention of job pursuit when they have the initial interaction with the companies or the information regarding the job vacancy (DelVecchio et al. 2007; Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012). In addition, Collins (2007) also suggests that “the future studies are needed to examine the moderating effects of other organizational factors”. Therefore, the research of this study adds the corporate reputation as one of the mediators in this study. The mediator, corporate reputation, is adopted from Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) Model. Thus, the mediators in the research of this study are corporate reputation (CR), employer familiarity (EF), employer reputation (ER); and the independent variable is social media (SM), intention of job pursuit (I) is the dependent variable. The table below illustrates the definitions of the measurement items in the study of this research:
Measurement item and definition Corporate Reputation (CR)
First, one of the measurements of this study is corporate reputation. Previous researchers find that “Favorable reputations in each of these HR practices generated perceptions that the organization was prestigious, which, in turn, was the most powerful predictor of willingness to pursue employment” (Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012), and in the research of this study adopted the definition from previous researchers.
Measurement item and definition Employer Familiarity (EF)
“Familiarity is an important component of job seekers’ employer-related knowledge and should influence attraction to the organization” (Cable and Turban 2001; Allen, Mahto and, Otondo 2013), and the study of this research defines the employer familiarity as the ability that the job seekers could memorize and obtain the information regarding the recruiting company easily, and the job seeker is familiar with this company so as to impact on the intention of their job pursuit.
Measurement item and definition Employer Reputation (ER)
The measurement item of employer reputation in the study of this research adopts the concept from Cable and Turban (2001) and Baum and Kabst (2014); they define employer reputation that the applicants’ perception of how people from their direct and indirect environment assess the company in questions. And employer reputation is the belief of job seeker that pertaining to the other individuals’ emotionally point of view to the company as an employer.
Measurement item and definition
Social Media (SM)
The measurement in social media of this study will focus on the elements with high level of self-disclosure, blogs and social networking websites, to develop our research. However, the ignorance of virtual social worlds is because that the virtual social worlds are not wide-spreading in Taiwan, and social networking is more prevalent than virtual social worlds so that the research of this study focuses on blogs and social networking sites. The information with highly self-disclosure will arouse net users’ attention when it comes to common incidents, experience, and perception with themselves or the issue that they have high interest. On the other hand, diverse opinions with the same issue will attract them as well. Unconsciously, the process of communication via blogs generates reactions or even resonates from the net users so as to develop close relationships between bloggers and Netizen. And the message was captured from social media, and it is one of the most popular messages with high relevance of recruitment, suggestion and recommendation on Google searching engine. To utilize the real message in social media, we could test the authenticity of degree of its impact on the job seekers.
Measurement item and definition Intention of job pursuit (I)
The research of this study identifies the intention of job pursuit (I) as an interest of the job seekers that they are willing to consider the job opportunity based on limited information; in addition, the intention of job pursuit also represents the objective in the preliminary stage of the recruitment process.
2.7 Research Model
Thanks to the precious researches of branding and social media, I have developed the following model below based on Breslin and Rafter (2013) Model, Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) Model, Collins (2007) Model and Baum and Kabst (2014) model (see appendix1, 2, 3, 4). The illustration shows the research model of this study:
Fig.2.7.1 the research model of this study
Positive Message in
Social Media (SM)
Corporate Employer Employer
Reputation Familiarity Reputation
(CR) (EF) (ER)
Intention for Job pursuit (I)
The following hypotheses are associated to proposition stated in the literature review:
- H1: Scores on the SM scale through CR scale are positively relevant with scores on I scale.
- H2: Scores on the SM scale through EF scale are positively relevant with scores on I scale.
- H3: Scores on the SM scale through ER scale are positively relevant with scores on I scale.
H4: Scores on the SM scale are positively relevant with scores on I scale. Below is the table to summarize the propositions related to hypothesis, constructs, variables and the research model:
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3. Methodology
3.1. Participants
The participants of our study will focus on the fresh graduates in Taiwan. “New college graduates are an increasingly important source of talent as organizations face the retirement of more than 75 million older workers” (Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012); Liz Field (2013) also indicates that “social media is essential to attract the next generation whom are the important human capital as a source for the organizations to maintain its competitive advantage”; especially the status of society under the increasingly aging population is more and more obvious.
To accomplish the aim of collecting the questionnaire from the target participants, the fresh graduates will be voluntarily recruited to fill in the questionnaire and help the current researcher to distribute the questionnaire to their classmates whom are incognizant to the present researcher; afterwards, each of them will share the questionnaire at least for 5 persons to complete out target quantity for our study, 300 samples.
3.2. Study design
Quantitative data and the electronic questionnaire will be used in the present study as well as distributed via the internet. The measurement of this study will adopt the Likert scales ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). The questionnaires adopt and revise from previous researchers: the questions of employer familiarity and employer reputation adopt from Baum and Kabst, (2014) (see appendix 6); the questions of corporate reputation and social media adopt from Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) (see appendix 7); the question of job-pursuit intention adopt from Aiman-Smith, Bauer, and Cable., (2001) and Avery et al., (2013) (see appendix 8).
To fill the research gap, the design of this study adopts the real company and existed messages regarding the corporate in social media to design our questionnaire. First, the design of the study provides the messages regarding corporate’s recruitment from their official website as a basis which can facilitate the participants’ perception. To avoid interference factor toward the participants, the company’s name and its logo are replaced by T Company. However, the design of the study still keeps the information, pictures and design of the website in social media so that it can present the authenticity of the message. Second, we utilize these existed messages of social media from blogs and social networking websites to test the relevance between social media and employer branding. In this study design, it proposes that positive messages in social media will positively relate to employer branding, to be more precisely, in turn will positively relate to the intention of job pursuit. To identify the positive messages, the design of the present study will have a pre-test for 30 participants: if the result shows that the mean value is more than median=4 (mean value message > median=4) in the Likert scales, the messages are positive to the participants, on the contrary, the mean value is less than median=4 (mean value message < median=4) in the Likert scales, the messages are not positive to the participants. And the pre-test will offer two messages in social media in order to select the higher one which mean value is the higher than the other and also higher than median=4. The questionnaire in part 1 will ask the participants to view the message before they answer the questions. However, the messages in Taiwan are Chinese; I will translate the messages into English so that the foreigners can understand the messages. In addition, the questionnaire will produce Chinese version for Taiwanese. Finally, the questionnaire will also record the demographical report from our participants in the next part, such as age, gender, education level, and working conditions, to identify their background for matching the target participants.
3.3. Constructs Measurement
The chart below illustrates the constructs and questionnaire of the model in the present study:
Table.3.3.1 The acronyms of construct measurements and questions
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3.4. Research procedure
3.4.1. Obtaining positive message in social media
As the research design mentions that this research begins with the pre-test to the participants. First, to gather the messages on the social media, the contents of the messages focus on the suggestions and impressions of interviews from the users in social media in this study. To focus on the labor market in Taiwan, we search the key word “interviews”, “suggestions” and “recommendation” in Chinese on Google, However, there are two words in Chinese could express “suggestions” in English. Roth (2014a, 2014c) indicates that “the Google Ngram viewer allows for checks and challenges of old familiar self-definitions of modern society” and the researcher also found that “the importance of individual function systems to society features significant change in time and considerable regional differences”. Therefore, the research selected one of the words which could represent “suggestions” in Chinese in order to find the optimal word. Moreover, the result of Google Ngram viewer could show the most frequent word used by the previous researches and studies. As the aforementioned studies indicate that the job seekers tend to search the corporate wit high degree of familiarity and the messages also is one of the key elements to represent the image of the corporate, so as the messages in social media. The message in social media with high frequency to show in the internet will attract the job seekers attention. With high frequency of the words could connect the familiarity of the net users; therefore, the research began to find which Chinese word could represent “suggestions” in English with high frequency. The following figure showed the results of Google Ngram viewer (Please find the result in the next page):
Fig.3.4.1.1 Word frequency shares of “suggestions” in two representative ways in Chinese in Google books corpus
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Consequently, the Chinese word in blue line was adopted in the search of this study, which possesses a rapidly growing frequency after 1970. After that, the words typed in the Google to search the positive message in social media came up with about 528,000 results by using the word selected by the result of Google Ngram viewer which has a higher percentage and combined with “interviews” and “recommendation” in Chinese. As we know that “social networking sites could connect people with others who share similar interests” (Peslak, Ceccucci, and Sendall 2010) and “provide the users to build their own network with their friends or business interaction”. To filter the valuable messages in social media, I selected the third link from the results on Google, and there are several reasons that I select the third link: the first link is a website about recruiting students in EMBA, which is not the message I want to focus; the second link of the results is a document, which is not relevance to this study as well. And so on, two messages were collected to become the pre-test of the messages. In order to identify the messages for our study is a positive message, I captured two parts of the contents; each of them is from the blog and the social networking website in Taiwan based on the results in Google. And the research of this study found that both of the messages include the suggestions and recommendations regarding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) so that this finding made me want to focus on TSMC. However, thanks to the professor’s remind that it is requirement to get the permission from the company, which will be an obstacle for this research; so the messages show on the pre-test and questionnaire will be confidential related to the information of the company. After that, the method of this research utilizes the searching engine and the questionnaire design from Google application to select the message in social media and distribute the electronically pre-test and questionnaire. The result of the pre-test finds that the mean value from message on social networking sites is 4.837 ((Mean value social networking website=4.837); and the mean value from the message on blog is 5.023 (Mean value blog =5.023).
3.4.2. Factor Analysis
According to the result of the pre-test, the questionnaire adopted the message from blog to generate the content for the questionnaire (Mean value blog =5.023> Mean value social networking website=4.837> Median=4). However, in order to enhance the reliability of the measurement items in this research, this study still required to have another pre-test for the factor loadings because of revising the questions from previous studies. The survey of this research conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) by using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) to assess the convergent and discriminant validity. The second pre-test for this research collected over 30 samples from the participants , in the initial data we could find that there are 33 responses (N=33), including 15 males (n=15) and 18 females (n=18). As the result of second pre-test, factor analysis, we could find that there are 7 participants are at work and are willing to look for other job opportunities (n=7), the other respondents are still studying in the college and university, which means that 26 participants of the second pre-test are students (n=26). Regarding the educational level, there are 24 respondents’ educational level are in college or university (n=24), 8 respondents’ educational level are in Masters (n=8) and 1 participant is in PHD (n=1). Second, the age range of all of the respondents is from 19 to 23 and the working status for most of the respondents are still studying as a student (n=23); thus, the sample of this collection in the second pre-test is the target participants this study wants to focus.
The result of factor analysis shows that the measurement items of CR2, SM3 and I4 are required to be deleted in order to enhance the reliability of the measurement items in this research. The research of this study utilizes the system of SPSS to test and analyze our measurement items and questionnaire. The findings of factor loadings show that the reliability in corporate reputation will increase from Į =0.83 to Į=0.862 if the measurement items of this study remove item CR2 (Cronbach’s Į: Įitem deleted=0.862>Įstandard=0.83); the reliability of employer familiarity need to maintain all of the questions, including 4 items which are EF1, EF2, EF3 and EF4, to support its Cronbach’s Į to Į=0.878 (Cronbach’s Į: Įstandard =0.878> ĮEF2 =0.869> ĮEF3 =0.833> ĮEF1=0.831); thus, we retain all of the items of measurement in employer familiarity, and the finding also shows the same result in the part of employer reputation (Cronbach’s Į: Įstandard =0.927> ĮER3=0.915> ĮER4 =0.913> ĮER1 =0.901> ĮER2 =0.891).
On the other hand, this study will eliminate the measurement item of SM3 due to the results of the factor loadings, which shows that the reliability of social media’s measurement items will increase from Į=0.614 to Į=0.733 in Cronbach’s Alpha if the research of this study removes the question of SM3 (Cronbach’s Į: Įitem deleted=0.733> Įstandard=0.614). Moreover, the measurement items of intention of job pursuit (I) need to recode the question of I4 due to the design of the content. Because the question I4 states that “I would no longer be interested in working this company except as a last resort”; which means that if the respondents strongly disagree, they would like to be more interested in working this Company and this is the relevance we want to test for the hypothesis of this research of the study; thus, the test recodes the values in questions of I4 in SPSS then analyze it.
However, the result of factor loadings of intention of job pursuit (I) shows that the reliability of intention of job pursuit will rise from Įbefore deleted=0.821 to Įafter deleted=0.95 if we remove I4. This finding may indicate that the participant in pre-test response to the questions with rapid skim so that they did not notice the item of I4 is an opposite question; however, the measurement item of I4 will be removed from the questionnaire. To conclude the result of factor analysis, the measurements in this research will eliminate the quantity of the questions from 19 to 16 so that the reliability and confirmatory of the measurements items in this research of the study could enhance. The following chart is the result of the factor loading in this pre-test in the next page:
Table.3.4.2.1 Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) - factor loading
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4. Results obtained and Analysis
The overall analysis in the search of the study analyzed the survey by using the IBM SPSS (Statistic Package for the Social Science) software package to process the survey data. First of all, the analysis started from the analysis of demographic result to have the initial framework of the respondents’ background. Second, the analysis showed the comparing means to know the difference between varieties of working conditions and the intention of job pursuit (I) as the dependent variable. Finally, the mediation analysis, also called path analysis, with regression analysis is the final step of the analysis to conclude all of the measurement items and the relationship between social media (SM) and intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by corporate reputation
(CR), employer familiarity (EF) and employer reputation (ER) in the study of this research.
4.1. Demographical analysis
First step in the analysis of this research to test the hypothesis is the demographical analysis; the study of this research surveyed the net users (N=317) through the internet to spread the online questionnaire. In the beginning of the distribution of this online questionnaire, this survey passed the link of online questionnaire to graduating students in this year (in 2014), and asked them to pass on the questionnaire to their friends for at least 5 persons. The respondents were told to assume that he/she is looking for a job now, and finds a message of the blog on the internet incidentally; then, based on their personal perspective to answer the questions. The respondents of random sample could represent the reality of the virtual life. The result of this survey showed that participants were voluntarily recruited from 159 males (n=159, 50.16 percent) and 158 females (n=158, 49.84 percent). The majority of the age of the participants is between 19 to 23 years old (n=246, 77.60 percent), and 53 participants are 24 to 28 years old (n=53, 16.72 percent). There is only a few percentage of age of the participants is under 18 years old (n=9, 2.84 percent) and above 34 years old (n=3, 0.95 percent). The respondents of this survey are match with the expectation of research design, the target participants are the new generation and the students from college or university. As the survey showed that most of the respondents’ educational level are college or university (n=231, 72.87 percent). The result of this survey also showed that there are over half of the respondents are undergraduate students (n=168, 53.00 percent), and the respondents who are willing to look for other job opportunities (n=70, 22.08 percent) also are the target participants of this research design. Most of the participants are the target participants in this survey (n=238, 75.08 percent). On the other hand, the segment of the population is very important to the research of this survey because they represent the potential employees and the person who want to change the job, and the person who will enter the labor market and become the job seeker in the future. The table below is the result of demographic analysis:
Table.4.1.1 Demographical analysis
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4.2. Comparing means-ANOVA Analysis
Mentioned in the part of demographical analysis, the working conditions is a prominent indicator to this research; therefore, in the beginning of the comparison analysis, the test started from the one-way ANOVA (Analysis of variance) analysis to compare the means between different parts of working conditions, including undergraduate student with no part-time/full-time job (group 1), the person unwilling to look for other job opportunities (group 2), the person willing to look for other job opportunities (group 3), and unemployment (group 4), and the intention of job pursuit (I). First, as the result of one-way ANOVA analysis, it showed the effect between them is no significant (P value= 0.185>0.05); in the other words, there is no significant difference between different working conditions about their intention of job pursuit (I). The following table shows more detail about the result of one-way ANOVA analysis:
Table.4.2.1 Result of ANOVA Analysis
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Next, this analysis adopted the multiple comparisons analysis of Scheffe because the quantity of working condition’s group is more than 2 (n=4), and Scheffe’s comparison analysis could test multiple groups and compare with each other (n>2). The analysis showed that none of the comparisons between them are significant; more detailed result of this analysis is shown by the table below:
Table.4.2.2 Effect of working condition on Intention of Job Pursuit (I)
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Notes: Method: Scheffe ’ s Multiple Comparisons Analysis DV: Intention of Job Pursuit (I)
Group1: Undergraduate with no part-time/full-time job
Group2: at work and unwilling to look for other job opportunities. Group3: at work and willing to look for other job opportunities. Group4: Unemployment
4.3. Path Analysis
Based on the result of one-way ANOVA analysis and Scheffe’s Multiple Comparisons Analysis, the mediation analysis tested the measurement items by all groups of the working conditions. In the mediation analysis, the test separated 3 paths with 3 steps to analyze the correlations between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit mediated by corporate reputation, employer familiarity and employer reputation by using IBM SPSS (Statistic Package for the Social Science). However, according to the result of ANOVA, which showed that there is no significance between different working conditions; therefore, the path analysis adopts all of the responses from the participants (n=317). However, the data is required to acquire the associations between each of the measurement items so as to know the correlations between each of them; after that, the regression analysis could be utilized in mediation analysis. Thus, I calculated the simple regression before the test starts the path analysis. The following chart shows the result of simple regression (number=ȕ) and the level of significance (P value) for each association (please see the next page):
Fig.4.3.1 the correlation with simple regression analysis
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First, the analysis of path 1 (positive message in social media to corporate reputation to intention of job pursuit) showed that the positive message in social media was significant to the intention of job pursuit (ȕ1a=0.636, P1a value=0.000<0.001). Second, the significance also appeared from positive message in social media to corporate reputation (ȕ1b=0.52, P1b value=0.000<0.001). Thus, the relationship between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit is partially mediated by corporate reputation (ȕ1c 0.33< ȕ1a0.636). Consequently, hypothesis 1 is supported by the analysis of path 1. Please refer to the table below for further details of this mediation:
Table.4.3.1 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by corporate reputation (CR) - Path analysis
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Note: Confidential Interval (CI) = 95%, N=317
In the path 2 (positive message in social media to employer familiarity to intention of job pursuit), the analysis indicated that the relevance between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit is significant (ȕ2a=0.636, P2a value=0.000<0.005), and it was also significant from positive message in social media to employer familiarity (ȕ2b=0.601, P2b value= 0.000<
0.001). Furthermore, the test in this analysis showed that the effect of mediation of employer familiarity is partial to the relationship between positive
44
message in social media and intention of job pursuit (ȕ2c 0.431< ȕ2a0.636). Therefore, the analysis in path 2 support hypothesis 2 in the research of this study. The table below illustrates the result in path 2 (Please see next page_:
Table.4.3.2 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by employer familiarity (EF) - Path analysis
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Note: Confidential Interval (CI) = 95%, N=317
In the path 3 (positive message in social media to employer reputation to intention of job pursuit), as the test showed that it is significant to the relationship between positive message in social media and the intention of job pursuit (ȕ3a=.0636, P3a value=0.000<0.001), and the correlation between positive message in social media and employer reputation also shows significant in the test (ȕ3b=0.672, P3b value=0.000<0.001). Moreover, the relationship between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit is mediated by the mediation of employer reputation (ȕ3c 0.237< ȕ3a 0.636). Therefore, the hypothesis 3 is supported by the result of this analysis. The following table illustrates more details of this mediation:
Table.4.3.3 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) mediated by employer reputation (ER) - Path analysis
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Note: Confidential Interval (CI) = 95%, N=317\
The path 4 is a direct effect from the positive message in social media to the intention of job pursuit. The analysis showed that the correlation between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit is significance (ȕ4a = 0.636, P4a value=0.000<0.001). Thus, the hypothesis 4 is supported by the analysis in this research. The following table shows more detail information about the result of analysis:
Table.4.3.4 Effect of positive message (SM) in social media on intention of job pursuit (I) -Simple Regression analysis
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Note: Confidential Interval (CI) = 95%, N=317
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
The dominant purpose of this investigation was to test and validate the effect of social media on the intention of job pursuit, mediated by employer branding, and the also focused on new generation through several analyses. It also examined the direct effect of social media on intention of job pursuit. The result of this survey indicates that H1, H2, H3 and H4 are confirmed based on the evidences of the analyses in the study of this research. The discussion and implication of the results represented in the following paragraphs.
The foremost analysis of one-way ANOVA indicated that there is no difference of intention of job pursuit between varies of working conditions when they received positive message in social media (P value combined=0.185>0.05). In other words, the indication of this data collection is not significance so it is no need to compare with different segments of working conditions in this study. On the other hand, the questionnaires were distributed to the respondents randomly, so the first step is to make sure the participants’ background. To combined the ANOVA analysis with the result from demographical analysis, which also showed that most of the participants are between 19 to 28 years old (n=299, 94.32 percent), and the working status” I am Undergraduate student with no part-time/full-time job” also represented more than half of the participants (n=168, 53 percent); it implicates that most of the respondents are college students or graduate students, and the demographical analysis also indicates that the amount of the participants do not spread equally between different range of the age. Therefore, most of the respondents in this survey are the target participants for this study as mentioned-new generation, including college students, graduate students and job seekers who enter the labor market in the initial level, and the following analysis will ignore the classification of working conditions based on the ANOVA analysis.
First, in the mediation analysis of path 1, previous research has already investigated the concept of positive relation between social media, corporate reputation and intention of job pursuit, but the validation of the relation was from different sections and region. However, the result of this study is different from the previous research: Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) indicates that there is no interaction between social media, corporate reputation and intention of job pursuit. However, the present study provides the evidence that the positive message in social media has positive influence on the corporate reputation; in turn, the potential employees and talents, including new generation, undergraduate students and job seekers, will increase their intention of job pursuit in Taiwan. As the evidence showed that the relationship between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit have high range of significance mediated by corporate reputation (P1 value=0.000<0.001), and whose total effect is in a high level as well (Total effect1: ȕ= 0.941, P value=0.000<0.001). This research showed that the positive effect generates in Asia, and no surprisingly is that Taiwan’s undergraduate students and the job seekers in the initial stage of recruitment have high inclination of pursuing the organization with good corporate reputation; supported by the findings of Holliday Wayne and Casper (2012) who indicate that “college students were more likely to pursue employment with a firm that had a strong reputation”. And the result also identifies that job seekers are affected by the message in social media and corporate reputation, sequentially, which will influence the intention of job pursuit. The result of analysis in path 1 also indicated that positive message in social media could build a positive reputation for the company and also facilitate the corporate reputation in the preliminary stage of recruitment process. Therefore, positive message in social media effects on corporate reputation; continuously, which is positively related to the intention of job pursuit.
Second, the finding provides the evidence that positive message in social media effects on the employer familiarity positively; in turn, will positively related to the intention of job pursuit based on the mediation analysis of path 2. The result of the analysis from path 2 indicated that positive message and intention of job pursuit is positively related between them, which is mediated by employer familiarity (P2 value=0.000<0.001); thus, the evidence supported Hypothesis 2. Mentioned employer familiarity, the content of message in social media is one of the decisive factors to influence their intention of job pursuit.
In the positive message provided in this survey, which includes several images that will make participants want to seek for the job opportunity for the company, such as “open-minded”, “people-oriented” and “good employees’ welfare”; this extends to the previous findings and concepts that “the companies possess the image of employee-centered style in human resource activities, good compensation and benefit system or high degree of diversity will induce the intent ion of job pursuit from the job seekers” (Turban et al. 1998; Holliday Wayne and Casper 2012; Hernandez et al. 2013). On the other hand, the finding of this research indicated that the relationship between social media and employer familiarity plays an important role in this research as well; the connection of social media is based on familiarity, and the job seekers receive the positive message in social media about the recruiting company will enhance their employer familiarity unconsciously. Thus, the intention of job pursuit is affected by the positive message in social media, and which is mediated by employer familiarity.
Third, the present research of this study also contributes to combine the intention of job pursuit with positive message in social media and employer reputation in order to test the relationship between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit with an indirect way. In the third of path analysis, the evidence showed that positive message in social media impacts on intention of job pursuit positively, which is mediated by employer reputation. The evidence in this analysis indicated that it has significant relation between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit mediated by employer reputation (P 3 value=0.000<0.001). The evidence showed that job seekers generate the intention of job pursuit after they view the positive message in social media and they also were affected by other individual’s opinions and perspectives. As this study mentioned that the job seekers and the potential employees will assess the information from public about plenty of recruiting companies; after that, they will accord to numbers of information in social media and the congruence of culture, personality and values between the company and herself/himself to make the decisions of applying the job. Therefore, the evidence of this research found that after viewing the positive message in social media, the job seekers and those potential employees are strongly affected by the opinions from the people who have close relationship with them; in turn, which is positively related to their intention of job pursuit, which extends the earlier studies and is supported by previous researches (Cable and Turban 2001; Collins 2007). Hence, the hypothesis 3 is validated according to the evidence of this study and analysis.
Fourth, the analysis also showed that there is a direct effect of positive message in social media on intention of job pursuit. However, as the aforementioned researchers found that the relationship between social media and intention of job pursuit is not confirmed in the previous study (Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen 2013). Even so, the evidence of this research overthrows the previous study; the evidence has already found that there is a high significance of association between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit by using simple regression to test the relationship between positive message in social media and intention of job pursuit (ȕ4=0.636, P 4 value=0.000<0.001). The positive message in social media arouses the job-pursuit intention of job seekers’ and those potential employees. The emergence of internet has already changed people’s life style, and it also happens to the job seekers and the potential employees of their way to access the information regarding the organization and recruiting companies. The amount of job seekers progressively focus on the information in social media to estimate numerous recruiting companies, there are several advantage for them to utilize social media as a way to obtain the information: first, the job seekers cost almost zero that they can get the sources from social media; second, it is convenience and effective for them to obtain the information on the internet. They can view, spread and share the information just about every time and everywhere; moreover, increasingly people possess the smartphone, and the device of social media applications on mobiles which could facilitate the effect of messages in social media on their intention of job pursuit. Afterwards, the positive message in social media makes the viewers want to know more information about the recruiting company and also catch their attention based on the evidence in this research. Consequently, hypothesis 4 is supported by the evidence in this research of the analysis that the positive message in social media impacts on the intention of job pursuit.
From the perspective of managerial level and the organizations, there are several implications and suggestions in the research of this present study. First, the results of the present study provide the support that the managers should focus on the message in social media which rapidly impacts on the labor market; it is important to know what kind of information the job seekers receive, especially in social media. In the competitive labor market in the present status, human capital is a prominent non-monetary source to the organization; the managers should notice the ideas from the users in social media about the corporate so that they could adjust their managerial way to create a win-win situation for the employers and the employees within the organization, and also catch the attention from the potential employees in the initial stage of recruitment process. The opinions and messages in social media could be one of the significant sources and the opportunities for the organization to know the problems that they ignore, and the neglected problems could be the chance to improve the organization. Moreover, the users of social media reveal the most authentic opinions and perspectives regarding the recruiting companies based on the characteristic of social media that possesses openness, decentralization and democratization (Martin, Reddington and Beth Kneafsey 2009). In addition, the judgments and viewpoints of social media have crucial impact on their corporate reputation that is the focal elements to reinforce the employer attractiveness; gradually, which will influence their job-pursuit intention. Therefore, the managers should consider the messages in social media in order to facilitate their attractiveness in the labor market and modulate corporate system and managerial way to create an optimal position for the organization.
Second, creating a particular employer brand in social media is the other suggestion of this study on the basis of the evidence provided by this research. As we mentioned that the employer knowledge is momentous for the job seekers in the earlier stage of entering the labor market (Cable and Turban 2001; Allen, Mahto and, Otondo 2013; Baum and Kabst 2014), and more and more job seekers through the internet and social media to gain the information regarding the recruiting companies in order to conquer the difficulties of asymmetric information. In addition, to extend the concepts from Roth, (2014b), who indicates that “the gap between past and present maps of social differentiation allows for the discovery of a largely uncharted quadrant of the blue ocean for entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring”. If the corporate could utilize their particular set of image as their strategy to attract the potential employees so as to explore a new labor market and create a new value for the organization to enhance their competitive advantage; from the perspective of recruiters, it could reinforce their strength and stand out from the competitive labor market. Therefore, the organization could generate the differentiation from other companies by using social media, such as blogs and Facebook, to create a specific image of the company; and the blogs created by the company could be one of the sources to enhance the employer familiarity and employer reputation so as to increase the attractiveness from the potential employees. By doing so, the organization could stand out from the other competitors and attract the best-fit talents for the organization, which could advance the objectives and performance of recruitment as well.
Finally, the overall study of this research proposes that the establishment of the organization should focus on the correlations between social media and the intention of job pursuit from the job seekers and potential employees, and it is prominent for the organization to represent a positive employer brand and particular image so as to increase the awareness of the company and attract the attention form the job seekers and potential employees. Therefore, utilizing social media with employer branding may indeed improve the effectiveness and performance of recruitment process on the basis of the supports and evidences from the research of this study.
6. Limitations
There are several limitations in the research of this study. First, the most significant of the study’s constrain is that the sample in this research, which only focused on the job seekers, undergraduate and graduate students in Taiwan and the sample of this study only focus on the new generations, most of the participants are below 30 years old; therefore, these findings should be tested in other regions and different segments of occupations.
Second, the present research only focused on the mediations of certain of employer knowledge in the relationship between social media and intention of job pursuit. For further research should examine other elements that have possibilities of impacting on the relation between social media and recruitment process in order to explore different perspective of the correlation. In addition, the research of this present study adopt the positive message in social media, blogs, it could be one of the restrictions for this study. Other types of social media should be examined in the later studies, such as Wikipedia, social networking and virtual worlds, so as to test the association between social media and recruitment process.
On the other hand, the present studied is constricted by limited time so that have the obstacles to collect the sample with different range of nationality and industry, and this survey is limited to reveal the corporate name due to lack of permission from the company as well. To discover and represent the effect of social media on recruitment process within a real case, the further studies could adopt existed organizations with its permission and also combine with its recruitment website so as to provide a more vivid status to the participants; after that, the relation between social media and recruitment process could be more precise and clear to represent the situation in the reality.
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8. Appendices
8.1. Appendix 1 Breslin and Rafter (2013) Model
8.2. Appendix 2 Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen (2013) Model
8.3. Appendix 3 Collins (2007) Model
8.4. Appendix aum and Kabst (2014) model
8.5. Appendix 5 Knox and Cheryl Freeman (2006) the key attributes of employer brand image in graduate recruitment
8.6. Appendix 6 Questionnaire from Baum and Kabst (2014) Employer Familiarity
1. This company is one of the first to come to mind when I think of employers.
2. I can recognize this company among other employers.
3. I am aware that this company hires students from my school.
4. I am very familiar with this company as an employer.
Employer Reputation
1. I believe that other students in the school think highly of this company.
2. My friends have high regard for this company as an employer.
3. I believe that my friends hold a favorable impression of this company as a good employer.
4. Other students in my school hold a favorable impression of this company as an employer.
8.7. Appendix 7 Sivertzen, Nilsen and Olafsen. (2013) questionnaire Use of social media
1. I have seen advertising for jobs at this organisation in social media.
2. The organisations profile in social media gave me detailed information about their job opportunities.
3. This organisations profile in social media caught my attention. Corporate reputation
1. Company with a good reputation.
2. I have heard a lot of good things about this firm.
8.8. Appendix 8 Questionnaire from Aiman-Smith, Bauer, and Cable. (2001) and Avery et al. (2013)
Job-Pursuit Intentions
If I was offered a job here, I would accept the job offer.
If I were looking for a job, a job there would be very appealing. If I were looking for a job. I would exert a great deal of effort to work for this company.
After viewing the company’s website, I would no longer be
interested in working this company except as a last resort.
If I were looking for a job, I would be interested in pursuing an application with this company.
8.9. Questionnaire in the research of this study
Part 1 Please view the message on the blog and answer question 1 to 16 ALBUM/BLOG/PROFILE/GUESTBOOK
2010 Nov/06
Some interviews' impressions and suggestions in A company, B company, C company, D company and T company
This is my interview suggestions for this year, I am glad to share with you and hope it helps your needs.
The compensation and benefits in T company are quite well in this industry; I cannot guarantee that it is the best one, but I think it should be top 3 in this industry. I feel it is much more humanitarian than others companies. The standard of selecting people is more open-minded, that’s why I could enter T company after many rejections from others. I’ve already stayed in T company for one week, I feel that it is people-oriented in T company, employees’ welfare, management style, and the perspective vision are quit good in T company. The only thing that makes me feel bad is the living standard in Hsinchu, it is so inconvenience to find restaurants and it is not easy to find a place with reasonable renting price; apart from this, everything is ok.
Personal Suggestions: 4.5/5
Questions
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
- Quote paper
- Yi-Chuan Chen (Author), 2014, Big Data Impacts on Human Resource Management. Using Multinational Enterprises as Example, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/283932