Recruiting with ethics in an online era: Integrating corporate social responsibility with social media to predict organizational attractiveness

Abstract

Job seekers are beginning to place greater emphasis on the contributions organizations make to society before deciding where to work (Nielsen, 2014). In the present research, role theory, media richness theory, and theories employed in the organizational attractiveness literature were integrated to examine the impact of employers' online advertisement of different types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on organizational attractiveness. Mock corporate websites and Facebook profiles were created and presented to a sample of 850 United States business professionals. Organizations advertising philanthropic or environmental CSR were perceived to be more socially responsible than organizations advertising economic or legal CSR. With the exception of environmental CSR, the advertisement of all types of CSR resulted in more positive global CSR perceptions when presented on a Facebook profile in addition to a corporate website. In turn, global CSR perceptions were positively related to organizational attractiveness, and the joint effects of CSR information and presentation medium on organizational attractiveness operated through individuals' global CSR perceptions. Conscientiousness was also positively related to organizational attractiveness, in part due to individuals' global CSR perceptions.