Contentment of employees vs their prosumeric activity in the scope of recommending an employer

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to identify dependences between recommending an employer by employees and the level of their contentment; indicate the determinants of the level of employees’ contentment; and define the hierarchical order of identified determinants of the level of employees’ contentment.

Design/methodology/approach

To prepare the theoretical part, the method of cognitive-critical analysis of worldwide subject literature from the field of marketing, personal marketing, management and human resources management was used, whereas to prepare the empirical part, the following research methods were used: a questionnaire (to gather primary data) and the method of statistical analysis in the form of correspondence analysis, including analysis the total value of χ² (to analyse the primary data gathered and for statistical deduction).

Findings

The statistical analysis of results of primary research allowed to identify the internal system of dependence between recommending an employer and employees’ contentment. Its determinants were defined and ordered according to the significance of given dependence. The strongest determinants of employees’ contentment were their satisfaction and relation variables, especially the way of treating subordinates by superiors. Majority of 18 analysed dependences were also statistically significant (apart from 7 of them), although they were characterised by a relatively weaker strength. The knowledge about this is very important for business-to-business (B2B) enterprises. Thanks it the employers can activate employees as prosumers co-building employer’s image.

Originality/value

The originality of the paper results from the applied approach. According to it, employees play a role of prosumers through taking part in creating the image of a B2B company as an employer. So far, the prosumption was associated only with final purchasers and not with employees. Additionally, this approach counts the contentment context of recommending B2B enterprise as the employer.

Citation

Baruk, A.I. (2017), "Contentment of employees vs their prosumeric activity in the scope of recommending an employer", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 742-751. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-10-2016-0240