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Drawing on signaling and social identity theories, the main objective of this paper is to suggest and validate a research framework to investigate the association of corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions with organizational attractiveness by uncovering the underlying mechanism of organizational trust.

By conducting regression analysis, the study hypotheses were tested with the data collected from a snowball convenient sample of 318 potential job seekers.

The study results revealed that prospective applicants' perceptions about a company's CSR undertakings are significantly associated with their trust in and attraction to the company. Noticeably, organizational trust partially mediated the direct relationship between CSR perceptions and organizational attractiveness.

Based on the study results, some specific theoretical advancements and helpful insights have been highlighted for human resources (HR) practitioners in today's competing organizations. The paper ends by outlining key research drawbacks and directions for possible work in the future.

Despite the plausible underlying role of organizational trust in the link between CSR and organizational attraction, empirical studies of this theoretical phenomenon are still lacking in the context of pre-hire recruitment literature. This may be the first study that identifies organizational trust as a salient psychological factor through which job seekers' CSR perceptions become more instrumental in influencing their attraction to a firm.

The study aims to investigate the usage of diversity and inclusion (D&I) signals in communications for employer branding through digital channels made by European companies.

A quali-quantitative content analysis approach was employed to detect the usage of D&I signals of the top 43 European companies ranked in the 2021 Refinitiv Diversity and Inclusion index. These signals were organized according to Plummer's Big 8 diversity's dimensions. A correlation analysis was conducted to verify a relationship between D&I initiatives and digital communication for employer branding on corporate websites and LinkedIn. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the D&I dimensions' pervasiveness in digital communications and relevance on LinkedIn.

The results show that the correlation exists only between D&I initiatives and communication on the corporate website, while LinkedIn is still underused in this field. The most pervasive and relevant D&I dimensions for European companies are “Gender” and “Sexual Orientation”.

This paper enriches employer branding research by providing original insights into the use of D&I dimensions in digital communications.

COVID-19 placed millions of employees under work-from-home/telework. Employers intend extending telework for the long-term, anticipating business benefits. But the benefits are impacted by employees' well-being/ill-being, which is affected by the satisfaction of psychological needs. In turn, need satisfaction is influenced by employees' personal/job attributes. As work-from-home's blended environment disrupts routines, the satisfaction of the psychological need for structure or routines was examined in this study, along with the effect of personal/job attributes.

Cross-section primary data were collected from 500 teleworking information technology employees from India and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Vigour and exhaustion represented well-being and ill-being. Telework self-efficacy, standardised job, technology assistance and supervisor social support were the determinants or personal/job attributes. Need for structure satisfaction was the mediator.

Telework self-efficacy, technology assistance and supervisor social support were positively associated with structure satisfaction. In turn, structure satisfaction was related positively with vigour and negatively with exhaustion, and thus mediated between personal/job attributes and vigour/exhaustion. Standardised job did not affect vigour, exhaustion or structure satisfaction.

Need for structure is mostly studied as a trait, with implications of greater/lesser preference for structure examined. However, this work acknowledges structure as a basic ubiquitous need. Everyone needs some structure. Hence, need for structure is researched from the novel perspective of its satisfaction. This paper also uniquely combines job demands–resources model which identifies personal/job attributes, with concepts of epistemic which posit the need for structure.

This study aims to examine the relative effects of three organizational brand types (product, employment and corporate social responsibility brands) on organizational attractiveness. The potential differences in the impacts exerted by each brand on organizational attractiveness between the US and Chinese job seekers are also examined.

A policy-capturing design was used among both US and Chinese participants to test the hypothesized relationships using multilevel modeling.

Results suggest that each brand type independently contributes to the prediction of attractiveness, with the employment brand a significantly stronger predictor than the other two. Besides, the strength of relationships between brands and organizational attractiveness varies among job seekers from different national contexts.

The findings contribute to the limited understanding of how different types of brands together influence organizational attractiveness among job seekers, and the role national context plays in it.

This paper aims to examine whether happiness at workplace (HAW) impacts organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and whether this impact can be further improved by promoting learning capabilities in organisations, thus investigating the mediating role of organisational learning capabilities (OLC).

This study was conducted on knowledge-intensive workers (employees of EdTech companies) in India. Responses were collected via questionnaire in online mode, and after discarding the incomplete responses, 500 replies were considered for data analysis with PLS-SEM technique.

The outcomes reveal that the HAW has a significant influence on OCB. The outcomes also reveal that this impact is further enhanced with the presence of OLC, thus confirming that OLC operates as a mediator in the link connecting HAW and OCB.

This study makes a distinctive contribution by bringing out the significance of workplace learning in the connection between the workplace happiness and citizenship behaviour of employees that will provide impetus to the practitioners to formulate strategies in such a manner that the employees voluntarily perform the actions beyond their designated roles.

Employer branding (EB) has become a powerful tool for organizations to attract employees. Recruitment communication ideally reveals the image that companies want to portray to potential employees to attract talents with the right skills and competences for the organization. This study explores the impact of EB on employer attractiveness by testing how pre-existing employee preferences interact with EB and how this interaction affects employer attractiveness.

A quasi-experiment among 289 final-year students was used to test the relationships between EB, perceived employer image, person-organization (P-O) fit and employer attractiveness, and the potential moderating variables of pre-existing preferences, in this case operationalized as locational preferences. Students are randomly assigned to four vacancies: one with and one without EB cues in two different locations: Groningen and Amsterdam. The authors used standard scales for attractiveness, perceptions of an employer and person-organization fit. The authors test the relationships using a regression analysis.

Results suggest that if respondents have previous predispositions, then their preference can be enhanced using an EB-targeted strategy. Based on these results, the authors can conclude that EB and related practices can be successful avenues for organizations in the war for talent, particularly if they reaffirm previous preferences of potential employees.

The research is original in the way it provides empirical evidence on the relationship between EB and attractiveness, particularly when previous employee preferences exist. This is of value to employers using EB as a tool to influence employer attractiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) effectiveness on job seekers’ organizational attractiveness (JSA). Deriving inspiration from Carroll’s theory, the study specifically tries to measure the impact of CSR on JSA with the four dimensions pertaining to economics (PECO), pertaining to legal compliance (PLCO), pertaining to ethics (PETH) and pertaining to philanthropic (PPH). Furthermore, the paper also tries to examine the moderating role of company selection (COM SEL) done based on high or low CSR reputation and JSA.

Management and engineering students enrolled in premier institutions and universities of Western Odisha in India are surveyed for their perceptions of CSR and JSA. Purposive and convenience sampling are applied to collect data from 456 job seekers. Based on the analysis, the study proposes two main models (Models 1 and 2) wherein Model 1 tries to measure the effect of CSR on JSA and Model 2 checks the moderating effect of COM SEL on CSR and JSA. In addition, robustness of the study is tested using control variables (Models 3 and 4). Data is treated through SmartPLS 3.3 software. The structural equation modelling (partial least squares-SEM) method is applied to test the hypotheses and for further analysis.

The result reveals an interesting insight. There is a positive and significant effect of PECO, PLCO and PPH on JSA. Moreover, no such significant effect is observed between PETH and JSA. Further, the findings are contrary with respect to COM SEL, that partially moderates the effect of CSR on JSA. However, the results reveal that COM SEL has a substantial moderating effect on the PPH dimension of CSR and JSA.

The results highlight that CSR positively and significantly affects JSA in terms of PECO, PLCO and PPH, thereby emphasizing that organizations must be more focused on these perspectives of CSR. Further, though the results did not exhibit any significance with PETH, it is essential that organizations should strengthen the ethical aspects of CSR as well and align them with the CSR strategic actions. The study also confirms the moderating effect of COM SEL on PPH dimension of CSR and JSA, thereby supporting the philanthropic approach in this domain. Further, the organizations should foresee the philanthropic factor of CSR as a competitive advantage to attract potential job seekers.

This research attempts to contribute to CSR and HR literature in two ways. First, it is the first attempt to use PLS-SEM with an attempt to understand job seekers’ perception of CSR and JSA with Indian data consisting of students belonging to premier business management and engineering institutes. Second, the study is an attempt to empirically measure the moderating effect of COM SEL on JSA. To sum up, the study will provide insights to organizations to help craft CSR strategies for attracting more job seekers.

Although situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is centered on rationality and cognitive information processing, it ignores that people are also driven by irrationality and non-cognitive information processing. The purpose of this study aims to fill this gap by examining how gender stereotypes, based on perceived spokesperson sex influence the public’s perceptions of crisis response messages.

A 2 (industry type: automotive vs daycare industry) × 2 (spokesperson’s sex: male vs female) × 2 (crisis response appeal: rational vs emotional) between-subject online experiment was conducted to examine the effect of gender stereotype in crisis communication.

Results showed that either matching spokesperson sex with sex differed industry or matching sex differed industry with appropriate crisis response appeal can generate a more positive evaluation of the spokesperson and the organization. The results also revealed under which circumstances, the attractiveness of different sex of the spokesperson can either promote or mitigate people’s perceptions of the organization. Furthermore, when people are aware of a spokesperson’s sex, in a female-associated industry, a mismatching effect of a positive violation of a male-related stereotype overrides a matching effect of a female-related stereotype in crisis communication.

This study is among the first to identify how the gender of a spokesperson and industry type affect publics’ crisis response.

The evolving visitors' expectations and the unfolding digital transformation compel rethinking on the service offering of museums and cultural institutions. Although digitalization and people-centeredness are widely exploited to enhance the visiting experience, there is limited evidence of their implications on organizational attractiveness. The article investigates this issue, examining the service attributes that entice visitors.

The study collected secondary data from the latest census study by the Italian Institute of Statistics on museums and cultural institutions. Two hierarchical regression models have been run on a sample of large publicly owned organizations (n = 312) to identify the service factors that were most effective in attracting Italian and foreign visitors.

Museums and cultural institutions undergoing a digital transformation were more effective in attracting visitors. The delivery of virtual tours and online events captivated the Italian audience. Foreigners appreciated the opportunity to use applications augmenting the on-site visit.

Digitalization and people-centeredness improve the attractiveness of museums and cultural institutions. Using digital channels to engage visitors fosters their desire to interact with cultural heritage. Furthermore, digitalization enriches the on-site visit, expanding conventional services with virtuality. However, the adverse effects on cultural heritage should be carefully handled.

This study highlights the service attributes that add to the attractiveness of museums and cultural institutions, enabling them to engage visitors and improve the visiting experience.

Face is the most intuitive and representative feature at the individual level. Many studies show that beautiful faces help individuals and enterprises obtain economic benefits and form a high economic premium, but the discussion of their potential social value is insufficient. This study aims to focus on the impact of the personal characteristics of executives. It mainly analyzes the impact mechanism of CEO facial attractiveness on corporate social responsibility (CSR) decision-making, clarifying the social value of beauty from the perspective of CSR.

The authors use the regression model to analyze the panel data set, which was conducted by a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2016 to 2018.

The study found that CEOs with high facial attractiveness are more active in fulfilling CSR, which can usually bring higher social benefits. CEOs with beautiful faces are prone to overconfidence, are optimistic about their ability and the future development of the enterprise and are more willing to increase their investment in CSR. CEO duality can positively regulate the positive correlation between a CEO’s facial attractiveness and CSR.

Based on the perspective of upper echelons theory, this paper explores the mechanism of CEO facial attractiveness on CSR. This study enriches the perspective of the upper echelon’s theoretical research and has essential enlightenment for CEO selection and training practice.