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Drawing on signaling theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the strength and framing of firm signals sent to repair relationships following relationship violations.

Three 2 × 2 scenario-based experiments (total n = 527) manipulate signal strength × violation type (Study 1); signal frame × violation type (Study 2); and signal strength × brand familiarity (Study 3) to examine their dynamic impacts on relationship recovery efforts.

Stronger signals are more effective at relationship repair and are especially important following integrity (vs competence) violations. Signals framed as customer gains (vs firm costs) lead to more favorable relationship outcomes. Finally, brands that are less (vs more) familiar see greater benefits from strong signals.

The three experiments were scenario-based, which may not replicate real-life behavior or capture participants’ actual emotions following a violation, thus future research should extend into real-world recovery efforts.

Managers should send strong signals (communicating the level of resources invested in the recovery efforts) framed as benefits to the customer, rather than costs to the firm. Strong signals are especially important when brand familiarity is low or an integrity violation has occurred.

This is the first research to directly apply signaling theory to the relationship recovery process and contributes to theory by examining the role of signal strength; framing of the signal as a customer gain vs firm cost; and the interplay of signal strength and brand familiarity on the relationship recovery effort.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to discuss the application of a multi‐level perspective to signaling theory in a recruitment context. Then to discuss how the integration of signaling theory and the social identity approach may provide an improved understanding of the associations between an organization's recruitment activities and applicant attraction outcomes. The paper, first, summarizes the existing research and theoretical developments pertaining to signaling theory, multi‐level theory, and the social identity approach. From this literature a theoretical model from which research propositions are developed is suggested.

This is a literature review, within recruitment contexts, on signaling theory, the association between market signals and applicant attraction outcomes, and the integration of signaling, social identity, and self‐categorization theories as a theoretical foundation for research propositions.

Despite widespread acceptance of signaling theory in recruitment research, surprisingly little is known about the boundary conditions in the association between an organization's recruitment activities and applicant attraction outcomes.

A greater understanding of the application of signaling theory will enable managers to design and administer recruitment activities and processes in order to improve applicant attraction to recruiting organizations.

This paper fills a void in the recruitment literature by integrating signaling theory, social identity theory, and self‐categorization theory and providing avenues for future work.

Describes market signals and market signaling, provides examples of their use in service‐oriented industries and, through a market simulation, examines their implications for profitability and competitive behavior. Marketing signals by firms within an industry are positively related to the profitability of the industry and the profits of the individual firms within the industry. However, there is a negative incentive for a firm to be the only signaler within an industry. This “lone man out” phenomenon puts a firm at a competitive disadvantage to the other firms within its industry. A “temporal pattern‐recognition deficiency” also seems to exist which tends to inhibit managers in finding patterns of behavior over time.

The purpose of this paper is to identify trust‐building signals and signaling patterns of commercial and non‐commercial wine bloggers within a trustworthiness framework and assess prominence of balanced versus unbalanced resource‐based or compensatory approaches for the management of consumer trust beliefs and the facilitation of positive trust intentions.

Development and validation of theory‐based signal‐classification scheme and two‐stage content analysis of trust‐building signals embedded in wine blogs.

It is found that wine bloggers manage consumer trust beliefs using an unbalanced signaling approach emphasizing ability over character. Ability sub‐dimension signals vary by commercial orientation. Also, character signaling varies with commercial orientation.

Only English‐language wine blogs were studied. Limitations of content analysis procedures preclude direct evaluation of signal efficacy in absolute or contextualized terms.

Bloggers must secure reader trustworthiness to be effective communicators. Readers are likely to possess latent concerns about the bias of commercial bloggers and abilities of non‐commercial ones. Bloggers recognize the importance of ability signaling but may not be fully exploiting their positions of perceived advantage nor fully compensating for their distinctive inherent perceived weaknesses.

Trustworthiness signaling in wine blogs has implications for bloggers in other contexts, including consumer and non‐consumer information environments and not‐for‐profit and governmental communicators. Blog and blogger trustworthiness must be addressed by these communicators to effect audience persuasion.

The paper discusses deductive development and validation of a novel signal classification scheme applied to trust building by bloggers that, through analysis of signal content, sheds light on behavior of commercial and non‐commercial information sources in emerging product information environments.

This paper examines the use of signaling theory in the M&A context. We review some of the most important developments in applications and extensions of this theory to the realm of M&A, indicating how this theory has been used to explain many M&A decisions and outcomes and has offered fresh perspectives in the mature literature on acquisitions. For example, we show how signaling theory provides a new view of the determinants of acquisition premiums, and it can contribute to an improved understanding of firms’ search for acquisition opportunities as well as target selection. We also provide a critique of existing research to identify gaps in understanding on the roles played by signals. For instance, we discuss how signals can create contracting problems during M&A negotiations, how the value of signals might vary across deals, and how bidder heterogeneity and bidders’ own signals matter for certain transactions. Finally, in addition to taking stock of this stream of research, we identify some of the most important areas that deserve research attention. Signaling theory can contribute to an improved understanding of acquisition performance outcomes, and signals need to be investigated along with other solutions to enhance M&A deal making and execution. We identify new research methods that would help to advance signaling theory in the acquisitions literature.

Massive shifts in the recruitment landscape, the continually changing nature of work and workers, and extraordinary technological progress have combined to enable unparalleled advances in how current and prospective employees receive and process information about organizations. Once the domain of internal organizational public relations and human resources (HR) teams, most employment branding has moved beyond organizations’ control. This chapter provides a conceptual framework pertaining to third party employment branding, defined as communications, claims, or status-based classifications generated by parties outside of direct company control that shape, enhance, and differentiate organizations’ images as favorable or unfavorable employers. Specifically, the authors first theorize about the underlying mechanisms by which third party employment branding might signal prospective and current employees. Second, the authors develop a framework whereby we comprehensively review third party employment branding sources, thus identifying the different ways that third party employment branding might manifest. Third, using prototypical examples, the authors link the various signaling mechanisms to the various third party employment branding sources identified. Finally, the authors propose an ambitious future research agenda that considers not only the positive aspects of third party employment branding but also potential “dark sides.” Thus, the authors view this chapter as contributing to the broader employment branding literature, which should enhance scholarly endeavors to study it and practitioner efforts to leverage it.

This study explores how app store awards shape the behavior of leading digital entrepreneurs, focusing on their engagement in technological innovation through feedback and re-signaling mechanisms. It aims to reveal the nudging effect of award signals on entrepreneurial behavior.

In this study, data from 349 leading mobile app entrepreneurs in the UK Google Play Store were collected over an extended period from various sources. Functionality novelty and explorative behavior were assessed by analyzing app release date and permission technologies in comparison to both their own prior apps and those of their closest competitors. Hypothesized relationships were tested using accelerated failure time parametric models.

This study extends the literature on signaling by showing that (1) the top developer award signal served to nudge entrepreneurs to improve the functionality novelty of their apps and those who succeeded were less likely to switch to another product category, (2) the award signal created a window of opportunity for non-award entrepreneurs to respond and those who released new apps around the midpoint of a normal app development cycle significantly improved the likelihood of winning the award in a subsequent round of award-giving, and (3) the effect of functionality novelty on winning the award was more pronounced when non-award entrepreneurs pursued more explorative than exploitative behavior in app development.

The results offer novel insights into an understudied area, specifically the influence of online award signals on nudging entrepreneurs to pursue technological innovation. The research also highlights the crucial role played by the app store as an intermediary signaler.

Investigates the effectiveness of corporate name change signaling in the services industry. Argues that previous studies on the subject are lacking because they failed to distinguish between the services and manufacturing sectors. Uses the trend analysis method and examines the movement of price‐earning ratios during a five‐year period before and after the name change. Evaluates the effectiveness of the name change signaling strategy by testing the difference in means of the “before and after” P/E ratios. Finds that firms who announce name change together with other managerial decisions and regularly release news on other firm‐specific activities fared much better than firms which did not release such information.

This paper aims to conceptualize corporate reference management as a strategic signaling activity in business networks. While research has extensively outlined how firms develop and maintain social capital through business-to-business (B2B) relationships, less is known about how they signal their participation in business networks to develop this social capital. Therefore, this paper conceptualizes B2B references, in particular corporate online references (COR), as a tool through which firms “borrow” attractiveness from their business network. Through the lens of structural social capital theory, COR is shown to capture advantages related to interconnectedness between firms.

The paper reports on a two-step qualitative and quantitative research design. First, the authors undertook a qualitative study that reports on the COR practices of senior business managers. A quantitative study then uses social network analysis (SNA) to audit a digital business network comprising 1,098 firms in a metropolitan area of the UK, referencing to each other through their corporate websites using COR.

The analyses find that COR practices contribute to building structural social capital in networks through strategic signaling. Firms do so by managing B2B references to craft strategic signals, using five steps: requesting, granting, curating, coding and decoding references. While the existing literature on business marketing portrays reference management as a routine and operational management practice, this investigation conceptualizes reference management, in particular COR, as a strategic activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use SNA to represent B2B references in the form of COR as a network, which overlaps with (but is not entirely identical to) the business network. Further, the study re-conceptualizes reference management as a strategic signaling activity that leverages the firm’s participation in business networks to build structural social capital by borrowing attractiveness of prestigious business partners that leverages existing structural social capital. Finally, the paper coins and conceptualizes COR as an exemplar of referencing management and offers propositions for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how signaling support services and contractual arrangements that create value for incumbent franchisees can help to create value for the whole network by attracting prospective franchisees.

Using data from Bond's Franchising Report the study analyses franchisors operating between 1994 and 2008 via a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model for an unbalanced panel of 2,474 franchisors.

Training, financial assistance, sub-franchising and restrictions against passive ownership, and the use of area development agreements are found to be valuable for prospective franchisees. Experience and the number of company-owned and franchised units also attract prospective franchisees.

Our findings imply that not all value-creating services and contractual arrangements are interpreted in the same way by prospective franchisees. Franchisors should offer training and financial assistance to new franchisees in the early stages of a franchise. They should also allow sub-franchising but restrict passive ownership and offer the possibility for area development agreements as contractual arrangements to appeal to new franchisees. Franchisors should focus not only on expansion, but should view the chain in a holistic manner by sustaining and growing both franchised and company-owned units.

The findings contribute to the franchising literature by providing new evidence on how offering and signaling some contractual arrangements and support services can help franchisors create value for incumbent franchisees and can attract new franchisees. Our research shows that value in franchising is created differently depending on whether the franchisees are incumbent or prospective.