This chapter provided the research conclusions based on the literature and finding of this study. Further, research implications and practical implications, as well as research limitations and suggestions for future research are provided.
Conclusions
For the first research question: what is the relationship between organization brand and organizational attractiveness in Taiwan, the result showed a positive relationship between these two variables which supported the previous research findings (e.g. Cable and Turban, 2001; Dutton et al., 1994). It indicated that job seekers would generate more applicant attractions to the organizations they are more favored with (Allen et al., 2007). The result coincided with previous researches which were based on the context of other countries than Taiwan. The result of this study showed similar relationship in the context of Taiwan, confirming the previous findings and indicating that this relationship can generalize to the Eastern context.
A paired-sample t-test was conducted to answer the second research question: is there a significant difference between pretest and posttest of organizational attractiveness after job seekers examine the website contents? The result showed a significant difference between answers to organizational attractiveness in the pretest and posttest, indicating that most of the job seekers’ applicant attraction increased after they examined the websites with sufficient information. It was in accordance with the theory that job seekers would have more applicant attraction to the organizations once they can get more amount of job and organization information. (Barber & Roehling, 1993). Therefore, if originally a job seeker was not so familiar with a brand name, after he/she visited the website and obtained more job and organization information, his/her applicant attraction would likely to increase. The reason is that the provided information helped job seekers to get more understanding about a specific
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vacancy and the organization, decreasing their uncertainty, raising their interests and making them feel closer to the organization. The sufficient information would become signals for job seekers to generate more positive impressions about the organization, resulting in higher organizational attractiveness (Braddy et al., 2008; Turban, 2001).
For the third research question: is there a moderating effect of website contents on the relationship between organization brand and organizational attractiveness, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the interaction of organization brand and website content on organizational attractiveness. However, the result is not significant, indicating that website content has no moderating effect on the relationship of organization brand and organizational attractiveness. Rather, the result showed that website content has more a direct impact on organizational attractiveness, indicating that website plays the role as a strong predictor more than a moderator. Therefore, the researcher suggests that website content to be one of the predictors of organizational attractiveness. Based on the findings, although the reputation of brand name is very important, website also plays an important role in the initial stage of recruitment. For job seekers, website serves as a tool to help job seekers get deeper understanding about the vacancy and the business, providing related signals about the business to the job seekers. For business, website could be the platform to promote their brand name and communicate with potential candidates. In recruitment practices, it helps to expose the brand to larger population of job seekers and enlarge the potential talent pool in the initial stage.
Therefore, we suggested that business not only needed to focus on the reputation of brand name, but also needed to pay attention on how to maintain qualified website contents. It would benefit both sides of job seekers and business.
Research Implications
The findings of this study supported previous recruitment theory by confirming that applicant attraction is affected by objective information (e.g. job and organization information)
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and subjective perceptions (e.g. organization image and familiarity). In the previous study, Allen et al. (2007) found that organization image was strongly related to applicant attraction while organization familiarity was not. Different from the previous study (Allen et al., 2007), this study combined organization familiarity and image into one variable instead of testing each of their effect on applicant attraction. The result of this study is mostly supportive of the previous findings and is also consistent with brand equity theory in recruitment context (Cable
& Turban, 2001).
Unlike the previous research, this study defined the website content as “the amount of job and organization information. The reasons were that: first, it was suggested to be the crucial factors in affecting organizational attractiveness (Chapman et al., 2005) and second, to make the findings more specified. Researchers also suggested that information such as work environment and training opportunities is important to job seekers (Cober et al., 2004).
However, the definition may be too simple because there may be other factors to affect applicant attractions, such as website usability (Braddy et al., 2008) and website style (Cober, Brown, Levy, Cober & Keeping, 2003). Moreover, a study which provided an evaluative methodology for corporate employment websites suggested that form, content, and functions of website should be included in evaluation. Therefore, it is suggested that future research can include more factors to make it more complete of this variable.
In addition, the third hypothesis proposed in this study was seldom tested before. Based on the findings, this study provided a research implication that while website had no significant moderating effect on the relationship between organization brand and organizational attractiveness, it was found to be a significant predictor of organizational attractiveness. A previous research showed that organization information was strongly related to job seekers’
perceptions toward the organization while job information is not. Different from the previous study, this study combined job and organization information together as “website content”. The
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result may partially support the previous findings and also confirm the result in the context of Taiwan. According to the findings, the researchers suggested it to be viewed as an independent variable to test its influences on organizational attractiveness in the future research.
Practical Implications
The findings of this study can generate some practical implications for HR practices in business. First, in general, organization brand has always been valued when pursuing employment. In accordance with previous research, it was confirmed in the context of Taiwan through this study. It is suggested for business HR practices to build their own branding strategy when recruiting, maintaining and promoting their organization brand in order to attract more talents. More significantly, the effect of website content found in this study suggested that the website content of business plays an important role in recruitment activities.
Nowadays, Internet is the most prominent communication platform during the initial stage of recruitment process. The result of this study showed that job seekers may have more applicant attraction when they can find more sufficient job and organization information on the website. These information includes organization culture, job characteristic, salary and benefits and so on. The revealed information also helps business to decrease cost and conduct efficient recruitment in order to find more suitable talent. On the other hand, this kind of information allows job seekers to get a deeper understanding of the organization and the job vacancy, thereby initiating a preliminary self-evaluation of the person-organization fit before they apply for the job. The research conducted by Cober et al. (2004) examined the corporate websites from the Fortune's list of "Best Companies to Work For”. They found that 92% of the business provided “information about culture, goals, values, or working environment of an organization”
on their websites, while 74% provided “information about salaries and/or benefits”, and 66%
provided “information about training and career development” on the website. It is suggested that companies in Taiwan can do the same and design corporate website as a platform to
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communicate with job seekers, and even a marketing tool to promote the company to the potential applicants. The effort to develop and maintain good quality website contents with sufficient information will benefit both the employers and the employees and result in a win-win situation.
Research Limitations
There are several limitations of this study. First, the study used snowball sampling and almost half of the participants came from the same school. There may be some bias because of this. Although the problem is conquered through comparing the answers of the participants from the same school and others, it is suggested to get the sample more randomly in the future study. Second, this study defined website content as “the amount of job and organization information provided”. While it was more focused and could specifically investigate this factor’s impact on organizational attractiveness, there may be other factors influencing organizational attractiveness such as website usability and website style. Third, during the quasi-experiment process, some of the participant examined the website by using a computer, and some of them did it by using a mobile phone. The differences between the devices used may become the limitation of this study.
Suggestions for Future Research
According to the limitations, there are some suggestions for the future research in this field. First, there may be a bias of answers because almost half of the participants came from the same school. Although the problem is conquered by comparing the answers of the participants from the same school and others through an independent-samples t-test. It is suggested to get the sample more randomly and more widely distributed among different schools and regions in the future study. Second, website content was defined as “the amount of job and organization information provided” in this study. The definition may be too simple and there may be other factors of the website influencing organizational attractiveness, such as
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website usability and website style. Therefore, it is suggested to include more dimensions in this variable and test each one’s effect separately. Third, some of the participants examined the website through a computer, and some of them did it through a mobile phone during the quasi-experimental process. Although this issue is conquered by conducting a t-test between the two groups, it is suggested to use the same device in the future study. Moreover, there are some suggestions for research in web-based recruitment. First, this research based on the context of Taiwan. It is expected to expand this kind of topic to different contexts. Also, research in this field can include more factors of recruitment website, such as website usability, website design, and website style, comparing their impact on applicant attraction. Moreover, the relationship in this study can be expanded to pursue job application intention or even pursue actions as independent variables to generate more practical contributions.
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APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE (CHINESE VERSION)
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誠摯地感謝您撥冗作答。
敬祝
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國立臺灣師範大學 國際人力資源發展所 指導教授：葉俶禎 博士 研究生：方敏 敬上 聯絡 email: sugar27j@hotmail.com
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APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION)
Dear students,
This is a scholar survey questionnaire. The purpose of this survey is to investigate the New
This is a scholar survey questionnaire. The purpose of this survey is to investigate the New