Literature review and hypotheses development

Employer choice

Employer selection is a complex process in which employers and applicants attempt to gather as much information as possible about each other and to appear as attractive as possible to each other. Signaling theory (Spence, 1973) has provided a theoretical foundation for research in this area, including for general management (e.g. Cable and Turban, 2003). Research has shown that recruitment experiences provide signals that affect job seekers’ attitudes and choices (e.g. Cable and Turban, 2003; Rynes et al., 1991). In this process of signaling and screening, on the one hand, applicants seek to obtain information about the company and to present themselves positively. On the other hand, the organization seeks to provide information and to be perceived as positively as possible or as attractive to arouse the interest and motivation of potential candidates to apply (Cable and Turban, 2003). During the selection process, both parties, recruiters and candidates, must make selection decisions at the same time (Ku¨bler et al., 2008; Spence, 1973, 1974). If the decision is made by the potential employee, one speaks of employer choice. The decision to become a member of an organization is often justified by an assessment of its OA (Rynes and Barber, 1990), which is defined as ‘‘[… ] positive affective attitude towards an organization that goes along with the motivation to contact you in a relationship and enter it.’’ (Turban and Keon, 1993: 199). As social identity theory has suggested, the entry decision refers to the cognitive connection that exists between the identity of an organization and the identitythat an individual applies to himself or herself (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). An individual’s social identity is enhanced when the group to which he or she belongs is distinctive and more favorable than comparable groups (Ashforth et al., 2008). Consequently, companies seek to find ways to attract potential employees and to retain existing ones. To do so, companies seek the best possible ‘‘fit’’ between their own identities and those of prospective employees. Research on employee recruitment has illuminated various factors that affect people’s attraction to organizations (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001; Lievens and Highhouse, 2003). These factors vary in their importance. Signals for job applications can come from traditional job characteristics, such as remuneration, location, and job security (Turban and Keon, 1993), activity (Barber, 1998), intellectual challenge and flexible working hours (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001), as well as pensions or health insurance (Lievens and Highhouse, 2003). The central perspective of these studies is the question of how companies are perceived by (potential) employees and the variables that are important in the selection process (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001; Lievens and Highhouse, 2003). The most important job factors in the studies determined the selection of factors to include in this study. A literature review of relevant studies found remuneration, location, and intellectual challenges to be the most important factors (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001; Lievens and Highhouse, 2003; Montgomery and Ramus, 2007; Uggerslev et al., 2012). These variables have been recognized as the most important and consistent criteria for assessing OA from the perspective of job applicants (Aiman-Smith et al., 2001). However, none of these studies analyzed these factors relative to CSR. Thus, this study adds to this literature by analyzing the importance of these factors relative to CSR.