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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2021

23-09-2020 | Original Paper

“Just Look the Other Way”: Job Seekers’ Reactions to the Irresponsibility of Market-Dominant Employers

Authors: Paolo Antonetti, Benedetta Crisafulli, Aybars Tuncdogan

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2021

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Abstract

Past research on recruitment has shown that employer image predicts job seekers’ perceptions of organizational attractiveness. We contribute to this body of work by examining job seekers’ reactions to a market-dominant employer that has suffered from a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We show that job seekers’ reaction is buffered in the case of dominant employers’ wrongdoing. This effect is stronger for job seekers who are very interested in working in the dominant employers’ industry. Market dominance, however, reduces the negative impact of CSI only under certain circumstances. We find that market dominance provides a buffer against the negative effect of CSI only when (1) CSI is directly relevant to the domain of performance of the organization and (2) job seekers feel very certain about their attitudes toward the organization. In two experiments with participants actively looking for employment at the time of study, we tested a model of moderated mediation examining how market dominance and CSI influence perceived employer ethicality and perceived employer competence. These two variables, in turn, explain how job seekers form perceptions of organizational attractiveness. This is the first study to explore how job seekers react to potential employers that are dominant in a market but have suffered from a CSI incident. The study identifies the boundary conditions that explain why sometimes market-dominant employers can emerge relatively unscathed in the eyes of job seekers following CSI. The research opens important managerial implications concerning the recruitment efforts of organizations that have suffered from CSI.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Eleven participants failed an instructional manipulation check and were warned to pay attention to the study. Following recommendations in the literature (Oppenheimer et al. 2009) we decided not to exclude these participants. However, in all studies, we analyzed the data with and without participants who failed the attention checks. Excluding these participants did not affect the results.
 
2
Of these participants, 12% had less than one year of work experience in retail, 21% between one to two years, 13% between three to five years, and 10% more than five years.
 
3
Similar to Study 1, 11 participants failed an attention check and were reminded of the importance of paying attention to the experimental protocol and to the survey questions. The exclusion of these cases, however, does not affect the results.
 
4
Of these participants, 34% had less than one year of work experience in retail, 27% between one and two years, 20% between two and five years, and 19% more than five years.
 
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Metadata
Title
“Just Look the Other Way”: Job Seekers’ Reactions to the Irresponsibility of Market-Dominant Employers
Authors
Paolo Antonetti
Benedetta Crisafulli
Aybars Tuncdogan
Publication date
23-09-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2021
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04623-0

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