Family firm identity as a signal to influence perceived trustworthiness in initial recruitment processes

In today’s “war for talent”, competition for skilled staff is high (Wilden et al. 2010) and attracting job seekers is a critical management task (Collins & Stevens 2002; Wilden et al. 2010; Baum & Kabst 2014). Within the recruitment process potential employees’ perceptions and beliefs about the organization are key success factors (Chapman et al. 2005). Anecdotal evidence shows that having a “good company tag” (Spitzmüller & Huntington 2002, p. 27) is the key to attracting the best talents and studies have confirmed that organizations with strong brand identities are preferred to those with weak or negative brand identities (Cable & Turban 2001). In the very beginning phase of recruitment, one premise for the job seeker to build up beliefs about a potential employer is to process signals that the organization sends (Connelly et al. 2011) and associate them with preexisting known categories (Fischer & Reuber 2007).