The influence of pro-environmental CSR in recruitment communication on Norwegian and Dutch prospective employees' perceptions and behavioural intentions.

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2017-07-02
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en
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A development in the strategies and policies of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has been that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained an important role in MNC’s. Partly, this important position of CSR is due to the fact that stakeholders increasingly consider CSR to be important and this can be seen in the perceptions of stakeholders towards companies (e.g. Bondy et al., 2012; Becker-Olsen et al., 2011). Research has already shown that the perceptions and behavioural intentions of stakeholders such as customers and (prospective) employees towards companies or employers that incorporate CSR can be positively influenced by corporate communication featuring CSR information (e.g. Becker-Olsen et al, 2011). However, Previous research has mainly been done in the USA and comparative research between countries or groups has been limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of environmental CSR information in recruitment communication on the employer reputation, employee-company identification and intention to apply of prospective employees. The study had a cross-national perspective, involving Norwegian and Dutch participants. It was stated that The Netherlands and Norway differ in historical, demographic and political context and that this affects attitudes to (environmental) CSR in the two countries. This in turn led to the expectation that the Dutch and Norwegians’ response to pro-environmental CSR in recruitment advertising might differ too. In an experiment, participants from Norway and the Netherlands were exposed to a control recruitment text or to an experimental recruitment text containing information regarding pro-environmental CSR. Employer reputation, employee-company identification, intention to apply for a job and the cultural values of the participants were measured through an online questionnaire. No significant differences, besides an interaction effect for environmental CSR and nationality for the dependent variable employee-company identification that after further analysis also showed for significant results, were found between the Netherlands and Norway for any of the dependent variables, suggesting that the perception of and intention to apply of Norwegian prospective employees at potential employers are not differently influenced by mentioning pro-environmental CSR in recruitment communication. Future research could be focused on the influence of CSR on other types of stakeholders in cross-national context or on the influence that textual aspects have on participants, regardless of the context of the text.
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