Losing Control of Company Information in the Recruitment Process: The Impact of LinkedIn on Organizational Attraction

Social media provides access to diverse and potentially conflicting information about organizations to potential job candidates. However, little is known about the impact of conflicting information between social media and corporate websites for recruitment and attraction. Using an experimental design, we exposed participants to a fictitious company website promoting an employer brand of diversity. Participants were then randomly shown a fictitious Linked In employee search result page depicting high-or low-employee diversity. Using the instrumental-symbolic framework and warranting theory, we posit that consistent information from Linked In will result in more positive image perceptions of organizations, ultimately leading to higher organizational attraction. Results show that participants who were exposed to information consistent with the organizational website promoting diversity rated that organization higher in agreeableness, and perceived agreeableness fully mediated the relationship between the experimental condition and organizational attractiveness.