What you see is what you get? Measuring companies' projected employer image attributes via companies' employment webpages

Author

Christian P. THEURER, Technical University of Munich
Philipp SCHAPERS, Johannes Gutenberg Universitat, Mainz
Andranik TUMASJAN, Technical University of Munich
Isabell M. WELPE, Technical University of Munich
Filip LIEVENS, Singapore Management UniversityFollow

Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2022

Abstract

Information on a company's employment webpage sends signals about the employer image the company intends to project to applicants. Nonetheless, we know little about the content of recruitment signals sent via company employment webpages. This study develops a method to measure companies' projected employer image attributes based on their employment webpages. Specifically, we analyze companies' projected employer image attributes by applying computer-aided text analysis (CATA) to the employment webpages of 461 Fortune 500 companies (i.e., more than 11,100 individual pages). Our results show that projected employer image attributes remain relatively stable over time. Moreover, we find relatively low levels of employer image differentiation between companies and between industries. Only a small group of companies (<20%) use distinct employer attribute signals to communicate their projected employer image. Finally, there is limited convergence between projected employer image attributes based on employment webpages and ratings on similar attributes on employer review websites. Generally, our results show that CATA is a viable method for assessing companies' projected employer image in the context of employer image management and engineering.

Keywords

CATA, content analysis, employer branding, employer image, third party employment branding

Discipline

Business and Corporate Communications | Human Resources Management | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Human Resource Management

Volume

61

Issue

5

First Page

543

Last Page

561

ISSN

0090-4848

Identifier

10.1002/hrm.22085

Publisher

Wiley

Citation

THEURER, Christian P.; SCHAPERS, Philipp; TUMASJAN, Andranik; WELPE, Isabell M.; and LIEVENS, Filip. What you see is what you get? Measuring companies' projected employer image attributes via companies' employment webpages. (2022). Human Resource Management. 61, (5), 543-561.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6851

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22085