Employer Value Propositions for Different Target Groups and Organizational Types in the Public Sector: Theory and Evidence From Field Experiments

TY - JOUR

T1 - Employer Value Propositions for Different Target Groups and Organizational Types in the Public Sector: Theory and Evidence From Field Experiments

AU - Keppeler, Florian

AU - Papenfuß, Ulf

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the City of Friedrichshafen and the German Association of Local Utilities together with 13 of its member organizations, all of which are state-owned enterprises. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.

PY - 2023/12

Y1 - 2023/12

N2 - Public employers struggle with recruiting talents and labor market competition. Research on the understudied topic of employer branding can help address this challenge. This study presents five large-scale, pre-registered field experiments (n = 155,634) aimed at increasing the number of individuals initially interested in a job at a public employer. In social media ads, public sector values served as signaled employer value propositions (EVPs). The results show the importance of target groups and points of difference related to public employers’ organizational type. Significantly fewer women show interest in a job, and for a municipal administration, a fair pay EVP has a negative effect. This study enhances the understanding of potential recruits’ environment- and self-processing, bridges EVPs with public values theory, and provides a missing theoretical link between publicness and recruitment. It shows the importance of testing common assumptions about what works in recruitment in field studies with high external validity.

AB - Public employers struggle with recruiting talents and labor market competition. Research on the understudied topic of employer branding can help address this challenge. This study presents five large-scale, pre-registered field experiments (n = 155,634) aimed at increasing the number of individuals initially interested in a job at a public employer. In social media ads, public sector values served as signaled employer value propositions (EVPs). The results show the importance of target groups and points of difference related to public employers’ organizational type. Significantly fewer women show interest in a job, and for a municipal administration, a fair pay EVP has a negative effect. This study enhances the understanding of potential recruits’ environment- and self-processing, bridges EVPs with public values theory, and provides a missing theoretical link between publicness and recruitment. It shows the importance of testing common assumptions about what works in recruitment in field studies with high external validity.

KW - employer value propositions

KW - public values theory

KW - publicness

KW - recruitment

KW - social media field experiments

U2 - 10.1177/0734371X221121050

DO - 10.1177/0734371X221121050

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0734-371X

VL - 43

SP - 701

EP - 726

JO - Review of Public Personnel Administration

JF - Review of Public Personnel Administration

IS - 4

ER -