The Process and Impact of Anticipating Meaningfulness in Future Work During Employee Recruitment
Abstract
Despite research attesting that during recruiting, job seekers search for and draw inferences about future work and their place in it, the explanation for the effects of these inferences on recruiting outcomes remains enclosed in a “black box,” that has yet to be unpacked. Given the substantial impact of experiencing meaningful work on current employees, I explore the influence of anticipated meaningful work on job seekers in the recruitment process. I present a conditional indirect effects model whereby job seekers anticipate meaningfulness about future organizational employment from inferences of anticipated job self-efficacy, anticipated opportunity for beneficiary impact and anticipated belongingness. I contend these inferences are the result of sensemaking, and are shaped by natural human desires for agency and communion and work values of achievement and altruism. I further argue anticipated meaningfulness positively influences acceptance intentions, with a person’s work centrality moderating this relationship.
I empirically test this theory in a sample of 197 job seekers, and seek to provide evidence that these inferences do in fact influence anticipated meaningfulness, thus explaining their impact on an important recruiting outcome. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.
Citation
Morgan, Timothy James (2019). The Process and Impact of Anticipating Meaningfulness in Future Work During Employee Recruitment. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /189125.