How goal attainment framing interacts with corporate social responsibility practices to shape employer brands during recruitment

Organisations increasingly use corporate social responsibility (CSR) signals in their recruitment messages to enhance their branding as a distinctive and attractive employer for job seekers. Some prior research suggests that there are positive linkages between conveying information about CSR and employer branding. However, there is limited research on the specific mechanisms through which CSR information from the recruiting organisation becomes salient in influencing job seekers’ perceptions of employer branding and organisational attractiveness. In this research, we draw from theories of signalling and goal attainment framing to investigate how the commitment and progress framings of community-focused and environment-focused CSR practices in recruitment messages shape job seekers’ perceptions of employer branding. Furthermore, we theorise and test two underlying mechanisms that illustrate how these frames influence employer branding: anticipated belongingness and anticipated pride with the prospective employer. Through two experimental studies with a total sample of 623 job seekers, we find empirical support for our proposed theory that the commitment (progress) framing of community-focused (environment-focused) CSR in recruitment materials enhances signals of anticipated belongingness, which in turn enhances job seekers’ organisational attraction compared to the progress (commitment) framing. Our research contributes to the literature on human resource management (HRM) and recruitment by exploring micro-processes of CSR signals in recruitment materials on organisational attractiveness.