Recruiting Talent Through Entrepreneurs’ Social Vision Communication

Timo van Balen () and Murat Tarakci ()
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Timo van Balen: Utrecht University School of Economics, 3584 EC Utrecht, Netherlands
Murat Tarakci: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands

Organization Science, 2024, vol. 35, issue 1, 326-345

Abstract: For-profit social ventures are proliferating. They often communicate social visions, presenting an ideal future where the ventures resolve environmental or societal issues. We study whether social vision communication helps a startup to recruit talent—a fundamental problem for growth. We argue that jobseekers are less likely to apply to ventures communicating a social vision as they perceive reduced career advancement opportunities. We conducted two complementary studies to test our theory. Study 1 enlisted data from a job board for startups to show that ventures communicating a social vision receive 46.3% fewer job applications. Study 2 replicated this finding in a field experiment that further reveals the underlying mechanism: social vision communication limits jobseekers’ perceived career advancement opportunities. Both studies show that higher remuneration can compensate the negative effect of social vision communication. Our findings advance research on purpose-driven organizations, human resources, entrepreneurship, and vision communication to caution entrepreneurs against social vision communication as a recruitment strategy.

Keywords: vision communication; social entrepreneurship; recruitment; startups; career advancement; resource mobilization; entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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