Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 4, Summer 2006 (2005) DOI: 10.

1007/s10869-005-9003-4

ORGANIZATIONAL RECRUITMENT WEBSITE EFFECTS ON VIEWERS PERCEPTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Phillip W. Braddy Adam W. Meade Christina M. Kroustalis
North Carolina State University

ABSTRACT: When utilizing traditional recruitment media, organizations are typically limited to providing job seekers with information solely on their vacant positions. Organizational recruitment websites, on the other hand, allow organizations to provide prospective applicants with both job descriptions and other information about the organization. However, little research exists regarding the impressions that viewers gain from organizational recruitment websites. The present study identied aspects of recruitment websites that may give rise to job seekers perceptions of organizational culture. Results indicated that both website design features and information about organizational values, policies, awards, and goals affected viewers perceptions of organizational culture. KEY WORDS: Internet recruiting; online recruiting; web recruiting; recruitment websites; organizational culture.

INTRODUCTION Many organizations increasingly view the Internet as a viable and attractive tool for recruiting employees (Cober, Brown, Blumental,

Address correspondence to Adam W. Meade, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 765027695-7650, USA. E-mail: adam_meade@ncsu.edu Phillip W. Braddy and Christina M. Kroustalis are doctoral students in the Industrial/ Organizational Psychology program at North Carolina State University. Adam W. Meade is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program at North Carolina State University. Thanks to Joshua Storie, Jennifer Stearns, and Tonya Elliott for their assistance in data collection and recording. 525
0889-3268/06/0600-0525/0 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

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Doverspike, & Levy, 2000; Harrington, 2002). This is evidenced by recent survey research that indicates the Internet was the preferred medium of HR professionals when recruiting applicants for many positions in diverse industries (Chapman & Webster, 2003). Likewise, results of other surveys suggest that companies from both private and public sectors use the Internet more frequently for recruiting applicants than for any other HRM activity (e.g., Elliot & Tevavichulada, 1999). This increased reliance on the Internet has salient implications for organizations because it enables them to provide much more information on their ofcial recruitment websites than is feasible with traditional recruitment media. Organizations provide this information in hopes that potential applicants favorably view the organization as a potential employer. For this reason, organizational recruitment websites commonly include features such as employee testimonials, benets information, and organizational values statements. One way in which potential applicants draw conclusions about the organization is via perceptions of the culture of the organization. Perceptions of organizational culture directly affect perceptions of personorganization (PO) t, which can subsequently affect how potential applicants self-select organizations (Judge & Cable, 1997). However, very little research exists regarding how applicants form culture perceptions from recruitment websites. Thus, this exploratory study attempts to identify aspects of websites that inuence viewer perceptions of organizational culture impressions. Online Recruiting: Organizational Strategies and Benets Organizations recruiting via the Internet have two primary avenues to attract viewers into the applicant pool. First, organizations can rely upon third-parties that distribute job advertisements on a job listing website (e.g., HotJobs.com, Monster.com). Job listing websites (a.k.a., job boards) have the advantage of providing a clearinghouse for potential job applicants to search across organizations for positions appropriate to their qualications and that meet their needs. Therefore, job boards have the ability to alert potential applicants to openings in many organizations. While the use of third-party websites or job boards can greatly increase the number of viewers reading the job advertisement and potentially reach a more geographically diverse group of applicants searching for jobs online (Crispin & Mehler, 1997), the amount of information that is available to the applicant is generally quite limited. This can likely be attributed to the fact that most third-party job boards charge fees based on the amount of content listed in the job advertisement. Moreover, although applicants are sometimes provided with direct access to the respective hiring companies websites (Zusman & Landis, 2002), in many cases applicants must apply to the hiring

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organization indirectly through the third-party organization (Recruiting, 1999). A second option is for an organization to create and maintain its own ofcial website to present job advertisements and additional information about the company (Zusman & Landis, 2002). This latter option is most likely to be effective when used in conjunction with job boards. One recent survey indicates that over 90% of large U.S. organizations maintain their own ofcial recruiting websites (Cappelli, 2001). These websites, dedicated solely to recruitment, have several advantages. First, content can be posted much more cheaply on the organizations ofcial web page than on a job board. Though content varies considerably, organizations can post information about employee benets, organizational values, a brief history of the organization, and additional content to attempt to create a positive impression needed to maintain a favorable recruitment image (Gatewood, Gowan, & Lautenschlager, 1993). The overall amount of information on an ofcial organizational recruitment website is much greater than from a job advertisement alone (Braddy, Thompson, Wuensch, & Grossnickle, 2003). A major benet of this additional content is that applicants can acquire more information regarding organizational culture, which may facilitate making better informed employment-related decisions. Additionally, this type of web recruiting can reduce costs (Cober et al., 2000; Kay, 2000; Marcus, 2001), minimize the amount of time required to successfully recruit applicants (Web Recruiting Advantages, 2001), and create the perception that companies who use online recruiting are technologically savvy (Fister, 1999). Finally, online recruiting reduces application costs for job seekers by allowing them to directly submit application materials online (Cappelli, 2001; Zusman & Landis, 2002). In short, we believe that companies will continue to utilize the Internet as a primary recruitment medium in the future. We also believe that organizations will continue to maintain and rely upon their ofcial websites in addition to using thirdparty job boards. Signaling Theory and the Formation of Applicant Culture Perceptions Signaling theory was developed from economics research on the role of information possessed by buyer and seller (Spence, 1974) and has been adopted to explain the interaction between potential applicants and recruiting organizations (Rynes, Bretz, & Gerhart, 1991; Rynes & Miller, 1983; Spence, 1973). In essence, this theory suggests that in the absence of other information about an organization, a potential applicant will draw inferences about the organization based on peripheral cues. In the recruitment context, considerable support for signaling theory has been found as applicants have been shown to rely on perceptions of recruiters to derive their impressions of hiring

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organizations (Goltz & Giannantonio, 1995; Rynes et al., 1991; Rynes & Miller, 1983; Turban, 2001; Turban, Forret, & Hendrickson, 1998). For example, if an organizations recruiter was perceived as both competent and friendly, applicants may assume that these are dening qualities of the entire organization as well. This likely occurs because applicants view recruiters as being representative of their respective organizations (Rynes & Miller, 1983). Though such recruiting experiences can have signaling value under many circumstances, the role of such experiences is much more signicant when applicants possess little knowledge about the hiring organization (Rynes et al., 1991). We believe signaling theory can be extended to the Internet domain to explain how potential applicants form organizational culture perceptions after viewing recruitment websites. For instance, if an organizations website is well structured and organized, applicants may infer that the organization values and possesses such characteristics. In the absence of more meaningful information (e.g., direct knowledge from an incumbent, a site visit, etc.), signaling theory suggests that an Internet recruiting website should provide cues to the viewer about the nature of the organization. Implications of Culture Perceptions Held by Prospective Applicants Congruent with the attractionselectionattrition model (Schneider, 1987), applicants are attracted to work environments that are compatible with their personal preferences (Kristof, 1996). This attraction is due in part to the perceived t of a persons characteristics (e.g., values) with the values of the organization (i.e., PO t; Chatman, 1989, 1991). Importantly, applicants PO t perceptions have been shown to exert a substantial inuence on the self-selection process used by applicants when making decisions about whether to accept offers of employment (Judge & Cable, 1997). PO t has additional ramications for organizations because a good PO t can result in a variety of positive outcomes, such as reduced turnover (Caldwell & OReilly, 1990), enhanced job satisfaction (Saks & Ashforth, 1997), more effective job performance, and greater organizational commitment from employees (OReilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991). Given these favorable outcomes associated with PO t, it is in an organizations best interest to clearly and accurately portray information about organizational culture on its ofcial recruitment website. However, no known research currently exists regarding the aspects of organizational websites that may send the desired cultural messages to prospective applicants. As such, we employed an exploratory qualitative methodological design to determine website design features and content that may inuence viewers impressions of organizational culture.

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METHOD Participants Participants were 48 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses at a large southeastern university. The sample was 42% male and 58% female. The mean age of participants was 19.02 (SD = 2.45), and 77.1% of participants were Caucasian, 12.5% African American, 2.1% Hispanic, 2.1% Asian American, and 6.3% listed other as their racial group. The class standing of participants was broken down as follows: 68.8% freshmen, 16.7% sophomores, 8.3% juniors, and 6.3% seniors. Approximately 19% of participants reported that they had previously submitted a job application via the Internet, and participants indicated that they spent an average of 14.83 (SD = 10.30) hours on the Internet per week. Procedure and Measures Data collection took place in a small research laboratory. Each data collection session consisted of only one participant and lasted approximately an hour and a half. Upon arrival to the laboratory, participants were given an overview of the experimental task and the assumptions they were expected to make while performing this task. Participants were asked to assume the role of job seekers who had recently graduated (or were about to graduate) from college and to review the jobs or careers portions of four websites randomly chosen from a pre-selected list of ten Fortune 500 Companies. While participants explored these websites, they were also asked to assume that all jobs were in their areas of interests, were in equally attractive locations, and that they offered equally acceptable pay and benets. In other words, participants were told to consider all things about the jobs to be equal and to draw conclusions about these organizations based solely on their recruitment websites. Next, participants were told that they would be viewing organizations websites in pairs. They were then directed to the rst organizations website and were provided with a guide that indicated some questions that would be asked after they viewed the websites. Participants were then allotted ten minutes to explore the jobs or careers section of the designated organizations website. Afterwards, participants repeated the same procedure for the second organizations website. After exploring both organizations websites in the rst pair, participants were asked two questions by a trained interviewer: (1) Which organization from the pair was more strongly associated with each of nine culture dimensions? (see Table 1); and (2) what two specic website properties inuenced their answers to the rst question for each of the

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Table 1 Taxonomy of Cultural Attributes Culture Dimensions 1. Innovation 2. Emphasis on Rewards 3. Supportiveness 4. Outcome-Orientation 5. Attention to Detail 6. 7. 8. 9. Team-Orientation Aggressiveness Decisiveness Diversity Denitions Promotes risk taking, experimentation, and not emphasizing being careful. Pays well for performance and values professional growth. Promotes sharing of information and praises good performance. Promotes achievement, being action-oriented, resultsoriented, and sets high expectations. Involves being analytical, precise, and paying attention to details. Promotes collaboration. Is highly competitive. Values decisiveness, predictability, and low conict. Promotes diversity within the organization, values diverse populations as employees.

Note: The rst eight culture dimensions were taken from a study by Judge and Cable (1997), which they adapted from OReilly, Chatman, and Caldwell (1991). The ninth dimension (diversity) was added to the taxonomy by the authors of the present study based on the prevalence of content related to diversity on this studys Fortune 500 Companys recruitment websites.

nine culture dimensions? The forced-choice pairings in question one were intended to force participants to think more critically about the answers they submitted in response to question two. This methodology was adapted from a study by Highhouse, Zickar, Thorsteinson, Stierwalt, and Slaughter (1999) where it was successfully used to ascertain the factors inuencing job seekers decisions to choose one employer in the restaurant industry over another. After responding to these two questions for each of the nine culture dimensions, the entire procedure described above was repeated for a second pair of Fortune 500 Company websites. Finally, participants completed a survey that asked questions about their demographic characteristics, the amount of time they spent on the Internet per week, and whether they had ever applied for a job via the Internet. Data Analysis We used a grounded theory approach (Glaser, 1992; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Locke, 2002) to analyze the qualitative data collected in this study. Using this approach, data analysis was completed in several phases and no prior categories were developed before data analysis began. Initially, the rst and second authors independently identied categories into which participant responses could be classied for each culture dimension. A standard general category framework was adopted because there was a high degree of similarity of content across all

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dimensions. Next, the three authors and two trained research assistants used this general framework to assign category ratings to each participant response for all nine culture dimensions. Subsequent meetings were held to determine agreement on these ratings using an a-priori 80% agreement criterion. Where disagreement occurred, the ve raters discussed whether a new content category should be developed and attempted to reach consensus regarding which category should be used to re-classify the comment. If consensus was reached, these responses were retained, and if not, they were discarded. After all comments were categorized and frequencies were obtained, infrequently used categories were merged with new and existing categories as needed in order to obtain a more parsimonious model of responses. See Table 2 for the percentage of rater agreement on each dimension of culture both before and after the nal consensus meeting was held.

RESULTS The 48 participants in this study generated between 125 and 182 specic comments related to website features and content that gave rise to impressions of each of the nine culture dimensions evaluated. These comments were classied into one of ve major categories that were found across all nine culture dimensions. These ve categories included website design features, organizational policies presented on the website, specic references to a dimension of organizational culture, miscellaneous but relevant website content, and statements that were not applicable.
Table 2 Percentage of Rater Agreement on Category Classications of Participant Responses on the Nine Dimensions of Culture Culture Dimensions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Innovation Emphasis on Rewards Supportiveness Outcome-Orientation Attention to Detail Team-Orientation Aggressiveness Decisiveness Diversity Initial Rater Agreement (%) 66.49 59.04 61.49 56.02 65.56 69.46 58.38 60.00 68.65 Post-Consensus Meeting Rater Agreement (%) 98.93 98.78 98.85 99.38 95.89 98.79 99.43 99.21 99.47

Note: Responses were retained if 4 out of 5 raters reached agreement regarding the category assignments.

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There are two ways in which the data collected in this study can be examined: Comparing frequencies of responses in the ve general website categories across the nine culture dimensions or examining website category data within each culture dimension. Given the forced-response method with which the data were collected, we believe it is most appropriate to examine the manner in which the data were categorized within each culture dimension; as such, we have used this methodology extensively below. However, a few broad generalizations may also be made by comparing frequencies across the nine categories (see Table 3 for the actual numbers and frequencies of comments assigned to each of the ve categories per culture dimension). First, there was a larger number of total applicable comments for some culture dimensions than for others. For instance, the diversity and innovation culture dimensions had both a large number of total comments and a low number of nonapplicable comments. Conversely, the decisiveness culture dimension had the lowest total number of comments and the highest number of nonapplicable comments of the nine culture dimensions. Thus, it appears that the diversity and innovation dimensions are the most readily conveyed via websites while decisiveness is the least readily conveyed via this medium. Second, among comments categorized as website features, the diversity culture dimension had the highest frequency of these comments. These tended to be features such as pictures of people of diverse backgrounds working together. The emphasis on rewards culture dimension had the largest frequency of comments categorized as relating to organizational policies. These comments related to descriptions of policies such as bonuses and other incentives for performance. Finally, the innovation culture dimension garnered the largest number of comments categorized as specic website references. These specic references were explicit mentions of valuing innovation in the website content. Specic Findings for Each Dimension of Culture Innovation This studys ndings suggest that the most important aspect of websites that cue perceptions of innovation was explicitly stating that innovation was valued by the organization and that employees were encouraged to engage in risk-taking (see Table 4). Additionally, describing the organizations diversity of jobs, products (both existing and those under development), and employees was associated with perceptions of an innovative organizational culture. Results also indicated that using pictures and employee testimonials in addition to direct statements in text was effective for conveying an innovative culture. Pictures of innovative products and advanced production facilities were

Table 3 Numbers and Frequencies of Participants Comments Assigned to the Five Categories for all Nine Dimensions of Culture Website Features (%) (4.30) (27.00) (7.00) (15.70) (5.50) (32.20) (6.80) Organizational Policies (%) Specic References (%) Miscellaneous Website Content (%) Non-Applicable Statements (%)

Culture Dimensions

Total Comments

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. (35.20) (22.00) (10.70) (2.10) (2.30) (6.40) (14.70)

Innovation Emphasis on Rewards Supportiveness Outcome-Orientation Attention to Detail Team-Orientation Aggressiveness Decisiveness Diversity

178 156 166 159 140 158 166 125 182

33 21 12 16 43 34 7 19 56

(18.30) (13.60) (7.00) (10.00) (31.00) (21.30) (4.00) (15.20) (30.50)

55 37 17 3 4 8 27

120 9 65 70 28 87 50 37 70

(67.20) (5.6) (39.00) (44.10) (20.00) (54.90) (29.90) (29.60) (38.40)

8 42 12 22 9 53 12

17 29 41 56 44 29 52 61 17

(9.70) (18.5) (24.40) (35.20) (31.40) (18.30) (31.60) (48.80) (9.50)

P. W. BRADDY, A. W. MEADE, AND C. M. KROUSTALIS

Note: Because some comments were assigned to two or more categories and the number of comments per category was rounded to the nearest whole number, the sum of the actual number of comments can exceed the value in the total comments cell for a given dimension.

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particularly associated with innovation, whereas effective testimonials from employees stated that an essential requirement of their job was to be innovative and/or that the organization rewards individuals who think outside the box. Finally, most organizations portraying an image of innovation mentioned its size (larger companies were associated with innovation), awards won for being a leader in innovation, and that it encouraged continuous learning. Emphasis on Rewards This dimension of culture was best conveyed through the companies emphases on earning and distributing rewards, which were emphasized by fully discussing pertinent organizational policies (see Table 5). These included policies on personal development opportunities, continuing educational programs, performance-based pay, reward systems, and opportunities for in-house promotions. To a lesser extent, providing an accurate and complete description of available benets and stock options and listing organizational awards won in recent years seemed to portray an emphasis on rewards. Lastly, the results indicate that there were some benets of companies using testimonials from successful employees, devoting entire sections of their websites to describing potential rewards, providing goal-driven values statements, and making specic references on their websites to their desires to win and to conduct themselves in a professional manner.
Table 4 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Innovation Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Portion of the web page was devoted to innovation, pictures of innovative products and advanced production facilities, employee testimonials that mentioned innovation, language choice, colorful/attractive web page, and general pictures/pictures of work groups. None Awards won for innovation, organization size, and encouragement of employees to obtain an education. Innovation/creativity in text, encouraging risk taking, targeting innovative applicants for hire, wide variety of new products under development, wide variety of jobs available, technology focus, other specic mentions (i.e., valuing diversity, competitiveness, success, research focus, values teamwork, values change), a global organization, and a large number of products under development. None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Innovation

Not applicable

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Table 5 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Emphasis on Rewards Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Organizational Policy Subcategories Employee testimonials, value statements, and an entire section devoted to rewards. Discussions of personal development opportunities, continuing educational programs, performancebased pay, distribution of awards to employees, inhouse promotions, and descriptions of numerous advancement opportunities. General description of benets, stocks as benets, and organizational awards won. The professionalism of the organization, an emphasis on being competitive/being on a winning team, and receiving rewards. None

Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Rewards

Not applicable

Supportiveness This culture dimension was best conveyed by organizations by explicitly stating their emphases on values such as trust, diversity, the sharing of information, respect for employees, and the organization as a community (see Table 6). Supportiveness was further illustrated by providing information about organizational policies that connoted that workers were valued (e.g., continuing educational programs and employee development opportunities) and by including pictures and employee testimonials on the recruitment websites that accentuated the value that companies placed on teamwork. Finally, these results suggest that companies beneted from informing prospective applicants that employee job performance would be rewarded and that the company would like for each of its employees to realize his or her own full potential. Outcome-Orientation The most salient way to portray an outcome-oriented component of culture to job seekers involved specically mentioning that the organization valued succeeding, winning, setting difcult goals, and recruiting only the most qualied job applicants (see Table 7). Explicating all relevant organizational policies also proved effective. These policies pertained to bonus systems, training and advancement opportunities, and continuing educational programs. Moreover, making nancial reports available online, including pictures that portrayed professional looking employees, and presenting employee testimonials on the company recruitment websites that illustrated promotion opportunities were effective strategies.

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Table 6 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Supportiveness Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Pictures of teamwork/other supportive pictures and employee testimonials that illustrated support/teamwork. Continuing educational programs, employee development opportunities, good benets, and discussion forums/supportive groups. Rewards employees for performance and is involved with the community. Communication/cooperation/collaboration, teamwork, organization trust/respect for employees, organization as a community, sharing of information, and valuing diversity. None

Organizational Policy

Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Supportiveness

Not applicable

Table 7 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Outcome-Orientation Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Employee testimonials attesting to advancement opportunities within the organization and the challenging nature of the jobs, pictures of persons looking professional, professional looking web pages/product focused websites/diagrams of work processes and goals, a web page devoted to outcome-orientation, and nancial reports. Bonus systems, training opportunities, advancements, customer focus, and continuing educational programs. Organizational performance awards won Success/wanting to win, expectations/rewards for high performance, commitment to high quality/high standards, expectations of hard work, recruitment of only the best employees, goal setting, and product development. None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Outcome-Orientation

Not applicable

Attention to Detail Impressions of detail orientation were best transmitted via manipulating various website design features (see Table 8). These included creating an overall professional looking website, using pictures to supplement information provided in text, providing lots of details on jobs and

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Table 8 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Attention to Detail Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Professional looking web page in general, use of pictures to supplement text, large website with many details, lots of detail in job descriptions/career progression, and employee testimonials. Safety focus Products seem to require a lot of attention to detail/nature of jobs Paying attention to detail/being analytical, recruiting/ employing detail-oriented employees, having a technology focus, and making decisions based on facts. None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Attention to Detail Not applicable

the organizations culture, and using employee testimonials that attested to the organizations value of attention to detail. In addition, organizations beneted from specically stating that they wished to recruit analytical, detail-oriented employees, that they had a focus on developing and/or using sophisticated technology, and that most decisions were made only after consulting factual information. Other useful strategies for conveying attention to detail involved clearly asserting that the nature of organizational jobs and products required detail-oriented employees and clearly articulating policies on and commitment to promoting employee safety in the workplace. Team-Orientation Organizations were able to most effectively convey their team-orientations by explicitly stating that they valued teamwork, that the nature of their jobs required a team-based approach, and that teamoriented employees were especially encouraged to apply for current job vacancies (see Table 9). Another strategy that companies used to convey team-orientation entailed devoting entire sections of their recruitment websites to discussing the value they placed on teamwork. These sections included testimonials that attested to the value these companies placed on teamwork and also included statements such as most organizational jobs required a high degree of collaboration with co-workers and/or supervisors. Aggressiveness These ndings implied that projecting an aggressive cultural image involved listing past awards won, plans for growth and expansion, and a companys large size (see Table 10). The results also suggested that

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Table 9 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Team-Orientation Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Pictures of people working together, employee testimonials illustrating the importance of teamwork, and a special web page devoted to discussing teamwork. None Geographical dispersion and community involvement Collaborating/working together as a team, recruiting team-oriented employees, accomplishing work using a team-based approach, valuing diversity, and valuing the organization working as a team. None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Team-Orientation

Not applicable

Table 10 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Aggressiveness Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Aggressiveness Subcategories Pictures of people at work and general web page properties. Pay for performance Organizational awards won, general aggressiveness of the recruiting web pages, organization size, and plans for expansion. Competition/winning, striving to be the best/working hard, having a cutting edge, making highly innovative products, valuing innovation, and including relevant sales or production gures on the website. None

Not applicable

citing specic sales and production gures and explicitly mentioning the value placed on winning, competing, striving to be the best, and developing innovative products were important ways of illustrating company aggressiveness. A nal recommendation that can be drawn from these ndings is to provide detailed information to job seekers on pertinent organizational policies, such as performance-based pay systems. Decisiveness Organizations perceived to be decisive made it known that they valued setting clear goals, having low conict among employees, having rules/guidelines in place that governed employee conduct, and that they utilized a systematic approach to accomplishing job-related work tasks

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(see Table 11). These organizations also beneted from supplementing such text with three website design features: (1) pictures that gave the impressions of a structured workplace and/or happy, conict-free workers, (2) employee testimonials that emphasized low conict among employees, and (3) an overall website that was very well organized. Finally, organizations successfully portraying themselves as decisive tended to elaborate on relevant policies they had in place that supported this dimension of culture. Diversity This dimension was best emphasized by making specic references to valuing diversity, having a global workforce community, being an equal opportunity employer, encouraging minority applicants to apply for current job vacancies, and listing advantages associated with diversity in the workplace (see Table 12). Perceptions that companies valued diversity were further accentuated by including pictures of and testimonials from diverse groups of employees on their recruitment websites. Lastly, organizations perceived to value diversity tended to frequently cite statistics on current minority employment (i.e., percentage of minorities constituting the workforce) and fully articulated their organizational policies that supported this aspect of culture. These policies pertained to sponsoring diversity events and offering diversity training to employees.

DISCUSSION The Internet provides organizations with a tool to transmit large amounts of information about the organization to job seekers, yet very
Table 11 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Decisiveness Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Employee testimonials attesting to the conict-free environment, pictures of a structured workplace, pictures of happy, conict-free workers, and an orderly looking website. Lack of value on creativity None Being decisive, having clear goals, valuing low conict, utilizing systematic approaches to work, and having many rules and guidelines on to govern employee conduct. None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Decisiveness

Not applicable

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Table 12 Specic Subcategories into which Participants Responses were Classied for the Diversity Dimension of Culture Five General Categories Website Design Features Subcategories Pictures of diverse people working together, testimonials from a diverse set of employees, statistics on minority employment, and a specic web page/portion of a web page to diversity. Sponsors diversity events (e.g., forums) and diversity training Organization is geographically dispersed and organization has received diversity/minority employment awards. Valuing diversity, having a global community/multiple cultures, being an EEO employer, valuing diverse employees working together, encouraging minority applicants to apply for employment, and the advantages of diversity in the workplace (e.g., creativity). None

Organizational Policy Miscellaneous but Relevant Website Content Specic References to Diversity

Not applicable

little is currently known about the manner in which applicants utilize this information. The current study sought to address this deciency by identifying aspects of recruitment websites that may be related to job seekers organizational culture perceptions. These ndings indicate that website design features (e.g., employee testimonials illustrating teamwork), information about organizational policies (e.g., continuing education programs), specic references to culture dimensions (e.g., the organization values workers who are creative and innovative), and other miscellaneous but relevant website content (e.g., listing of organizational awards won) played an instrumental role in determining what culture perceptions participants associated with the Fortune 500 companies whose websites were used in the current study. Though the percentage of participant responses assigned to the aforementioned categories varied considerably across the nine culture dimensions, there were three common themes that emerged. First, the specic references made about culture dimensions (i.e., content) on a companys website was typically one of the top most cited reasons that participants indicated for associating a particular aspect of culture with a given organization. This trend was true for all culture dimensions, excluding emphasis on rewards. Second, the use of website design features was indicated as being highly important for conveying perceptions of innovation, attention to detail, team orientation, and diversity. Finally, clearly stating relevant organizational policies seemed instrumental for transmitting companies emphases on rewards, supportiveness, and diversity.

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Limitations The ndings of the current study should be interpreted in the context of several limitations. First, this study provided a comparison of the importance of four types of website features and content in conveying each of the nine culture perceptions to study participants, but they do not suggest exact features that need to be included in a companys website to more effectively convey culture dimensions. Second, the studys small undergraduate sample did not likely have much experience searching for long-term career positions even though they may have been more familiar with Internet navigation than a more general population of job applicants. As such, the extent to which the nature of our sample limits our external validity is unknown. Finally, while the forced-choice design used during the interview required participants to carefully consider the sources of their judgments regarding culture, it frequently caused participants to cite some irrelevant reasons to justify why they thought an organizations website led to certain culture impressions. This limitation explains in part why large percentages of participant responses to the nine culture dimensions were assigned to the not applicable categories. Future Research The present study begins to outline website features and content that may be related to the formation of job seekers organizational culture impressions, but much additional research in this area is needed before any denitive conclusions can be drawn. Specically, we hope that future researchers will manipulate portions of websites identied in this study as having a potential impact on viewers perceptions in both controlled laboratory and eld environments. Such studies would permit causal conclusions to be drawn regarding the efcacy of different website features and content for creating various culture perceptions. In addition, research is needed to address the relative effects of organizational culture impressions on applicants job-pursuit intentions when compared to more traditional factors, such as pay and benets. Finally, another promising yet slightly different avenue for future research is to investigate the effectiveness of organizational recruitment websites in attracting top quality applicants relative to traditional recruitment sources (e.g., such as recruiters and newspaper advertisements). It is clear that the Internet will be a signicant source of information for potential job applicants in the future. However, many questions remain regarding the precise role of this medium in the recruitment process.

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