Project background and research questions
The proliferation of digital technologies has been substantially changing many human resource management (HRM) functions resulting in both new challenges and opportunities for companies.
Importantly, in the field of recruitment, potential job applicants now expect to find career, recruitment, and further company information on corporate websites, social media, and employee review platforms (e.g., Glassdoor, kununu).
Building on our prior work on recruitment and employer branding (e.g., Moser, Tumasjan & Cable, 2020; Theurer, Tumasjan, Welpe & Lievens, 2018; Tumasjan, Kunze, Bruch, & Welpe, 2020), we investigate the following research questions:
- Employer review platforms and company reactions: How do company reactions to employer review postings influence subsequent reviews? How can companies react to postings on employer review platforms?
- Employer review platforms and third party employment branding (TPEB): How do employees portray their work experience on employer review platforms in terms of content and style? Which employer attributes are emphasized in employer reviews and which implications does that have for companies’ own employer brand management?
- Employer websites and employer branding: How do companies communicate their employer image via their websites (projected employer image)? How does this projected employer image differ from the potential applicants’ perceived employer image as reflected on employer review platforms?
Approach
In all three projects, we collect and analyze large data sets and use natural language (NLP) processing techniques for analyzing employer review platform and company website texts. In projects 1 and 2, we analyze more than half a million reviews from the employer review platform Kununu using topic modeling and dictionary-based approaches to quantitative text analysis. In project 3, we develop a novel dictionary to analyze the employment webpages of 461 Fortune 500 companies comprising more than 11,100 individual pages containing more than 4 million words.
Project publications and conference presentations
Spreng, S., Braun, R., & Tumasjan, A. (2020). Investor personality and success in venture capital. 80th Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, USA.
Tumasjan, A., Braun, R., & Stolz, B. (2019). Give me a signal: How sentiment and patents drive venture capital valuations. 79th Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Stolz, B., Braun, R. & Tumasjan, A. (2018) Venture capital investments in technology-based startups: Hype or sustainable success. G-Forum: 22nd Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs, Stuttgart, Germany.
References
Moser, K. J., Tumasjan, A., & Cable, D. (2020). Don't be so emotional: How social media communication affects potential applicants' engagement. Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS2020).
Theurer, C., Tumasjan, A., Welpe, I. M., & Lievens, F. (2018). Employer branding: A brand equity-based literature review and research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(1), 155-179.
Tumasjan, A., Kunze, F., Bruch, H. & Welpe., I. M. (2020). Linking employer branding orientation and firm performance: Testing a dual mediation route of recruitment efficiency and positive affective climate. Human Resource Management, 59(1), 83-99.
Project Team