In The Eyes of Job Seekers: The Impacts of ESG on Organizational Reputation and Attractiveness

Abstract

This study aims to explore the relationship between ESG and organizational reputation and attractiveness in the eyes of job seekers covering newly graduates and current employees in Taiwan. Drawing upon signaling theory and social identity theory, we investigate the environmental, social, and governance issues, respectively, and ESG as a whole as the drivers of organizational attractiveness, especially in the eyes of job seekers. To this end, we adopted a deductive approach to finalize the 34-item ESG measurement. Next, we collected data from 106 participants, including 49 students about to graduate or social freshmen looking for work and 57 current employees. Our findings indicate that (1) environmental issue, social issue, governance issue, and ESG as a whole are positively and significantly related to organizational reputation, respectively, (2) organizational reputation is the critical linkage between environmental issue, social issue, governance issue, and ESG as a whole, respectively, and organizational attractiveness, and (3) organizational reputation, rather than organizational attractiveness, is an underlying mechanism in the relationships as mentioned above. This study contributes to the current ESG literature by revealing the significant implications for organizations concerning ESG implementation and organizational attractiveness.