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Corporate Storytelling in External Employer Branding. Investigating the Effects of Employee Testimonials, and Employee Images with Eye Contact Cues in LinkedIn Vacancy Endorsement Posts

Kogel, Merle (2020) Corporate Storytelling in External Employer Branding. Investigating the Effects of Employee Testimonials, and Employee Images with Eye Contact Cues in LinkedIn Vacancy Endorsement Posts.

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Abstract:This research analyses the effectiveness of common storytelling elements in job vacancy endorsement posts on SNS on students and young professionals by evaluating their effect on the brand equity outcomes intention to apply, perceived organizational attractiveness and electronic-word-of-mouth. Two corporate story elements, an employee testimonial, and an employee image with eye contact cues, were chosen. A LinkedIn vacancy endorsement post for a fictive organization was created and manipulated with both elements in a 2x2 design, yielding four conditions. An additional control condition was created, containing an informative text without storytelling elements. 184 respondents between 18 and 28 were chosen from various sources, and randomly exposed to one of the five conditions in an online questionnaire. Nearly all respondents recognized the manipulations, but the analysis, showed no significant effect. This may be due to limitations of the study material and general design. The created posts were less vivid, hence, engaging, than content typically found on SNS, e.g., due to the lack of video. Moreover, the study did not consider background and motivation of the participants. Consequently, no concrete advice can be given to practitioners yet. However, this work stresses again that storytelling on SNS needs and deserves more research attention, while also providing many promising starting points.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:05 communication studies
Programme:Communication Studies BSc (56615)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/81623
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