“Like will to like” or “opposites attract”? Management board diversity affects employer attractiveness

Abstract

Purpose How diversity in management boards affects employer attractiveness has yet to be fully clarified. This paper aims to contrast the two main theoretical rationales – similarity attraction and diversity attraction – and examines whether potential employees are more attracted to an organization with a homogenous board (in terms of gender and ethnicity) or to an organization with a diverse board. Design/methodology/approach Participants (N = 629) were simultaneously presented with two pictures of management boards, whereby the gender and ethnic composition of the boards were manipulated. Moreover, to examine whether social desirability influences the ratings of an organization’s attractiveness, survey anonymity was varied using an indirect questioning technique. Findings The findings supported the diversity attraction rationale: organizations with gender-balanced, multicultural boards were seen as more attractive than organizations with monolithic boards. However, this effect seemed to be influenced – at least partially – by social desirability. Research limitations/implications Additional research is needed to examine the extents to which people care about the degree of similarity between themselves and a management board. Practical implications The findings illustrate board composition as an employer branding strategy. Specifically, the results indicate that an organization can benefit from a diverse management board when this information is communicated to applicants. Social implications People’s attitudes toward organizations with diverse boards seem – in part – to be rooted in their motivation to comply with social norms. Originality/value Theoretical accounts (similarity attraction theory vs diversity attraction) lead to somewhat contradicting predictions, and the available empirical evidence was rather indirect and correlational. This study provides a controlled empirical investigation contrasting the two contradicting predictions.

On the influence of gender quotas on the employer attractiveness of companies – Do the means harm the ends?

“…Since job applicants seek a work environment that shares their values (Schreurs et al, 2009), the diversity climate prevailing in the company might mainly affect people who attach importance to a diverse work environment (Avery et al, 2013). In contrast, other studies find no moderating effect of attitudes regarding diversity on attractiveness (Schäpers et al, 2021). Again, future studies are needed to identify possible moderators.…”

“…This includes managing and promoting diversity. For example, Schäpers et al (2021) showed that people perceive a gender-diverse board as more attractive than a homogeneously male or a homogeneously female board. In line with this, a positive diversity climate improves workrelated engagement, job performance and job satisfaction (McKay et al, 2008).…”

“…The company paid good salaries. The description of NEVONUM was kept as vague as possible to elicit interest from participants with a wide variety of study or professional backgrounds (for similar examples, see Windscheid et al, 2016;Schäpers et al, 2021).…”

“…Notably, various researchers (Iseke and Pull, 2019; Schäpers et al , 2021) found that gender-diverse boards are more attractive to potential applicants than gender-homogeneous boards. However, the impact of gender quotas on employer attractiveness has not yet been studied.…”

Women on corporate boards in a predominantly male-dominated society: the case of Peru

“…The second most analyzed topic is the relationship between women’s presence on corporate boards and corporate social responsibility (Biswas et al , 2021; Dang et al , 2021; Mansoor and Ali, 2018). Other studies analyzed the boards’ strategic control (Nielsen and Huse, 2010), corporate sustainability (Galbreath, 2011), corporate governance (Abdullah et al , 2016), efficiency (Ramly et al , 2017), corporate reputation (Inamdar and Nagendra, 2017), corporate environmental actions (Gong et al , 2021), effects on agency costs (Amin et al , 2021), cost of debt (Kamil and Appiah, 2021), adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Cicchiello et al , 2021) and employer attractiveness (Schäpers et al , 2021).…”