Organization Science Vol. 35 No. 1 2024
Recruiting Talent Through Entrepreneurs’ Social Vision Communication
Abstract
For-profit social ventures are proliferating. They often communicate social visions, presenting an ideal future where the ventures resolve environmental or societal issues. We study whether social vision communication helps a startup to recruit talent—a fundamental problem for growth. We argue that jobseekers are less likely to apply to ventures communicating a social vision as they perceive reduced career advancement opportunities. We conducted two complementary studies to test our theory. Study 1 enlisted data from a job board for startups to show that ventures communicating a social vision receive 46.3% fewer job applications. Study 2 replicated this finding in a field experiment that further reveals the underlying mechanism: social vision communication limits jobseekers’ perceived career advancement opportunities. Both studies show that higher remuneration can compensate the negative effect of social vision communication. Our findings advance research on purpose-driven organizations, human resources, entrepreneurship, and vision communication to caution entrepreneurs against social vision communication as a recruitment strategy.
- DOI
- 10.1287/orsc.2023.1671
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 326-345
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref