Conference Agenda

Overview

Employer branding is crucial for recruitment, particularly in public organizations facing increased competition (Jakobsen, Løkke, and Keppeler 2023; Lievens and Slaughter 2016). While employer branding typically improves the positioning of public organizations in the labor market (Keppeler and Papenfuß 2023), they often fail to make use of this opportunity (e.g., Vogel, Döring, and Sievert 2024). Since recruiters play a crucial role in implementing several employer branding measures and communication, we focus on their role in creating job advertisements. Overall, we apply two complementary perspectives, allowing an assessment of 1) the content of job advertisements and 2) the role that recruiter play in creating this content.

RQ1: Which employer branding signals are featured in public sector job advertisements?

RQ2: How do recruiters implement employer branding signals in job advertisements?

We approach the research questions with two empirical studies, both focusing on employer branding signals in job advertisements. The findings will contribute to the employer branding literature in public administration research and offer practical recommendations.

Study 1: Content Analysis of Existing Job Advertisements

Study 1 approaches RQ1 by conducting a content analysis (De Cooman and Pepermans 2012) of existing public sector job advertisements from Germany, assessing the extent to which employer branding elements are integrated. Following previous empirical studies (e.g., Elving et al. 2013), this study identifies key employer branding signals using thematic content analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). By coding a representative sample of advertisements from public organizations (sampled from a database of N ≈ 500.000 job advertisements), Study 1 provides a baseline understanding of current employer branding signals featured in real recruitment processes.

Study 2: Survey Experiment on Recruiters’ Role in Employer Branding

Study 2 approaches RQ2 by examining the extent and manner in which public sector recruiters integrate employer branding into job advertisements. In a survey-based study with a sample of German public sector recruiters (N ≈ 7,000), participants will be explicitly tasked with including employer branding signals into job advertisements. We plan to randomly assign participants to treatment conditions modifying the pre-existing job advertisement texts. Different groups will face variations of pre-defined text passages (so-called “boilerplate text”), e.g., limiting their freedom in including employer branding signals into the job advertisement. The degree of employer branding integration will be assessed qualitatively (content of in-text modifications) and quantitatively (extent of in-text modifications). The analysis allows combining different elements, the primary aim is to combine Natural Language Processing with multivariate statistics.

References

Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.

Cooman, Rein De, and Roland Pepermans. 2012. “Portraying Fitting Values in Job Advertisements.” Personnel Review 41 (2): 216–32. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483481211200042.

Elving, Wim J.L., Jorinde J.C. Westhoff, Kelta Meeusen, and Jan Willem Schoonderbeek. 2013. “The War for Talent the Relevance of Employer Branding in Job Advertisements for Becoming an Employer of Choice.” Journal of Brand Management 20 (5): 355–73. https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2012.21.

Jakobsen, Mette, Ann‐Kristina Løkke, and Florian Keppeler. 2023. “Facing the Human Capital Crisis: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Recruitment and Selection in the Public Sector.” Public Administration Review 83 (6): 1635–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13733.

Keppeler, Florian, and Ulf Papenfuß. 2023. “Employer Value Propositions for Different Target Groups and Organizational Types in the Public Sector: Theory and Evidence From Field Experiments.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 43 (4): 701–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X221121050.

Lievens, Filip, and Jerel E. Slaughter. 2016. “Employer Image and Employer Branding: What We Know and What We Need to Know.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 3 (1): 407–40. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062501.

Theurer, Christian P., Andranik Tumasjan, Isabell M. Welpe, and Filip Lievens. 2018. “Employer Branding: A Brand Equity-Based Literature Review and Research Agenda.” International Journal of Management Reviews 20 (1): 155–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12121.

Vogel, Dominik, Matthias Döring, and Martin Sievert. 2024. “Motivational Signals in Public Sector Job Advertisements and How They Relate to Attracting and Hiring Candidates.” Public Management Review 26 (10): 2868–2900. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2023.2291068.

Recent scholarship has investigated the relevance of job advertisements’ content in attracting and hiring candidates in public organizations (e.g., Vogel et al., 2023), but research rarely investigated how organizations craft their job offerings (Jakobsen et al., 2023). Given the current considerable workforce shortage in the public sector (e.g., Jakobsen et al., 2023) and pressing calls for strategizing human resource management (HRM) in the public sector (Sowa, 2020), we focus on advertisements’ crafting as indicating strategic changes in labor market communication by asking to what extent public and private organizations adapt their recruitment practices in tight labor markets.

In our study, we aim to identify job market tightness by considering the ratio between vacancies and job seekers in a given area (Forsythe et al., 2022). We expect tighter markets, namely when the number of job seekers is lower, or alternatively the number of vacancies is higher, will produce changes in HRM practices in organizations to increase their competitiveness in the labor market (Whipp, 1991). For example, organizations might work on their HRM offering, either substantively by increasing compensation and benefits or symbolically by emphasizing career and development opportunities (Knies et al., 2022). Alternatively, they might work on their employer branding efforts (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004). We provide a set of hypotheses on different changes in recruitment strategies. This understanding helps identify proactive behaviors and potentially highlights areas of concern, e.g., where public organizations do not adapt to changing labor markets.

We aim to answer this research question by investigating the hiring processes of nurses in European countries. While tighter labor markets were already years in the making (Knies et al., 2022), COVID-19 disruptions have exacerbated the problem, particularly in the healthcare sector (Walshe et al., 2024). The regulated nature of the nursing profession makes it a valuable empirical setting to reduce concerns over concurring change processes, for example, in production functions. In addition, their work is similar in public and private sector organizations, representing an opportunity to meaningfully compare organizations across sectors. We will employ a comprehensive proprietary dataset collecting job advertisements across different sources, covering European job markets for nurses (employed also, for e.g., in Dillender, 2020; Felten et al., 2021), and providing extracted information, such as skills requirements. The study intends to employ a quasi-experimental design, either comparing nursing to healthcare professions that are not in shortage or comparing geographical areas before and after their local labor market tightened.

 

References

Backhaus, K., & Tikoo, S. (2004). Conceptualizing and researching employer branding. Career Development International, 9(5), 501–517. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430410550754

Dillender, M. (2020). How Do Medicaid Expansions Affect the Demand for Health Care Workers? Evidence from Vacancy Postings. Journal of Human Resources. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.57.4.0719-10340R1

Felten, E., Raj, M., & Seamans, R. (2021). Occupational, industry, and geographic exposure to artificial intelligence: A novel dataset and its potential uses. Strategic Management Journal, 42(12), 2195–2217. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3286

Forsythe, E., Kahn, L. B., Lange, F., & Wiczer, D. (2022). Where have all the workers gone? Recalls, retirements, and reallocation in the COVID recovery. Labour Economics, 78, 102251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102251

Jakobsen, M., Løkke, A., & Keppeler, F. (2023). Facing the human capital crisis: A systematic review and research agenda on recruitment and selection in the public sector. Public Administration Review, 83(6), 1635–1648. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13733

Knies, E., Borst, R. T., Leisink, P., & Farndale, E. (2022). The distinctiveness of public sector HRM: A four-wave trend analysis. Human Resource Management Journal, 32(4), 799–825. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12440

Sowa, J. E. (2020). Reinvigorating the Spirit of Strategic Human Resource Management. Public Personnel Management, 49(3), 331–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026020930768

Vogel, D., Döring, M., & Sievert, M. (2023). Motivational signals in public sector job advertisements and how they relate to attracting and hiring candidates. Public Management Review, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2023.2291068

Whipp, R. (1991). Human resource management, strategic change and competition: The role of learning. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2(2), 165–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585199100000056

Walshe, K., Smith, J., Lamont, T., & Leary, A. (2024). Workforce research priorities for resilience to future health shocks—And the workforce crisis. BMJ, e078997. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-078997

One of the most prominent traits in Western democracies over the last decades has been a steady increase in political fragmentation and polarization. As top managers in the public sector often work close to elected politicians, and it is those politicians that for many top managers decide recruitment and dismissals, characteristics of the political sphere are essential in understanding why managers stay or leave their job. Rooted in the theory of professional public managers, we study chief executive officers (CEOs) in Norway, their intentions to leave the job and actual turnover, and how and whether this is related to political conflict and fragmentation. Political fragmentation refers to the diversity of political parties and politicians in the legislative and/or executive political sphere, and to their relative strength and ideological distance. Political conflict and polarization is measured by mapping how CEOs in Norwegian municipalities perceive the current situation in the municipal council. One survey mapping intentions to leave the job as well as individual characteristics like age and tenure conducted among all CEOs in Norway in 2020 (population size = 354, responded = 206, response rate = 58), was coupled with national statistics on political fragmentation, municipal size, and municipal economy. Moreover, we mapped whether the CEOs still occupied the position 1, 2 3 and 4 years after the survey. Intentions to quit the job are thus coupled with actual turnover, something that is rather rare in the study of turnover in general. Using Cox regressions to estimate survival probability over the years, political conflict, political fragmentation and CEO intentions to leave are used as predictors of actual turnover. The preliminary findings indicate a strong positive effect of turnover intentions on actual turnover, although the relationship is far from perfect. Additional analyses were conducted to scrutinize characteristics of the respondents displaying mismatch between intentions to leave and actual turnover (intent on quitting/not quitting, and not intent on quitting/actually quitting).  

Diversity in boards of directors has been widely seen in the public sector and beyond as a means to improve organisational decision-making and performance, including in relation to employee-level outcomes (An, 2022; Aversano et al., 2023; Evans et al., 2025). However, faultline theory suggests that diversity as separation, where board directors are socially divided into distinctive subgroups, can create polarized boards and negatively affect their functioning (Lau & Murnighan, 1998). From a social categorization perspective, diversity in groups disrupts team effectiveness as categorization happens “when a group is split into homogenous subgroups that differ from one another…and each faction will feel like it is facing a monolithic adversary” (Veltrop et al., 2015; 146).

Social Information Processing (SIP) theory posits that power groups such as governing boards can significantly influence individuals’ sense-making within organisations (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). Specifically, organisational employees form perceptions and adopt behaviours based on cues from referent groups with higher power or status, i.e. board directors or top management team members (Hambrick & Lovelace, 2018). Since board directors not only “do” things but also “stand” for things (Raes et al., 2022, 2), in the presence of faultlines these relational and symbolic mechanisms lead to a plethora of issues for board functioning. This can make them being perceived as fragmented and dysfunctional and, consequently, negatively influence the perceptions and behaviours of the organisational workforce. In essence, board faultlines have the potential to increase the likelihood of staff intention to leave their organisation.

Drawing on insights from SIP, this study investigates the negative impact of board faultlines on employee turnover in public sector organisations. Based on 5 years of data (2018-2022) related to 184 English NHS acute care hospitals, the analysis shows that the presence of factional (gender-related) demographic and task-related (linked to managerial experience) board faultlines is associated with higher levels of employee turnover. Furthermore, given the “substantial influence” of the CEO over the board of directors, especially in a one-tier board structure (Boivie et al., 2021, 1687), similar to Georgakakis et al., (2017) and Mendiratta & Tasheva, (2025), we test whether a more effective functioning of the board, including in the presence of faultlines, is influence by the interface between the CEO and the other board members. This additional analysis reveals that two dimensions – relational (gender-related) and functional (based on managerial experience) – of the CEO-board interface significantly attenuate the negative effect of board faultlines on employee turnover.

Thus, the study contributes to the public sector literature on strategic leadership by showing how the structure and composition of governing boards can impact organisational-level outcomes like staff turnover.

The public sector is characterized by many organizational changes and reforms that occur due to deliberate actions or natural developments (Kuipers et al., 2014; Rainey, 2014). Such changes can influence employees’ presenteeism (Krøtel & Løkke, 2023), i.e., working in the state of ill-health (Ruhle et al., 2020), and absenteeism (Løkke & Sørensen, 2021). While existing studies often analyze change at the organizational level, this paper studies unit level changes (organizational development courses). Based on an analysis over time, we study the relationships between presenteeism, absenteeism and relevant employee outcomes: How do job satisfaction, job stress, absenteeism and presenteeism evolve before, during, and after unit level changes, and how do job satisfaction and job stress relate to absenteeism and presenteeism during these changes?

While it is well understood that absenteeism and presenteeism are influenced by health-related and motivational pathways (Miraglia & Johns, 2016), the specific mechanisms through which these pathways work during changes remain unclear. It is plausible that work stress increases, and job satisfaction decreases due to uncertainty about the expected outcomes of changes and their potential impact on job situations (Bordia et al., 2004; Schweiger & Denisi, 1991).

We base our theoretical framework on organizational change literature (e.g., Oreg et al., 2011) as well as the “dual-path model of presenteeism“ (Miraglia & Johns, 2016), which explains how different work characteristics relate to job satisfaction, health, presenteeism and absenteeism.

The empirical setting is the Danish police and prosecution. This is a relevant case, because organizational changes tend to lead to conflicts and deteriorating health in this sector (Molines et al., 2020). Our sample consists of 1,600 employees without managerial responsibility who have participated in a unit level intervention (joint training of managers and employees).

The data consists of three waves of questionnaires collected right before, right after and one year after the intervention combined with sickness absence register data. To analyze the associations, we employ panel data regresssions with dummy variables for field officers, desk officers and prosecution.

The results indicate that employees are more present while sick and less absent due to sickness during the organizational change, but that absenteeism and presenteeism adjust back to the original level one year after the change. Both absenteeism and presenteeism are positively associated with stress and negatively associated with job satisfaction during organizational change, indicating that public managers should pay extra attention to these phenomena during changes at the unit level.

References

Bordia, P., Hunt, E., Paulsen, N., Tourish, D., & DiFonzo, N. (2004). Uncertainty during organizational change: Is it all about control? European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 13(3), 345-365. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320444000128

Krøtel, S. M. L., & Løkke, A.-K. (2023). Organizational changes in the public sector and employee presenteeism: Does (change) leadership matter? Public Management Review. https://doi.org/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14719037.2023.2283111

Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van Der Voet, J. (2014). The management of change in public organizations: a literature review. Public Administration, 92(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12040

Løkke, A.-K., & Sørensen, K. L. (2021). Top management turnover and its effect on employee absenteeism: understanding the process of change. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 41(4), 723-746. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x20931911

Miraglia, M., & Johns, G. (2016). Going to work ill: a meta-analysis of the correlates of presenteeism and a dual-path model. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 21(3), 261-283. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000015

Molines, M., El Akremi, A., Storme, M., & Celik, P. (2020). Beyond the tipping point: the curvilinear relationships of transformational leadership, leader–member exchange, and emotional exhaustion in the French police. Public Management Review, 24(1), 80-105. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1795231

Oreg, S., Vakola, M., & Armenakis, A. (2011). Change recipients’ reactions to organizational change. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(4), 461-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886310396550

Rainey, H. G. (2014). Understanding and managing public organizations. Jossey-Bass.

Ruhle, S. A., Breitsohl, H., Aboagye, E., Baba, V., Biron, C., Correia Leal, C., Dietz, C., Ferreira, A. I., Gerich, J., Johns, G., Karanika-Murray, M., Lohaus, D., Løkke, A., Lopes, S. L., Martinez, L. F., Miraglia, M., Muschalla, B., Poethke, U., Sarwat, N., Schade, H., Steidelmüller, C., Vinberg, S., Whysall, Z., & Yang, T. (2020). “To work, or not to work, that is the question” – Recent trends and avenues for research on presenteeism. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 29(3), 344-363. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432x.2019.1704734

Schweiger, D. M., & Denisi, A. S. (1991). Communication with employees following a merger: a longitudinal field experiment. Academy of Management Journal, 34(1), 110-135.

Today’s evolving landscape of public human resource management, characterized by rapid technological change and information overload, demands effective decision-making from HR professionals. It requires shifting towards an attitude scrutinizing what works in practice. This is where evidence-based human resource management (EBHRM) enters. Despite this need, a persistent gap exists between academic research and practical application in human resource management (Bailey, 2022). This study investigates the role of EBHRM as a potential bridge between academics and HR-professionals in the Flemish government. Our research addresses three key questions: (1) Which institutional and individual factors affect academic-practice collaboration? (2) How are EBHRM and the collaboration between academics and HR-practitioners interrelated? (3) To what extent can EBHRM serve as a bridging mechanism between practitioners and academics? This study extends beyond previous research by examining individual and institutional factors of the academic-practice gap while positioning EBHRM as a potential solution.

The academic-practice gap entails several aspects, such as knowledge transfer and knowledge production (Paauwe & Van de Voorde, 2025). This study addresses whether EBHRM can enhance academic-practice collaboration (Bleijenbergh et al., 2021; Grafström et al., 2023; Guerci et al., 2019). We examine to what extent EBHRM has a mediating role regarding the institutional and individual-related factors influencing this collaboration.

Methodologically, we employed a cross-sectional survey targeting HR professionals and middle management within the Flemish government administration. The survey was conducted online (2024), yielding 424 responses from an initial pool of 677 potential participants, with 288 completing the survey. The results reveal there are mediations of EBHRM regarding both institutional and individual factors affecting academic-practice collaboration. First, a positive relation between an evidence-based working environment (institutional factor), and a positive attitude towards EBHRM (individual factor), is found with the collaboration between academics and practitioners. Second, concerning these concrete factors, the findings reveal a mediated effect of EBHRM on the relationship between institutional and individual factors and academic-practice collaboration. Third, the study examined the moderated mediation effect of the work environment and the attitude towards EBHRM regarding adopting EBHRM to academic-practice collaboration. This resulted in significant effects regarding the use of external evidence, among others, evidence from scientific research.

The findings contribute to understanding how public organizations can effectively translate academic knowledge into practical applications within specific institutional contexts and including individual factors, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of human resource management practices.