THE EFFECT OF ETHICAL SIGNALS ON RECRUITMENT ...

“There were promises made in the initial interviews that were not lived up to, and
there is no chance of rectifying the situation” (male graduate sports management
major).
Discussion
Results showed that some ethical signals are positively related to organizational
attraction. Specifically, organizational practices were related to attraction at both Time 1
(before the internship) and Time 2 (during the internship); recruitment practices were not
related to attraction. In addition, the relationship between organizational practices and
attraction can be partially explained by the mediating effect of the applicant’s perception
of the organization as ethical. Applicant perceptions play a vital role. How the applicant
views the ethical character of the organization is a variable that should not be overlooked
in today’s research or practice. Ethical signals from the organization provide important
cues to the applicant that they can then generalize to form attributions of the
organization as a whole. Finally, moderation analysis revealed that cognitive moral
development is an important moderator of the organizational practices/attraction
relationship. This is an important finding that supports the prediction that more morally
developed individuals will be more strongly influenced by ethical signals of the
organization.
This research has many implications for signaling theory, ethics, social identity
theory, and the ASA model. The organizational practices that the organization engages
in during the recruitment period act as signals to the applicant. These signals
subsequently affect applicant perceptions of the organization as ethical, which ultimately
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