THE EFFECT OF ETHICAL SIGNALS ON RECRUITMENT ...

environment. This provides support for Hypothesis 6a. Hypothesis 6b stated that there
would be a three-way interaction among recruitment practices, SIMI, and performance.
Table 9 reports the results for this interaction, which is not significant F(2, 610) = 1.03,
n.s. Hypothesis 6b is not supported.
Hypotheses 7a and 7b explore a similar 3-way interaction with CMD.
Hypothesis 7a predicted that there would be a three-way interaction among
organizational practices, CMD, and performance. This hypothesis was not substantiated,
F(2, 610) = 2.06, n.s. Finally, Hypothesis 7b predicted that there would be a 3-way
interaction among recruitment practices, CMD, and performance. Table 9 shows that
this relationship was not significant F(2, 610) = .08, n.s. Therefore, Hypothesis 7b was
not supported.
Discussion
Study 2, a rigorous laboratory study, found that ethical signals are related to
organizational attraction; the main effects were supported. In addition, findings suggest
that perception of the organization as ethical partially mediates the relationship between
organizational practices and attraction. This is important to understanding why ethical
signals affect organizational attraction. Ethical signals affect applicant perceptions, and
perceptions, in turn, affect applicant attraction to the organization.
As in Study 1, Study 2 provides additional evidence that the integration of
signaling theory and ethics will further our understanding of these two streams of
research both independently and simultaneously. In addition, it supports the idea that in
addition to other signals, organizations send “ethical signals” to applicants during the
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