中国背景下雇主品牌的结构和测量——基于新生代求职者的研究

The Construct and Measurement of Employer Brand:Evidence from Chinese New Generation Job Seekers

雇主品牌是组织管理领域的一个新兴课题,近年来受到了学术界的关注。到目前为止,研究者在其内容结构问题上还未达成一致意见,也未形成一套行之有效、被广泛使用的测量工具。本文基于中国社会情境,以近1000名新生代求职者为研究对象,通过焦点小组访谈、类属分析、探索性和验证性因素分析,考察了雇主品牌的内容结构(研究1),并在此基础上编制了一套测量工具(研究2)。研究发现,雇主品牌包含薪酬福利、价值认可、发展机会、工作-生活有效性和企业标签五方面因素。基于此模型编制的量表具有良好的测量学指标,可供后续研究使用。总体来看,本文发现的五因素模型与以往研究既有相似性又有不同点,本文的研究结果在一定程度上丰富了雇主品牌的内容结构和测量,对组织管理实践也有一定的启示意义。

Due to the current quantitative and qualitative shortages on talents, the attractiveness of organiza- tions has become increasingly important. Especially in the knowledge economy era, the competition for the talent is a critical challenge for Chinese organizations. Since the new generation （i. e. , 80s＇ and 90s＇ generations） has be- come the main part in the labor force market, competition on new generation job seekers becomes more intense. Employer brand, as a tool of attracting and retaining the talent, has been an important topic in organization and management research. Employer brand is defined as individual＇s perceptions of what is distinctive, central, and enduring about the organization as a place to work. Despite a large number of studies, there was still no agree- ment on its construct and the underlying measurement. Prior research addressing the construct issue had two main limitations. First, according to product/service brand construct, they took for granted that employer brand should be divided into functional and symbolic factors, paying no attention to the long-term dependency nature of employee in employment relations. Second, most studies did not consider the influence of social contexts on employer brand construct. Although some Chinese researchers have questioned the generalizability of Western model in China, there was little effort addressing this issue in a particular culture and population context. To address these issues, this study, by using Chinese new generation job seekers as research sample, investigated the construct of employer brand and developed a measurement scale to assess the construct. Study 1 was a qualitative study. Using 4 focus groups （29 job seekers） interviews and categorization analysis, the study revealed that employer brand was a five-dimensional concept which included compensation and benefits, value recognition, opportunity for development, work-life effectiveness and company label. Drawing on the finding, study 2 further quantitatively developed a 64 item measurement scale capturing the 5 dimensions. Through 3 round psychometric examinations on about 1000 job seekers from 10 universities from Beijing and Wuhan, the adequate construct validity and reliability of the scale have been extensively confirmed, leading to a scale could be used in future research. Consistent with prior findings, compensation and benefits, value recognition, and opportunity for development were found to be important factors of employer brand in the current study. However, different from previous re- search, our study demonstrated that Chinese new generation job seekers cared more about work-life effectiveness in- stead of work-life balance. In addition, job seekers did not regard symbolic factors such as innovation, and robust, but did regard company label such as leadership, ownership, and company reputation as essential factors of employ- er brand. Generally, the current study expanded employer brand research by exploring the constructs and measure- ment scale for a particular population in the Chinese context. With respect to practical implication, our results show that our 5 dimensions framework can be applied to better understand employer brand in Chinese context, especially for new generalization job seekers. Therefore, organizations should create and change their employer brand to at- tract the right employees. The study was not without limitations. First, researchers might miss some useful and unique information during the coding and categorization analysis process. Second, since the sample in the study did not have real job seeking experience, it was possible that the findings based on this sample were biased. Regarding the limitations, future study should use real job seekers as research sample to reexamine and revise our findings. Also we suggest that more efforts should be taken to explain why there existed differences on the construct and dimensions of employer brand in different contexts. Finally, we call for more investigations on the role of employer brand in influencing pro- spective, potential and current employees＇ attitudinal and behavioral consequences.