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Article

The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention

Department of Management, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(2), 1167; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021167
Submission received: 2 December 2022 / Revised: 5 January 2023 / Accepted: 6 January 2023 / Published: 8 January 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Consumption Culture and Sustainability Discourses)

Abstract

:
A critical sustainability task is to communicate an organization’s sustainability values in a manner which yields favorable new hire perceptions and involvement. However, factors influencing the impact of sustainability messaging on new hire perceptions remain unexplored to the authors’ knowledge. This exploratory study explores these factors using an experimental vignette study design in which signal costliness and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were manipulated in the administration of a hypothetical new employee orientation presentation. The findings suggest that conditions in which extrinsic motivating factors were noted as the reason for organizational sustainability yielded higher perceived credibility and involvement intention among respondents. More costly sustainability messaging was detrimental to the perceived message credibility and employee involvement intentions.

1. Introduction

As companies continue to integrate sustainable initiatives as a strategic focus, their communications to new hires must adapt accordingly. Extant research shows the importance of recruitment and selection practices in attracting and hiring a workforce with sustainability values that align with the organization [1,2]. By showcasing an organizational commitment to sustainability through their recruitment processes, prospective employees are signaled to embrace the organization’s long-term commitment to sustainability [3]. However, the authors are unaware of any extant research examining organizational sustainability communications to newly hired employees.
Orientation programs represent “a systematic organizational effort to attract, retain, and develop competent and committed human resources” [4]. As such, they are a critical opportunity to imbue new hires with the company’s sustainability values. Messaging and content within such programs transcend simple communication of the duties and responsibilities of jobs to begin the socialization process for employees as to the organization’s values and organizational culture [5,6,7,8]. As such, orientation messaging and programs are critical to illustrating organizational values and expectations to new employees, and also serve to create an opportunity for enhanced employee engagement in sustainability through reduced ambiguity as well as strengthened organizational identity [6,9,10,11]. In order for such new hire sustainability messaging to serve its intended orientation purpose, it must be perceived as accurate, credible, and worthy of involvement by employees [12,13]. However, new hire orientation programs are an overlooked avenue (in both research and practice) through which organizations can convey sustainability messaging effectively to new hires [14,15]. This study draws from signaling theory to consider the potential impact of organizational sustainability messaging content and emphasis on the orientation context on new hire credibility perceptions and intent to be involved.

2. Theory and Hypotheses

2.1. New Hire Orientations

As noted previously, the purpose of new hire orientation practices is generally to inform new hires about the organization in a way that will yield a higher sense of engagement and involvement [16]. Toward this end, orientation messaging tends to be structured such that new hires gain a better idea of their company’s purpose and history, their role in the company, where to go for necessary resources, and how they can do their job well [17,18]. By presenting onboarding information that is necessary for employees to understand their purpose and do their job well, ambiguity and frustration are minimized [19]. Such messaging has been shown to yield higher engagement and lower turnover among new hires [20].
New hire messaging and orientations are also a noteworthy opportunity for organizations to shape their organizational identity, or at least an image of it among its newest members [21,22]. It may take an employee significant working time to amass the observation required to form an organic understanding of their organization’s key qualities and characteristics [23]. New hire orientation programs create concentrated time in which organizational leadership conveys what they believe to be the organization’s most important qualities through carefully chosen messaging. In this way, new hire orientations serve to orient new employees as well as create initial perceptions among employees about who the organization is, and how their careers within the organization might develop [24,25].
This identity-creation component of new hire orientation messaging presents a unique challenge. Whereas the practical, everyday job-focused orientation components can be communicated at face value (e.g., how to log safety incidents, where to file grievances, etc.), the identity-constructing components (i.e., who we are, what we stand for, etc.) necessitate interpretation by the newly hired employee. It is up to the employee to determine the credibility of such messages and to consider the extent to which they wish to engage in the ongoing co-creation of this organizational identity [26,27]. Organizational leadership therefore faces the challenge of informing new employees of the organization’s abstract values in a way that is perceived to be credible and which will yield employee engagement in the constant co-creation of an organizational identity. This study draws from signaling theory to further consider how and why this may occur.

2.2. Signaling Theory

At the heart of the signaling theory paradigm is information asymmetry, or the notion that two parties may not know everything about one another. This information asymmetry is especially salient when one party would like to know about another’s characteristics or behavioral intent in order to form some opinion or make a decision [28]. Signals are messages sent from one party (i.e., the signaler) to another (i.e., the receiver) in order to reduce this information asymmetry in a way that will yield a receiver response that benefits the signaler. Because the signaler has access to both positive and negative private information, signalers tend to selectively choose to signal that information which will be perceived favorably by the receiver and yield desirable consequences for the signaler [29].
Signaling theory suggests signals are perceived as more meaningful and credible if they are observable and costly [30]. The observability component is obvious: signals cannot operate as intended unless they are noticed by the receiver. This presents a reasonable explanation for why some companies choose to illustrate their organizational identity to new hires during orientation processes: because the new hire is a relatively captive audience. Costliness, on the other hand, has garnered much more research interest because it deals with the content of a given signal. A signal is costly when it requires significant resources to produce, or when it yields significant costs (i.e., financial, legal, or reputational) if falsified [31].
The application of signaling theory to understand sustainability messaging from organization-to-employee has been extremely limited. Research on virtue signaling in consumer behavior at the individual level has examined relationships with conspicuous consumption and social comparisons [32,33,34,35], noting individual (and often self-serving) correlates of virtuous consumption behavior. Signaling theory in the human resource literature has examined sustainability messaging with current employees, demonstrating relationships with job satisfaction and organizational pride [36]. Signaling theory in the human capital sourcing literature has to date been limited to an examination of the employee recruitment function, and it indicates costly signals of organizational attractiveness strengthen applicant attraction outcomes, although few moderators have been examined [37]. As such, signaling theory indicates promise in linking organizational sustainability efforts to individual outcomes in that it motivates individual behavioral outcomes (virtuous consumption behavior) and enhances organizational attractiveness. This research explores this nexus, and the potential effectiveness of costly organizational sustainability signaling on new hires’ individual-level reactions and responses.

2.3. Signal Costliness in Organizational Sustainability Messaging

In the present study, we are concerned with those signals sent from organizations to new hires which are intended to communicate the organization’s sustainability values in a way that will yield favorable new hire perceptions and involvement. As such, this study focuses on the signal costliness component with the understanding that the mandated nature of new hire orientations provides a significant level of observability. Rather than focus on whether it is “good” or “bad” for a company to signal sustainability values to new hires, this study examines the content of such messages to consider which may be perceived as more or less credible and which may yield more or less involvement.
Costliness in the form of sustainability value messaging to orientees expresses the extent to which the organization’s sustainability efforts have come at significant cost or would result in significant cost if falsified. Organizational leadership must choose their orientation messages carefully. Not all information about an organization will be useful toward communicating its sustainability values, and some may be directly conflicting or even detrimental [38]. Furthermore, sustainability is an abstract concept without strong commonly accepted parameters [39]. Ambiguity regarding the signaler’s sustainability values poses the dual threats of seeming insincere and lacking a clear explanation of signal cost. Orientation messaging to new hires regarding organizational sustainability values must therefore create specificity for at least two reasons: to indicate to the receiver what is meant by sustainability, and to indicate to the receiver the costliness of the signal.
Orientation messages also communicate not only signal costliness but additional information regarding the underlying purpose or motives of sustainability actions. Such information may be salient to receivers for whom the purpose or motives are important. Particularly, it is anticipated that the extent to which organizational sustainability initiatives appear to be extrinsically and/or intrinsically driven may be considered by receivers as they ponder the organization’s orientation messaging. This manuscript draws upon Kasser and Ryan’s conceptualization of this extrinsic–intrinsic value focus to consider the extent to which organizational sustainability initiatives may appear to be extrinsically and/or intrinsically driven [40,41]. In the sustainability messaging context, extrinsically motivated signals might describe organizational sustainability initiatives that are pursued to attain financial success, social recognition, and an appealing outward appearance. Intrinsically motivated signals, on the other hand, may indicate organizational sustainability initiatives that are pursued because they provide the opportunity for self-directed growth, relationship development, and community contribution.
To summarize, this study is concerned with not only the effects of signal costliness, but also the potentially differential effects of costly signals attached to intrinsic versus extrinsic organizational motivations for sustainability initiatives. Toward this end, our hypotheses are built around the comparison of four hypothetical orientation sessions in which the signal costliness of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors are manipulated (see Figure 1). We hypothesize that new hire orientation sessions which contain overall higher-cost signals of sustainability will yield greater perceptions of organizational sustainability, perceptions of credibility, and intent to be involved in sustainable initiatives relative to orientation sessions containing overall lower-cost signals. This study also anticipates an authenticity effect such that orientations which are high in intrinsic motivation signal costliness and low in extrinsic motivation signal costliness will yield greater respondent perceptions of organizational sustainability, perceptions of credibility, and intent to be involved in sustainable initiatives, relative to orientations which are low in intrinsic motivation signal costliness and high in extrinsic motivation signal costliness.
Stated formally, our hypotheses are as follows:
Hypothesis 1a:
Perceptions of organizational sustainability will be highest in the high intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.
Hypothesis 1b:
Perceptions of organizational sustainability will be higher in the high intrinsic signal costliness–low extrinsic signal costliness condition than in the low intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.
Hypothesis 2a:
Perceptions of credibility will be highest in the high intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.
Hypothesis 2b:
Perceptions of credibility will be higher in the high intrinsic signal costliness–low extrinsic signal costliness condition than in the low intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.
Hypothesis 3a:
Respondent intent to be involved in sustainability efforts will be highest in the high intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.
Hypothesis 3b:
Respondent intent to be involved in sustainability efforts will be higher in the high intrinsic signal costliness–low extrinsic signal costliness condition than in the low intrinsic signal costliness–high extrinsic signal costliness condition.

3. Materials and Methods

This study utilized an experimental vignette method by presenting respondents with a hypothetical new employee orientation presentation in slide format. The experimental vignettes were developed with an eye toward both construct capture and context richness based on guidelines set for by Aguinis and Bradley and recent uses of vignette methodology in personnel research, and they represent a form of digital or virtual onboarding [42,43,44,45,46,47]. This study utilized a 2 × 2 factorial design such that intrinsic and extrinsic indicators of organizational sustainability motivation each reflected either high or low signal costliness. The presentation order was alternated to account for potential order effects; none were indicated.
Intrinsic organizational sustainability messaging described self-acceptance, growth, community contribution, and affiliation as the company’s motivating factors for sustainability initiatives. Extrinsic organizational sustainability messaging described financial success, social recognition, and appealing appearance as the company’s motivating factors for sustainability initiatives. Each of the four conditions included both intrinsic and extrinsic organizational sustainability messaging, but the signal costliness of each was manipulated by adjusting the specificity and falsifiability of evidenced claims. High signal cost conditions included specific and verifiable claims of impact and outcomes, whereas low signal cost conditions included generic, vague, and unverifiable statements. Respondents therefore found themselves in one of four hypothetical orientations: high intrinsic and high extrinsic signal cost, high intrinsic and low extrinsic signal cost, low intrinsic and high extrinsic signal cost, and low intrinsic and low extrinsic signal cost. These manipulated slides constituted the middle two slides of a four-slide set, with the first and final slides serving as an introduction and conclusion, respectively (see Figure 1). The manipulation slides were presented in the middle (see Figure 2).

3.1. Sample

Volunteers were recruited using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mturk), which is a task marketplace through which individuals can voluntarily participate in paid tasks such as surveys. This platform was chosen to attain a diverse sample of adults who appear to be as responsive to surveys as participants from more traditional sampling sources [48]. Respondents were paid USD 3 to complete the survey. Respondents were required to be at least 18 years old, speak English, and live in the United States. To minimize the potential impact of common method bias, items were included for construct measures unrelated to our study and varied survey response formats [49]. Three basic information recall questions were used to assess attention. These information recall questions can be seen among the rest of the questionnaire in Appendix A. Because these three questions assessed information easily recalled from the vignette, and because a “back” button allowed for respondents to quickly review the vignette to assure a correct response, only responses from respondents who correctly answered all three attention checks were included. Respondents who failed this attention check were still compensated for their time.
The sample consisted of 363 respondents with an average age of 37.1 years old. The sample appeared to be highly educated, with 72.1% of respondents holding a bachelor’s degree, and 16% having a master’s degree. Most respondents had jobs outside of Mturk (80.8%), and just over half stated working in middle management positions (51.8%). Respondents were from many various states in the United States and the majority were white individuals (White: 92%, American Indian/Alaskan Native: 1.1%, Black or African American: 3.0%, Asian: 3.6%, Prefer not to respond: 0.3%). The mean time to complete this task was 14.68 min, the median time was 11.85 min, and 75% of respondents took 19.2 min or less.

3.2. Measures

Perceived organizational sustainability was assessed with a 4-item measure developed by Bouman, Steg, and Kiers [50]. Respondents indicated the extent to which they agreed with four statements on a scale from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”). An example item reads “It is important to this company to protect the environment”. This measure exhibited acceptable reliability (α = 0.856).
Perceived organizational message credibility was measured with Appelman and Sundar’s 3-item scale [51]. Respondents indicated how well three adjectives (accurate, authentic, believable) described the orientation vignette. Response options ranged from 1 (“Describes very poorly”) to 7 (“Describes very well”). The measure exhibited acceptable reliability (α = 0.722).
Respondents’ intent to be involved with the organization’s sustainability initiatives was measured with Grau and Folse’s 3-item scale [52]. A sample item is “I would be willing to participate in this company’s sustainability program”. Respondents indicated the extent to which they agreed with three statements, from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”). This measure exhibited acceptable reliability (α = 0.757).
Jamovi 2.2.5 was used to perform all statistical analyses [53]. Table 1 shows the bivariate correlations and descriptive information for our study variables. Means and correlations were of the expected magnitudes and in the expected directions. Discriminant validity describes distinctiveness among constructs to ensure they do not overlap. It was therefore important to assess the discriminant validity among the variables in our model which were captured with respondent surveys. The discriminant validity of our assessed constructs was examined using Fornell and Larcker’s comparison method, which suggests discriminant validity is present when the average AVE of two constructs is greater than their squared correlation [54]. As seen in Table 2, each pair of our three dependent variables of interest (i.e., perceptions of organizational sustainability, perceptions of credibility, and intent to be involved) exhibited an average AVE that was greater than their squared correlation, indicating that the constructs assessed were sufficiently distinct.

4. Results

A series of 2 × 2 (two-way) analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted, accompanied by estimated marginal means to test hypotheses due to the factorial nature of our study. As seen in Table 3, the intrinsic signal cost and extrinsic signal cost yielded a significant interactive effect on perceptions of organizational sustainability. However, the marginal mean for the high intrinsic signal cost–high extrinsic signal cost condition was not significantly different from the marginal mean of any other condition (see Table 4), indicating a lack of support for hypothesis 1a. Interestingly, the mean perceived organizational sustainability score for respondents in the high intrinsic signal cost–low extrinsic signal cost condition was lower (though not significantly so) than those in the low-intrinsic signal cost–high extrinsic signal cost condition (see Table 4 and Figure 3). Hypothesis 1b was also therefore unsupported.
The results for hypotheses 2a and 2b were similar. The results (see Table 5 and Table 6) indicated that intrinsic signal cost and extrinsic signal cost did yield a significant interactive effect on credibility (F = 5.300 and p = 0.022). However, a closer look at the estimated marginal means (see Figure 4 and Table 6) indicated a lack of the expected credibility response to the high signal cost condition. Hypothesis 2a was therefore unsupported. Hypothesis 2b was also unsupported, with the high intrinsic signal cost–low extrinsic signal cost yielding about the same mean level of respondent perceptions of credibility as those in its inverse condition (see Table 6 and Figure 4).
Similar results were found for hypotheses 3a and 3b. The results (see Table 7 and Table 8) indicated that intrinsic signal cost and extrinsic signal cost did yield a significant interactive effect on involvement (F = 6.246 and p = 0.013). Again, however, the estimated marginal means indicate that respondent involvement intentions were highest (though not significantly so, according to 95% confidence intervals) in the condition presenting high extrinsic signal cost and low intrinsic signal cost, whereas the other three conditions overlapped (see Figure 5). Hypothesis 3a and 3b were therefore unsupported. We explore these interesting findings in the section on future directions.

5. Discussion

5.1. Implications for Research

This study contributes to research by calling into question our hypothesized interaction between signal cost effects and value congruence effects. Our results suggest that signal costliness is perceived differently when it is applied to messages bearing intrinsic motivation phrasing versus extrinsic motivation phrasing, at least in the organizational sustainability orientation context. Although marginal in their means’ differences, our analysis indicates that organizational sustainability messaging that is high in extrinsic signal costliness and low in intrinsic signal costliness may yield higher sustainability perceptions and involvement intention relative to the other three examined conditions. In a similar but distinct fashion, credibility perceptions appear to be driven by a “middle-ground”, in which signal cost is high in either extrinsic motivation or intrinsic motivation.
Perhaps we observed a too-much-of-a-good thing effect, such that respondents may have found additional costly information regarding intrinsic organizational motivation to be overreaching or disingenuous, especially when paired with costly extrinsically motivated messages [55]. Our data indicate that the perceived credibility of the sustainability message amongst potential new hires decreased as the signal costliness was more extreme. This may represent something akin to new hire skepticism, similar to perceived consumer skepticism (PCS) in the marketing literature on deceptive advertising. Perceived consumer skepticism (PCS) is the disbelief of a firm’s stated claims [56,57,58]. To the extent that one is skeptical, one is more likely to examine the claims made in advertisements in a critical way and not accept them at face value [58,59]. As noted by Szabo and Webster, consumers may view many forms of truthful green marketing as greenwashing as a result of past negative experiences with deceptive marketing [60]. Consumers do not possess adequate information to validate the environmental claims of green products, and greenwashing is a prevalent phenomenon in the marketplace, as noted in a TerraChoice review of over 1000 green products which found that all but one possessed some form of greenwashing [61,62]. Furthermore, prior research on greenwashing and its effects on consumer skepticism indicates greenwashing has a positive relationship with green consumer skepticism, green perceived risk, and green trust [63,64,65]. New hires may perceive more extreme sustainability messaging as being disingenuous, resulting in the lower levels of organizational sustainability, credibility, and anticipated involvement in sustainability initiatives indicated in our results.
Expanding our understanding of the effects of sustainability signaling to current employees and new hires represents an important area for future research. It would be a tragic irony if a firm’s increasing (and ethically driven) investments in sustainability initiatives are viewed as counterproductive to the perceived credibility of the firm’s sustainability initiatives, and also result in lower levels of employee engagement in such important initiatives. We need further research to understand the boundary conditions upon which this relationship exists, and more importantly, how it can be avoided. Habermas [66] may be suggestive in this regard, noting that perceived truth of content and truthfulness of speaker intentions are two fundamental aspects of perceptions of message validity. As such, it may be that further enhancing the transparency of sustainability efforts, by providing links to substantive additional data such as CSR or external audit reports or third-party sustainability certifications in regards to the firm’s efforts, could be helpful in enhancing the perceived truth of the message content. It may also be the case that providing a more balanced and holistic message that includes both the positive and negative environmental impacts from their broader upstream and downstream value chain and scope 3 activities may bolster perceptions of the truthfulness of speaker intentions and enhance their sustainability message credibility and employee engagement. Future research could also extend our findings using longitudinal data to determine the temporal nature of these results, and multi-country datasets to examine potential cross-cultural differences. It may also be of interest for future studies to examine individual professional experience dimensions such as seniority, number of job changes, and education to extend the findings of this research.

5.2. Implications for Practice

Apart from the implications for recruiting and advertising for new hires, our findings are also useful for practitioners engaged in messaging and content utilized in new hire orientation, as well as new hires and existing employee training and development. Our findings indicate that signal costliness does not amplify the potential person–organization value congruence effects in orientation messaging as we expected. Further, we recognize that orientation and employee learning processes are often both formal and informal, and that they span a breadth of time and engagement much wider than our examined slide-based experiment [67]. Still, we find it pertinent to highlight our findings which suggest that a focus on demonstrable and impactful extrinsically oriented messaging could yield more desirable views regarding, and subsequent involvement in, organizational sustainability from orientees. Human resources professionals concerned with developing impactful orientation messaging would do well to identify those metrics which are falsifiable and indicative of the impact that sustainable initiatives have had on the organization in terms of financial success and social recognition.

6. Conclusions

Our findings indicate new hires perceive extremely costly sustainability signal messaging to be counterproductive to perceived organizational sustainability, message credibility, and employee involvement intention for sustainability initiatives. The potential result of this is that firms that may be practicing outstanding sustainability work, may be inadvertently hurting these perceptions with new hires (and perhaps with current employees) by overcommunicating this information. Future research is needed to determine the boundary conditions of this phenomenon.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; methodology, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; software, J.E.C..; validation, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; formal analysis, J.E.C.; investigation, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; resources, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; data curation, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; writing—original draft preparation, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; writing—review and editing, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; visualization, J.E.C.; supervision, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; project administration, J.E.C. and J.W.W.; funding acquisition, J.W.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and was classified as “exempt” by the Institutional Review Board of Appalachian State University in accordance with 45CFR 46.104 on 28 May 2022.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

All relevant data are in the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A

Questionnaire

  • Introductory Letter:
Dear Mechanical Turk Respondent,
You are invited to participate in an academic survey study about the effectiveness of orientation messages. We would like to understand your perceptions of a hypothetical orientation presentation by a fictitious company, along with some survey information about yourself. Participation will take about 20 min or so. Your participation in this study is voluntary. You do not have to answer any questions you do not feel comfortable answering. You can decline participation with this survey or any part of it at any time with no penalty. Please be aware that any work performed on Amazon Mturk can potentially be linked to information about you on your Amazon public profile page, depending on the settings you have for your Amazon profile. We will not access any personally identifiable information about you that you may have put on your Amazon public profile page. We will store your Mturk worker ID separately from the other information you provide to us. To ensure your information is confidential, no other directly identifying information will be collected. Data will be kept in a secure digital file only accessible to research team members. If you decide to participate, the button below will begin a Qualtrics survey. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact (Researcher Name) at (researcher email address).
  • Demographics
Please provide some demographic information. These questions are for statistical purposes only. You will not be identified using this data. We are simply looking for patterns in the data and comparisons of our sample to the U.S. population.
-Please enter your Mturk ID. You will also receive a code at the completion of the survey to enter into Mturk. These will be matched to ensure you receive compensation for your time.
-Do you speak English?  (Yes, No).
-What is your age (in years)?
-Do you have a job other than completing HITs through Mturk? (Yes, No).
-Please describe your race. (White, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Asian, Prefer not to respond).
-Please describe the highest level of education you have attained. (Some high school, high school, some college, associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral).
-In what U.S. state do you reside? (Drop-down selection of U.S. states).
-What is your approximate career level at work? (entry-level, staff/associate, line/floor management, middle management, upper management, professional, other).
  • Vignette Introduction
Imagine you are a newly hired employee at Synergy Corporation (a fictitious company). You will be shown 4 slides as part of an orientation session. Review each slide, and click “next” to move to the next one. You can move forward and backward in these slides. There will be a brief information check at the end.
  • [Respondent shown slide 1, then randomly assigned to slide 2a or 2b, then 3a or 3b, then shown slide 4]
  • [See Figure 1 and Figure 2 for slide content]
  • (Information recall; IR)
Recall the orientation you have just participated in. Please respond as accurately as possible to the following questions.
-IR1. What is the name of the company? (Sustainability Incorporated, Solutions Plus, Northern Products Limited, Synergy Corp.)
-IR2. How many people are employed by the company? (15; 250; 5000; 15,000)
-IR3. What is the company’s main product or service? (IT consulting and tech solutions, sporting goods, digital marketing, banking)
  • (Perceived Organizational Sustainability—PSUST)
The following statements ask about behaviors and attitudes. Please consider what it may be like to work for the company that just provided the orientation experience (Synergy Corp).
Indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements. (1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat disagree, 4 = Neither agree nor disagree, 5 = Somewhat agree, 6 = Agree, 7 = Strongly agree).
-PSUST 1. It is important to this company to prevent environmental pollution.
-PSUST 2. It is important to this company to protect the environment.
-PSUST 3. It is important to this company to respect nature.
-PSUST 4. It is important to this company to be in unity with nature.
  • (Perceived Credibility—CRED)
Please indicate how well each of the following adjectives represents the message you received from the orientation. (1 = Describes very poorly, 2 = Describes poorly, 3 = Describes somewhat poorly, 4 = Describes neither poorly nor well, 5 = Describes somewhat well, 6 = Describes well, 7 = Describes very well).
-CRED 1. “Accurate”
-CRED 2. “Authentic”
-CRED 3. “Believable”
  • Intent to be Involved (INV)
Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements if you were employed by the company that provided the orientation (Synergy Corp). (1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat disagree, 4 = Neither agree nor disagree, 5 = Somewhat agree, 6 = Agree, 7 = Strongly agree).
-INV1. I would be willing to participate in this company’s sustainability program.
-INV2. I would consider donating money or time to support this company’s sustainability program.
-INV3. It is likely that I would contribute to tackling sustainability by getting involved in this company’s sustainability program.
  • Open Response: Please share any additional thoughts you have regarding Synergy Corp’s sustainability.
Thank you for your participation. (Completion code provided for compensation purposes).
  • (Survey end).

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Figure 1. Introduction and Conclusion slides.
Figure 1. Introduction and Conclusion slides.
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Figure 2. Independent variable manipulation representative chart.
Figure 2. Independent variable manipulation representative chart.
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Figure 3. Estimated marginal means graph for perceived organizational sustainability and signal costliness. Note: PSUST = perceived organizational sustainability. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
Figure 3. Estimated marginal means graph for perceived organizational sustainability and signal costliness. Note: PSUST = perceived organizational sustainability. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
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Figure 4. Estimated marginal means graph for perceived credibility and signal costliness. Note: CRED = perceived credibility. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
Figure 4. Estimated marginal means graph for perceived credibility and signal costliness. Note: CRED = perceived credibility. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
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Figure 5. Estimated marginal means graph for intent to be involved and signal costliness. Note: INVOLVE = respondent anticipated involvement. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
Figure 5. Estimated marginal means graph for intent to be involved and signal costliness. Note: INVOLVE = respondent anticipated involvement. IntSC = intrinsic signal cost. ExtSC = extrinsic signal cost. 0 = low-cost condition; 1 = high-cost condition.
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Table 1. Correlation matrix for primary outcome variables.
Table 1. Correlation matrix for primary outcome variables.
MSDPerceived Organizational SustainabilityPerceived CredibilityIntent to Be Involved
Perceived Org. Sustainability5.561.01[0.856]
Perceived Credibility 5.6710.9320.782 **[0.722]
Intent to be Involved5.4950.8690.789 **0.762 **[0.757]
Note: n = 363. Cronbach’s alpha is listed on the diagonal in brackets. * = p < 0.01. ** = p < 0.001.
Table 2. Discriminant validity of outcome variables.
Table 2. Discriminant validity of outcome variables.
Perceived Organizational SustainabilityPerceived CredibilityIntent to Be Involved
Perceived Org. Sustainability0.8770.7890.857
Perceived Credibility 0.6110.7010.769
Intent to be Involved0.6230.5810.836
Note: n = 363. AVE (average variance extracted) on diagonal. Average AVE above diagonal. Squared correlation (phi-sq) below diagonal.
Table 3. Analysis of variance for perceived organizational sustainability.
Table 3. Analysis of variance for perceived organizational sustainability.
Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFp
Intrinsic Signal Costliness0.98410.9840.9830.322
Extrinsic Signal Costliness5.18115.1815.1740.024
Interaction4.47914.4794.4730.035
Residuals359.4773591.001
Table 4. Estimated marginal means predicting perceived organizational sustainability.
Table 4. Estimated marginal means predicting perceived organizational sustainability.
95% Confidence Interval
ExtSCIntSCMeanSELowerUpper
005.380.1065.175.59
15.500.1055.295.70
105.840.1035.646.04
15.510.1065.315.72
Table 5. Analysis of variance for perceived credibility.
Table 5. Analysis of variance for perceived credibility.
Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFp
Intrinsic Signal Costliness0.00510.0050.0060.939
Extrinsic Signal Costliness0.15310.1530.1780.673
Interaction4.57214.5725.3000.022
Residuals309.6623590.863
Table 6. Estimated marginal means for credibility.
Table 6. Estimated marginal means for credibility.
95% Confidence Interval
ExtSCIntSCMeanSELowerUpper
005.540.09845.355.73
15.760.09745.565.95
105.800.09585.625.99
15.570.09845.385.77
Table 7. Analysis of variance for intent to be involved.
Table 7. Analysis of variance for intent to be involved.
Sum of SquaresdfMean SquareFp
Intrinsic Signal Costliness1.95511.9551.7950.181
Extrinsic Signal Costliness0.90810.9080.8340.362
Interaction6.80316.8036.2460.013
Residuals389.9073581.089
Table 8. Estimated marginal means for intent to be involved.
Table 8. Estimated marginal means for intent to be involved.
95% Confidence Interval
ExtSCIntSCMeanSELowerUpper
005.380.1115.165.60
15.510.1095.295.72
105.750.1085.545.97
15.330.1115.115.55
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Carson, J.E.; Westerman, J.W. The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1167. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021167

AMA Style

Carson JE, Westerman JW. The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention. Sustainability. 2023; 15(2):1167. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021167

Chicago/Turabian Style

Carson, Jack E., and James W. Westerman. 2023. "The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention" Sustainability 15, no. 2: 1167. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021167

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