Who cares about diversity? - Effects of organizational diversity communication on organizational attractiveness and person-organization fit

The increasingly diverse composition of the Dutch society challenges organizations to develop diversity approaches and to manage diversity in the workplace. If managed well, diversity in the workplace can have a multitude of beneficial effects, referring to both improved employee and corporate performance. Despite various governmental and corporate efforts, many Dutch organizations are still characterized by a lack of diversity, being dominated by the cultural majority. A possible explanation for this lack of diversity is that organizations that are dominated by a cultural majority tend to attract job applicants that are similar to this group. Organizational communication about diversity can play a role in attracting a diverse group of job applicants, as the diversity perspective (colorblindness or multiculturalism) used in job advertisements can be considered a filter for the type of job seeker that responds to the advertisement. The objective of this study is to examine whether job seekers’ personal characteristics play a role in their assessment of different organizational diversity approaches. More specifically, it is researched whether ethnicity, gender, social dominance orientation, and need to belong moderate the relationship between colorblind or multicultural organizational diversity statements in job advertisements and job seekers’ assessment of the attractiveness of the organization and perceived person-organization fit. In order to study whether the two organizational diversity communication approaches attract different types of job seekers, an online survey experiment with a between-subjects design was conducted. The experiment consisted of three conditions in which participants were asked to look at one extract of a job vacancy of a fictitious organization, either without diversity statements, with colorblind diversity statements, or containing multicultural diversity statements. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the conditions. The experimental results, based on data obtained from 153 respondents, suggest that for this particular sample, in this specific context of job advertisements, including colorblind or multicultural diversity statements does not drive away or attract certain types of people. Ethnicity, gender, social dominance orientation and need to belong do not moderate the effect of diversity communication on job seekers’ assessment of an organization. Results of the study imply that the diversity perspective communicated in job advertisements actually may not be a crucial factor in attracting a diverse applicant pool. The study contributes to the limited amount of research on job seekers’ assessment of organizations based on diversity communication in job advertisements and the moderating effect of job seekers’ personal characteristics on this relationship. The results suggest that more research concerning increasing diversity in the workplace is required, as it continues to be an important and contemporary topic in our diversifying society.