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This study aims to explore the consequences of inconsistent diversity-related signals for job seekers. Information sources include strategically crafted corporate signals and independent sources. The authors seek to understand the effect of inconsistent diversity signals on job seekers attitudes and behavior during recruitment.

An experiment was conducted wherein two samples from job-seeking populations were first exposed to a fictitious corporate website and then to LinkedIn profiles of that organization’s employees, with systematically varied diversity signals.

Results demonstrated that conflicting diversity signals had negative effects on perceived organizational attractiveness in the student sample (N = 427) and on organizational agreeableness in the working sample (N = 243). Negative organizational attraction was related to a lower likelihood of participants applying.

This work provides a stark but an important message to practitioners: signaling diversity-related values on corporate websites may backfire for organizations that actually lack diversity.

Few studies have combined communication theories with recruitment to examine the link between diversity signals and inconsistent information gathered via social media.

Research indicates that inconsistent gender norm presentations are met with backlash, which is particularly damaging to women. With social media use in selection rising, it is important to understand if this remains consistent for job applicants on social media.

In two experiments, this study investigates hiring managers' reactions to job applicant (in)consistent gender norm-based communication on Facebook (n = 197) and YouTube (n = 203). Participants located in the United States were asked to review social media materials, reported perceptions of task and social attraction, and make hiring recommendations.

Inconsistent with work on backlash in face-to-face settings, results demonstrated that masculine communication styles on social media may be detrimental to job seekers, and this was more pronounced for male job seekers. Feminine presentation styles had more favorable results.

The findings challenge the long-held understanding that men have more leeway to behave in agentic ways in job seeking contexts. While this may remain true in face-to-face settings, these findings suggest that social media, lacking media richness, may be a context in which males experience backlash for agentic behavior.

The research offers a novel perspective investigating traditional gender expectations in the digital realm, paving the way for a more comprehensive understanding of gender in employment contexts. This study contributes to the growing body of research on online behavior and expands understanding of how hiring managers react to gender norms in the era of social media.

A model of the relationships between individuals' perceptions of internet use and internet usage behaviors is presented and tested. The purpose of this paper is to propose that a lack of perceived responsiveness to on‐line communication is positively related to individuals' general resistance to use the internet as a communication information exchange medium, termed general internet apprehensiveness (GIA). Perceptions of GIA are negatively associated with on‐line information‐seeking behavior, and positively associated with individuals' resistance to or fear of using the internet for on‐line retail transactions, termed transactional internet apprehensiveness (TIA).

College‐aged students reported their attitudes about on‐line information seeking, on‐line purchasing, and their on‐line information seeking and purchasing behaviors. The model presented is tested with path analysis to assess the variables' interrelationships.

Ultimately, lack of responsiveness is positively related to GIA, GIA is negatively related to information‐seeking behavior, and TIA is negatively related to consumers' on‐line purchasing of goods and services.

The student sample used in this study prevents us from making broad‐based generalizations. While students represent a large base of internet users and have been presented as a viable population to study in investigations for both academic audiences and marketing practitioners, future research will continue to benefit from more diverse samples of internet users.

This study offers hospitality professionals a better understanding of the elements that inhibit or encourage on‐line information seeking and purchasing behaviors.

This paper further defines the socio‐demographic factors that inhibit consumers from using the internet as both an information‐sharing tool and purchasing medium.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity as reflected in audience engagement with their Facebook posts during the 2015 Israeli election campaign.

Using Israel’s 2015 election campaign as the case study, the authors analyzed all messages posted (n=501) on 33 politicians’ official Facebook pages during the week leading to Election Day.

The results demonstrate that audiences do engage more with posts of the more facially attractive politicians. These posts generated more shares, more comments and more participants in their discussions – but not more likes – relative to posts of less attractive politicians. These effects became even stronger when the posts were accompanied by one or more visual image, and remained significant even after controlling for other engagement predictors, such as a politician’s gender, seniority or the timing of a post’s publication.

The findings emphasize the importance of attractive looks for politicians. The findings highlight that attractive politicians’ posts attract more attention, allowing them to better spread their ideas. Thus, politicians should aim to post aesthetic images and visuals to promote better engagement with their ideas on social media.

The study expands our understanding of online presentations of politicians, focusing on the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity. Recent studies have demonstrated that physically attractive politicians enjoy more and better media attention on television news, but not in non-visual media such as radio and newspapers. This effect has not been examined in the social media environment, a central arena for today’s political debates and one that involves many visual messages.