Towards Sustainable Corporate Attraction: The Mediating and Moderating Mechanism of Person–Organization Fit

Abstract

With the burgeoning “war for talent”, attracting the right workforce has become a major key checkpoint for a firm’s sustainability. The main purpose of this study was to predict prospective employees’ organizational attraction by integrating person–organization (P–O) fit perceptions and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) into a single framework. Although many studies have reported inconsistent results for the impact of subjective norms and self-efficacy on intention in the TPB framework, adequate empirical research on applicant attraction for this theoretical phenomenon is still unavailable. This may be the first study that examined the mechanism of how and when the TPB model becomes more instrumental with subjective P–O fit perceptions. With a sample of 335 young job seekers in Bangladesh, the study examined the research hypotheses related to the TPB and P–O fit using path analysis with AMOS, a structural equation modeling (SEM) program. The results showed that P–O fit partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and job search intentions. Observably, P–O fit significantly moderated the relationship between subjective norms and job search intentions in such a way that the impact of subjective norms was stronger for individuals with a lower level of P–O fit but slightly weaker for those with a higher level of P–O fit. In line with the research findings, some notable theoretical contributions and practical implications for HR professionals have been discussed.