Different ways new information technologies influence conventional organizational practices and employment relationships: The case of cybervetting for personnel selection

Abstract

Cybervetting – employers’ use of online information from social media and search engines to evaluate job candidates – may displace, supplement or shape conventional personnel selection and employment relationships in unexpected ways. Analysis of 45 interviews suggests that typically extractive approaches to cybervetting have the potential to displace less recognized, yet valuable, relational functions of more interactive practices depending on the functions and values users apply to the adoption and use of particular information and communication technologies. These findings highlight the need to consider how people implicitly and explicitly compare the functions of emerging technology-enabled practices with conventional organizational practices and salient values to understand when an emerging practice may displace, supplement or have no effect on a conventional practice. This study offers a preliminary framework for understanding how emerging sociotechnical practices evolve and with what effect, thereby providing insight into information and communication technology adoption and use beyond personnel selection contexts. It also suggests the emergence of a type of parasocial employment relationship should employers conflate interacting with applicants’ information with interacting with applicants themselves.