Organizational Justice and Social Media in the Employee Selection Process

Department

Psychological Sciences

Authors

Hayden Hickey, Western Kentucky UniversityFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

This study combines aspects of social media’s role in employee selection and how it relates to potential employee attitudes toward a company. By measuring participants’ attitudes when told that their Facebook profiles would be taken into consideration in determining their job ability, applicant feelings of procedural justice (i.e., fairness of a process; PJ) were assessed and compared to a control group. To measure interactional justice (i.e., fairness regarding interpersonal treatment; IJ), participants were divided into two conditions: participants in the high justice condition were given an explanation of the rationale behind using social media as an evaluation tool and shown empathy, whereas participants in the low justice condition were provided with no information and shown no empathy. The current study also compared participants’ self-reported stress levels and personality with both PJ and IJ. Ninety-nine undergraduate participants completed self-report inventories in a lab setting. Results indicated a significant effect of empathy and explanation on IJ. Also, stress negatively correlated with PJ and IJ. PJ and IJ correlated with multiple dimensions of personality. No significant difference in PJ between the control and experimental groups was found.

Advisor(s) or Committee Chair

Amber Schroeder

Disciplines

Organization Development | Other Psychology | Social Policy | Social Psychology

Recommended Citation

Hickey, Hayden, "Organizational Justice and Social Media in the Employee Selection Process" (2016). Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 610.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/610