Exploring the impact of company prestige and remote work on organizational attractiveness among university students

Abstract

To date, there is no clear idea of what makes an organization attractive to university studentsand companies are competing against each other to attract the best talents. This thesis seeks toestablish a better understanding of organizational attractiveness by incorporating the JobCharacteristics Model and Symbolic Attraction Theory. Specifically, this thesis examines theinfluence of company prestige and remote work benefits on organizational attractiveness basedon the attitude towards the company (general attractiveness) and the behavioral intentiontowards the company (job pursuit intention).To achieve this, a 2x2 experimental study was conducted, replicating a real-world jobapplication scenario among 201 university students. As expected, results showed that companyprestige influenced university students' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a company,while remote work only had an influence on the attitude toward a company but not on thebehavioral intention. Also, unexpectedly, there was no significant preference for not prestigiouscompanies offering remote work compared to prestigious companies offering no remote work. Companies should focus on how they are perceived by outstanding students and developstrategies to become more prestigious. Lastly, they should evaluate how they can incorporateremote work options to enhance organizational attractiveness.

Date of Award	3 May 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Tatiana Marques (Supervisor)