S&O Monthly Research Seminar (April)

For its April Research Seminar, the S&O Institute is happy to welcome two guest speakers:

Yoonjin Choi, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School

Title: An Employer with a Purpose: How Corporate Purpose Impacts an Organization’s Ability to Attract and Retain Talent

Authors: Yoonjin Choi, Chang-Wa Huynh, and Rodolphe Durand
Abstract:
Are firms better able to attract and retain talent when they are driven by a corporate purpose of creating value for society? Drawing insights from research on corporate social responsibility, social identity theory, and prosociality, we hypothesize that job seekers find a purpose-driven employer more attractive than an employer without a purpose and would be willing to accept a lower wage working for a purpose-driven employer. We further expect that whether employees continue to see their purpose-driven employer as more attractive after joining the organization depends on employees’ prosociality. That is, we expect that an employee with high prosocial orientation would experience organizational pride in working for their purpose-driven employer and would be willing to accept lower wage to continue.

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Hyejun KIM, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris

Title: User Before Entrepreneur: User-motives as a Signal of Commitment   

Authors: Hyejun Kim & Jaekyung Ha

Abstract:  
Why do entrepreneurs often advertise stories of how their experiences as frustrated users motivated them to become entrepreneurs? In this paper, we develop a theory to explain why entrepreneurs would want to show user motives to their audiences, despite the availability of a potentially more effective narrative strategy as producers. We argue that by employing user motives, entrepreneurs can signal their commitment to their original vision and insight and commitment to their customers. The narratives of user motive put the firm closer to the perspectives of consumers, by conveying the firm’s authentic motive that the product intends to help those who are poorly served in the market, and away from the image of a seller who appropriates profits from consumers. We first establish the use of “user motive” in entrepreneurship from product pitches in Kickstarter, the largest crowdfunding platform. We then test our theory in an online experiment. The results show that the adoption of a user motive is preferred by its audience and the preference is mediated by the perception of commitment, net of perception of producer capability. Finally, we show the boundary condition for the preference for user motive; audiences need to be given information that the focal product meets the basic qualification for the purpose.

For more information, please contact Iiris Sacchet: sacchet@hec.fr