Breaugh & Starke (2000)
Journal of Management http://jom.sagepub.com Research on Employee Recruitment: So Many Studies, So Many Remaining
Questions
James A. Breaugh and Mary Starke
Journal of Management 2000; 26; 405
DOI: 10.1177/014920630002600303
The online version of this article can be found at: http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/405 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:
Southern Management Association
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Downloaded from http://jom.sagepub.com at Universiteit van Amsterdam SAGE on November 9, 2009
Journal of Management
2000, Vol. 26, No. 3, 405– 434
Research on Employee Recruitment: So
Many Studies, So Many Remaining
Questions
James A. Breaugh and Mary Starke
University of Missouri–St. Louis
Over the last thirty years, the amount of research on recruitment topics has increased dramatically. Despite this increase, recent reviews of the recruitment literature often have had a somewhat pessimistic tone. Reviewers have concluded that we still do not know a great deal about why recruitment activities have the effects they do. In particular, recent reviews have criticized many of the studies conducted for being poorly designed, narrow in focus, and not grounded in theory. We believe that many of these criticisms are legitimate. We also believe that, in order for future studies to result in a better understanding of the recruitment process, such studies need to be designed with an appreciation of the complexity of the recruitment process (i.e., the number of variables involved and the nature of their relationships). In this regard, we offer an organizing
Questions
James A. Breaugh and Mary Starke
Journal of Management 2000; 26; 405
DOI: 10.1177/014920630002600303
The online version of this article can be found at: http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/405 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:
Southern Management Association
Additional services and information for Journal of Management can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://jom.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/26/3/405
Downloaded from http://jom.sagepub.com at Universiteit van Amsterdam SAGE on November 9, 2009
Journal of Management
2000, Vol. 26, No. 3, 405– 434
Research on Employee Recruitment: So
Many Studies, So Many Remaining
Questions
James A. Breaugh and Mary Starke
University of Missouri–St. Louis
Over the last thirty years, the amount of research on recruitment topics has increased dramatically. Despite this increase, recent reviews of the recruitment literature often have had a somewhat pessimistic tone. Reviewers have concluded that we still do not know a great deal about why recruitment activities have the effects they do. In particular, recent reviews have criticized many of the studies conducted for being poorly designed, narrow in focus, and not grounded in theory. We believe that many of these criticisms are legitimate. We also believe that, in order for future studies to result in a better understanding of the recruitment process, such studies need to be designed with an appreciation of the complexity of the recruitment process (i.e., the number of variables involved and the nature of their relationships). In this regard, we offer an organizing
Citations: http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/26/3/405 Downloaded from http://jom.sagepub.com at Universiteit van Amsterdam SAGE on November 9, 2009 Psychology, less than one page of coverage was given to the topic of recruitment (Guion, 1976) Copyright © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc. 0149-2063 405 Downloaded from http://jom.sagepub.com at Universiteit van Amsterdam SAGE on November 9, 2009 406 J.A. BREAUGH AND M. STARKE research on recruitment was seen as meriting an entire chapter (Rynes, 1991). realistic job previews) and that the research on each of these topics was “developed in isolation from the others” (Rynes, 1991: 399). In her chapter, Rynes showed how this piecemeal approach to research hindered theory development and left unanswered several questions that an employer might have. More recently, the expanding body of research on recruitment has been seen as sufficient to merit entire books (e.g., Barber, 1998) published between Rynes’ (Rynes, 1991) and Barber’s (Barber, 1998) reviews of recruitment research, it is not surprising that Barber felt that understanding in In summary, if one peruses reviews of recruitment research (e.g., Barber, 1998; Breaugh, 1992; Rynes, 1991; Wanous, 1992), one finds a mix of optimism Given Barber’s excellent review of recruitment research (Barber, 1998), it seemed unnecessary for us to provide a systematic review of the same research in (1998), Breaugh (1992), Rynes (1991), and others cited herein. In addition to providing the reader with a selective review of recruitment research, a second Downloaded from http://jom.sagepub.com at Universiteit van Amsterdam SAGE on November 9, 2009 RESEARCH ON EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT