I'll Believe It When I See It: Widespread Use of Organizational Diversity Statements Undermines Perceived Sincerity and Organizational Attraction

As diversity has become highly valued, organizational diversity statements as a means to attract prospective applicants have become widespread and normative. Consequently, it is critical to understand in this context whether they are effective at enhancing applicant attraction. Drawing on and integrating a signalling perspective of organizational initiatives (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004; Leslie, 2019) with the literature on authenticity (Lehman et al., 2019), I theorize that awareness of the prevalence of organizational diversity statements undermines a prospective applicant’s attraction to the organization because of lower perceived sincerity of the organization’s commitments. In Study 1 using qualitative methods and a sample of organizational diversity statements (i.e., Fortune 100), I establish that statements are indeed highly prevalent and sophisticated. I follow up on this finding with an experiment in Study 2 testing the negative effects of awareness of this prevalence on applicant attraction via decreased perceived sincerity. Next, I identify and test potential factors to mitigate this negative effect on applicant attraction to the organization by intervening on the proposed mediator of perceived sincerity. In Study 3, I appeal to values and particularly diversity as a social responsibility (vs. the business case for diversity) which I expect to be perceived as more sincere and which should thus increase applicant attraction even for those made aware of the prevalence of statements. Finally, in Study 4, I examine whether providing evidence of an organization’s accountability for making progress (i.e., workforce demographic data) can boost perceived sincerity by helping applicants see the organization as living up to its claims. Theoretical and practical implications of this work will be discussed.