homework 1 MGMT 314

O R I G I N A L P A P E R

Examining Applicant Reactions to the Use of Social Networking Websites in Pre-Employment Screening

J. William Stoughton • Lori Foster Thompson •

Adam W. Meade

Published online: 21 November 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract

Purpose Social networking websites such as Facebook

allow employers to gain information about applicants

which job seekers may not otherwise share during the

hiring process. This multi-study investigation examined

how job seekers react to this screening practice.

Design/Methodology Study 1 (N = 175) employed a

realistic selection scenario examining applicant reactions to

prospective employers reviewing their social networking

website. Study 2 (N = 208) employed a simulated selec-

tion scenario where participants rated their experience with

a proposed selection process.

Findings In Study 1, social networking website screening

caused applicants to feel their privacy had been invaded,

which ultimately resulted in lower organizational attrac-

tion. Applicants low in agreeableness had the most adverse

reactions to social networking website screening. In Study

2, screening again caused applicants to feel their privacy

had been invaded, resulting in lower organizational

attraction and increased intentions to litigate. The organi-

zation’s positive/negative hiring decision did not moderate

the relationship between screening and justice.

Implications The results suggest organizations should

consider the costs and benefits of social media screening

which could reduce the attractiveness of the organization.

Additionally, applicants may need to change their

conceptualization of social networking websites, viewing

them through the eyes of a prospective employer.

Originality/Value This investigation proposed and tested

an explanatory model of the effects of screening practices

on organizational outcomes demonstrating how electronic

monitoring, privacy, and applicant reactions can be inte-

grated to better understand responses to technological

innovations in the workplace.

Keywords Electronic monitoring � Procedural justice � Organizational attraction � Social networking � Privacy

The use of social networking websites has proliferated in

recent years. As of 2013, Facebook had an estimated 1.06

billion active users, making it the most widely used social

networking website (Tam 2013). While Facebook is the

largest social networking site, many similar sites exist for a

variety of purposes, such as establishing work-related

contacts (e.g., LinkedIn.com), finding individuals who have

similar interests in music (e.g., MySpace.com), or con-

necting with individuals in one’s community, and keeping

friends informed about interests and activities (e.g., Twit-

ter.com, Google?). Most users of social networking web-

sites display a wealth of information about themselves via

their online profiles and webpage posts. Typically, users are

able to amass ‘‘friends’’ who can communicate with each

other through the site. Members can also search other users’

profiles to find common interests, favorite movies, musical

tastes, classes, books, photos, and other information.

Some social networking websites, such as LinkedIn, are

principally designed to be viewed by colleagues and pro-

spective employers. These websites contain information

about past employment history, job relevant education,

J. W. Stoughton (&) � L. F. Thompson � A. W. Meade Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, 640

Poe Hall, Campus Box 7650, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

L. F. Thompson

e-mail: [email protected]

A. W. Meade

e-mail: [email protected]

123

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

DOI 10.1007/s10869-013-9333-6

and/or other information pertinent to job contacts. Mean-

while, other social networking websites, such as Facebook,

are not usually designed with work colleagues and pro-

spective employers in mind. The latter type of website is

comprised primarily of content aimed toward friends and

acquaintances, with information pertaining to one’s social

life, current activities, or interests.

The wealth of information available on social networking

sites offers researchers an abundance of phenomena to study

(Ellison et al. 2007). However, published research on this topic

within the organizational sciences is scarce (Kluemper et al.

2012; Stoughton et al. 2013). Meanwhile, the popular press has

published a litany of articles on social networking sites,

including several articles focused on using social networking

sites to screen potential job applicants (Levinson 2009;

McNichol 2010; Wiehl 2008; Wortham 2009). Some organi-

zations seeking to hire summer interns or graduating college

seniors use social networking websites to conduct background

checks (Finder 2006; Goldberg 2010). Employers may look for

provocative photos, references to drinking or drug use, and

disparaging remarks about previous employers and colleagues

to help ‘‘weed out’’ candidates (Stoughton et al. 2013; Wor-

tham 2009). As of 2006, 27 % of the employers contacted for a

National Association of Colleges and Employers survey said

they check the backgrounds of job applicants using Google and

social networking sites. This practice appears to have grown

increasingly commonplace in recent years, as indicated by a

2009 study, conducted by Harris Interactive, which revealed

that 45 % of the companies contacted use Google and social

networking websites to screen employees (CareerBuilder.com

2009). As of 2011, estimates of the prevalence of this practice

had risen to as high as 65 % (Levinson 2011).

While popular press accounts of organizations accessing

social networking websites for employee screening abound

(Goldberg 2010; Levinson 2011; McNichol 2010), we were

able to locate few scientific studies examining this practice

(Kluemper et al. 2012; Stoughton et al. 2013). Accord-

ingly, we develop a framework describing the effects of

screening practices on invasions of privacy, which is most

germane to applicant reactions to the use of social net-

working websites in selection. This framework integrates

the electronic performance monitoring literature with that

of privacy and organizational outcomes. In addition, the

investigation answers the call of practitioners and

researchers alike (Brown and Vaughn 2011; Davison et al.

2011; Vandenberg 2011) to examine issues concerning the

use of social networking websites to screen job applicants.

A Framework for the Effects of Screening in Selection

While the small existing body of research on social net-

working provides insights into topics such as privacy

concerns and identity-sharing behavior (Gross and Acquisti

2005; Stutzman 2006), past studies have not addressed how

job applicants perceive the use of social networking web-

sites for employment screening purposes. Based on

research drawn from the electronic performance monitor-

ing literature, we posit that this practice will affect per-

ceptions of privacy as depicted by the framework proposed

in Fig. 1. In this model, not only does screening affect

privacy, but also moderators such as individual differences

(e.g., level of Internet knowledge or conscientiousness),

characteristics of the job (e.g., professional vs. hourly, level

of competition for the position, or segment of industry),

and properties of the screening (e.g., type of social net-

working website, prior knowledge of screening, or con-

sistency of the screening) affect this phenomenon as well.

The evidence for putting privacy at the heart of Fig. 1 is

compelling, as the collection of personal information for

screening purposes has been deemed to be one of the more

invasive procedures, an organization can employ (Stone-

Romero et al. 2003). Claims in the popular press com-

monly maintain that employers’ use of social networking

websites constitutes a violation of applicants’ privacy

(Finder 2006; Goldberg 2010; Levinson 2009, 2011). Most

popular press accounts report that individuals are surprised

that organizations are investigating a realm that they

believed to be private (Duffy 2006; Levinson 2009).

According to Altman’s (1975) and Westin’s (1967)

theories of privacy, individuals and groups have a desire

for boundaries between themselves and the environment in

which they operate. Maintaining these boundaries is para-

mount to the privacy of the individual and is considered

essential in the formation and maintenance of one’s self-

identity and individuality (Margulis 2003). Alge (2001)

theorizes that personal identity (i.e., self-definitions of

qualities unique to the individual) is affected by percep-

tions of privacy, and that personal identity can be parsed

into two separate components: an individual’s private

assessment of oneself, and how one wishes to be repre-

sented publicly. It is a lack of control over how one’s

public self is conveyed, which constitutes an invasion of

privacy.

Alge (2001) theorizes that this lack of control over one’s

public persona can result in negative estimations of the self

due to devaluation in the opinion of others. In the case of

social network screening, applicants risk being devalued by

hiring organizations because of their lack of control over

their public persona. Obviously this would be disadvanta-

geous to the job applicant, potentially resulting in self-

devaluation. Thus, applicants are motivated to maintain the

boundary between their personal and professional lives and

are likely to experience privacy invasion when prospective

employers breach this boundary between work-and non-

work-related aspects of the self.

74 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

123

Hypothesis 1 Applicants whose social networking web-

sites have been screened will report higher levels of pri-

vacy invasion than those whose social networking websites

have not been screened.

The preceding discussion implies that negative out-

comes result from privacy invasions. Indeed, empirical

research has supported this contention (Stone-Romero et al.

2003). While some of these consequences (e.g., negative

estimation of one’s social identity) are noted above, there

are a myriad of other outcomes of interest for this frame-

work. For instance, psychological empowerment and

organizational citizenship behavior which have been linked

to employee information privacy (Alge et al. 2006) repre-

sent other avenues for research. Additionally, invasions of

privacy have been found as antecedents to procedural

justice concerns and accordingly justice perceptions war-

rant investigation as privacy outcomes in Fig. 1 (Alge

2001). Testing the complete model is beyond the scope of

this investigation; however, the framework proposed in

Fig. 1 can be used to guide future research examining the

effects of social network screening in the workplace as is

done in Study 1 and 2 which follow.

Study 1

There are three goals of Study 1. First, this experiment will

test the explanatory model in which perceptions of privacy

function as antecedents to procedural justice and selection

system perceptions (see Fig. 2). Additionally, we test

whether employers’ use of social networking sites for

screening purposes affects applicants’ perceptions of

organizational attractiveness in a realistic hiring scenario.

Finally, we investigate the moderating influence of per-

sonality on applicant reactions to social networking web-

site screening. The term ‘‘social networking website’’ in

this manuscript moving forward refers specifically to sites

such as Facebook, which are not designed for professional

purposes (Goldberg 2010).

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice is defined as the fairness of the process

that results in decision outcomes (Colquitt 2001). In effect,

negative perceptions of procedural justice represent the

condemnation of a particular organizational process.

According to Leventhal (1980), fairness of the process is

determined by an organization’s adherence to procedures

that are consistent with the moral and ethical values of

individuals. Building on Leventhal’s (1980) work, Gilli-

land (1993) put forth a model of procedural justice ‘‘rules’’

which includes 10 dimensions that affect the degree to

which applicants perceive a selection procedure to be fair,

including job relatedness and propriety of questions.

As indicated previously, applicants likely view their

social networking websites as a non-work-related arena of

their lives (Duffy 2006; Levinson 2009; Schiffman 2007).

Because applicants tend to favor procedures that are job

related (Ployhart and Ryan 1997; Rynes 1993), they are

unlikely to consider the assessment of their social net-

working website to be just. For this reason, we expect

social networking website screening to be associated with

lower perceptions of procedural justice. We believe that

perceptions of invasions of privacy will play an explana-

tory role in this relationship, as proposed in Fig. 2. Indeed,

empirical research has demonstrated a moderate to strong

negative relationship between privacy invasion and pro-

cedural justice (Alge 2001; Eddy et al. 1999; Raciot and

Williams 1993). In support of this contention, Alge (2001)

has shown that invasion of privacy perceptions mediates

the effect of electronically monitoring employees’ job

activities on procedural justice. As the use of social net-

working website screening constitutes a form of electronic

monitoring, privacy perceptions should also mediate the

effects of this practice on procedural justice views. The

following hypothesis is, therefore, proposed:

Hypothesis 2 The effect of social networking website

screening on procedural justice perceptions will be par-

tially mediated by perceptions of privacy invasion.

Fig. 1 A framework for the effects of social media

screening in selection. Testing

the complete model is beyond

the scope of this investigation;

however, this framework can be

used to guide future research

examining the effects of social

network screening in the

workplace

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 75

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Organizational Attractiveness

Organizational attraction has been conceptualized as both

multidimensional and as a general concept (Highhouse

et al. 2003). It can be considered an indirect measure of

applicants’ attitudes toward an organization as an employer

(Highhouse et al. 2003; Turban and Keon 1993). High-

house et al. (2003) divide organizational attraction into

three facets: general attractiveness, intentions to pursue

employment with an organization, and perceptions of an

organization’s prestige. The current study’s use of the term

organizational attractiveness refers to the first of these

facets, general attractiveness, which encompasses initial

attitudes about a company as a prospective place of

employment.

Procedural justice during selection is expected to shape

perceptions of organizational attractiveness due to

assumptions applicants make about the organization on the

basis of the selection process. Gilliland (1993) maintains

that selection procedures often provide the first information

that an individual receives concerning how an organization

treats its employees. Signaling theory suggests that this

information is important because applicants facing ambi-

guity and/or incomplete information use any information

available as a signal about job and organizational attributes

(Allen et al. 2007; Rynes et al. 1991). Therefore, poor

treatment by the organization during the selection process

may be interpreted as an indication of how the organization

treats employees and how the individual may be treated in

the future (Gilliland 1993).

Previous literature supports the contention that proce-

dural justice has implications for applicant reactions and

related outcomes. Stone-Romero et al. (2003) found that

when individuals feel they have been treated unfairly; they

are less likely to accept a job offer and, if already employed

by the organization, they are more likely to quit their jobs.

In addition, a negative relationship between fairness and

intentions to recommend an organization to others has been

found, which could eventually influence the effectiveness

of a company’s selection procedures by impacting the size

of future applicant pools (Hausknecht et al. 2004; Murphy

1986; Ryan et al. 1997).

While we believe that screening social networking

websites will ultimately decrease organizational attraction,

we expect this effect to be explained by violations of pri-

vacy perceptions as mediated by perceptions of procedural

justice:

Hypothesis 3 The effect of privacy invasion on organi-

zational attraction will be fully mediated by procedural

justice perceptions.

Effects of Individual Differences

There have been numerous calls for the investigation of the

effect of individual differences on reactions to electronic

performance monitoring (e.g., Alder and Ambrose 2005;

Kolb and Aiello 1996; Stanton 2000); however, there still

exists a dearth of research examining the subject (Alder

et al. 2007). Chen and Ross (2007) recently proposed that

personality variables may moderate reactions to electronic

monitoring, with agreeableness in particular as likely to

play a role. Traits associated with agreeableness include:

‘‘being courteous, flexible, trusting, good-natured, cooper-

ative, forgiving, soft-hearted, and tolerant’’ (Barrick and

Mount 1991, p. 4). Traits associated with agreeableness

such as dispositional trust have been hypothesized to affect

reactions to monitoring (Tabak and Smith 2005), and

extensive research illustrates that individual differences

can predict employee attitudes (Chen and Ross 2007). Even

still, agreeableness has gone relatively unexamined in the

research, with very few studies (Zweig and Webster 2003)

examining its effects on reactions to monitoring.

The desire to control access to private aspects of life is

assumed to be universal (Alge 2001); in the case of social

networking site screening, the boundary between personal

and work life has been objectively breached. Invasion of

privacy perceptions should accurately reflect that objective

Fig. 2 Proposed model of relationship between the

presence of social networking

website screening and

organizational attractiveness in

Study 1

76 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

123

reality when social networking websites are screened and

should not be affected by agreeableness. Agreeableness,

however, should affect reactions to the breach when it

occurs. Indeed, agreeableness has been found to correlate

with perceptions of procedural justice (Shi et al. 2009), and

agreeable applicants tend to rate selection systems as more

fair (Truxillo et al. 2006). This finding is not surprising as

agreeableness is defined in part as being forgiving, soft-

hearted, and tolerant (Barrick and Mount 1991). Thus, we

expect that when faced with a violation of privacy, as is the

case with applicants whose social networking sites have

been screened, highly agreeable persons should react less

negatively than persons low in agreeableness. The fol-

lowing hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 4 The effect of social networking website

screening practices on procedural justice perceptions will

be moderated by applicant agreeableness.

Method

Participants

Participants (N = 175) were individuals who applied for a

temporary, paid, research assistant position while enrolled at

a large Southeastern U.S. university. With regard to gender,

63 % of applicants were female. The mean age of the sample

was 19.32 years (SD = 3.59). With respect to ethnicity,

76 % of the sample was Caucasian, 10 % was African-

American, 5 % was Asian-American, 2 % was Hispanic,

and approximately 7 % reported another ethnicity.

Design

While we were interested in two independent variables:

screening presence and screening consistency, these two

independent variables could not be fully crossed as it was

not possible to manipulate consistency for persons who are

not told they are being screened via their social networking

websites. Thus, participants were randomly assigned to one

of three conditions: (a) no screening, (b) consistent

screening, and (c) inconsistent screening. 1

Procedure

Applicants were recruited from a larger pool (N = 976) of

psychology students who had volunteered to participate in

a pilot study that laid the groundwork for the current

experiment. Participants in the pilot study were informed

that a university-affiliated firm had asked the Industrial-

Organizational psychology program at their university to

help select research assistants for a temporary assignment.

This (fictitious) position was described as one that pays the

selected individuals $75 to spend 1 h with an online web

portal rating their opinions about a series of web pages

being designed by the hiring organization. As part of this

initiative, the psychology department was said to have

developed an online application and assessment survey

(i.e., selection battery) and research study, which partici-

pants were asked to complete. The selection battery gath-

ered names, email addresses, and information about each

individual’s GPA, personality, and Internet experience/

knowledge. Embedded in the Internet knowledge ques-

tionnaire was an item asking ‘‘Which of the following

social networking websites do you use on a regular basis?

Check all that apply.’’ Response options included Face-

book. This item was later used to determine eligibility for

the current study, which was limited to active social net-

working website users. To guard against unwanted atten-

tion, this item was presented along with an Internet

knowledge scale.

Prospective participants were asked if they would like to

be considered for the temporary position. Because most of

them were completing the pilot study for course credit, care

was taken to explain that everyone who filled out the

selection battery would receive credit for participating in

the experiment, regardless of whether they wished to be

considered for the job. A total of 506 (52 %) of the pilot

study participants expressed interest in applying for the job.

All others were excluded from this study, thus all of the

506 individuals retained for this experiment believed they

were applying for the aforementioned position.

After completing the selection battery, the 506 pro-

spective participants were, unbeknownst to them, randomly

assigned to one of the three study conditions via a Java-

Script routine embedded in the online study materials. All

prospective participants were then directed to a common

closing statement indicating that (a) the applicants’

responses to the selection battery would be used to deter-

mine who gets selected for the job, and (b) the research

team would contact applicants with an update in 2–3 weeks

to let them know if they were finalists for the position.

Of the 506 individuals who expressed interest in the

fictitious position, 502 individuals indicated that they use

Facebook on a regular basis and were, therefore, retained

for this experiment. After 2 weeks had passed, all partici-

pants were contacted and informed that the university team

had completed its portion of the assessment and handed a

list of finalists over to the organization, which would make

the final selection decision. The no screening control group

1 Results of manipulation check items with respect to consistency of

screening (a moderator) revealed no differences between the incon-

sistent screening condition and their consistent screening counter-

parts, see Table 1; moreover, consistency did not satisfy the

conditions for model building and was accordingly dropped from

further analysis.

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 77

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received no further information pertaining to the screening

practices of the hiring organization. The screening groups

were told that the hiring organization had just finished

evaluating their social networking websites in order to

assess professionalism.

After providing the information described above, the

email message sent to participants offered a link to an

applicant reactions survey, which measured the variables of

interest in this study: invasion of privacy, (social) proce-

dural justice of the selection process, and organizational

attractiveness. Participants were asked to give the organi-

zation feedback on their selection system in exchange for

entry into a raffle for $100. Participants were assured that

the hiring organization would not be told who did and did

not complete the feedback survey, and that the results

would only be presented in aggregate form, after the hiring

decision was made, and the job was completed.

Overall, 35 % of the 502 eligible individuals completed

the applicant reactions survey described above, producing a

final sample size of 175. This response rate is consistent

with what is commonly found in organizational research

(Baruch and Holtom 2008). Table 2 details the response

rate and sample size within each of the two study groups. A

2 9 2 Chi square test of independence revealed no sig-

nificant differences in response rates by group, v2 (1, N = 502) = 2.71, p [ 0.05.

At the close of the semester in which data collection was

terminated, all participants were debriefed as to the true

nature of the experiment. Upon learning that the position

was fictitious, all participants were informed that they had

been entered into a raffle for the sum of the pay of the

fictitious position. Those who completed the applicant

reactions survey were entered into an additional raffle, as

promised. The raffle winners were selected based on the

results of a random number generator and the prizes mailed

within 2 weeks of the debriefing.

Measures

Agreeableness (10 items, a = 0.80). Agreeableness was assessed via items from Goldberg’s (1999) International

Personality Item Pool. An example item is, ‘‘I sympathize

with others’ feelings.’’ Responses were provided on a 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) Likert-type scale.

Invasion of privacy (5 items, a = 0.78). Invasion of privacy was measured using items adapted from previous

privacy research (Alge 2001; Tolchinsky et al. 1981).

Though the intent of the original items was maintained,

modifications were required to fit the context of the present

study. For example, ‘‘I feel comfortable with personal

information being given out this way,’’ was changed to, ‘‘I

felt comfortable with the personal information the hiring

organization collected.’’ Responses were provided on a 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale.

Procedural justice (social) (18 items, a = 0.95). Pro- cedural justice (social) was measured using items adapted

from Bauer et al.’s (2001) higher-order ‘‘social’’ factor of

the SPJS. The subscales comprising the social higher-order

factor included: consistency, honesty (openness), interper-

sonal treatment/interpersonal effectiveness, two-way com-

munication, and propriety of questions. Many of these

items referred to a selection test and were modified for the

current context as recommended by Bauer and collabora-

tors (2001). Two items from the original honesty subscale

were not administered; they were deemed irrelevant

because applicants were not afforded the opportunity to ask

questions about the selection system during this study.

Items were presented with a Likert-type scale, with

Table 1 Criterion means, standard deviations, and 95 % confidence intervals by Study 1 group

Condition No screening (N = 55) Screening (N = 120)

M (SD) CIL CIU M (SD) CIL CIU

Screening Manipulation Check 1 a

3.40 (0.97) 3.14 3.66 4.18 (0.91) 4.02 4.35

Screening Manipulation Check 2 b

2.56 (0.78) 2.35 2.78 3.53 (1.08) 3.34 3.73

Consistency Manipulation Check 1 c

4.00 (0.77) 3.79 4.21 3.83 (0.81) 3.68 3.97

Consistency Manipulation Check 2 d

2.44 (0.76) 2.23 2.64 2.97 (0.98) 2.79 3.14

Invasion of Privacy 1.87 (0.73) 1.67 2.07 2.30 (0.74) 2.16 2.43

Procedural Justice (Social) 4.05 (0.53) 3.91 4.20 3.75 (0.64) 3.64 3.87

Organizational Attractiveness 3.80 (0.79) 3.58 4.01 3.60 (0.64) 3.49 3.72

a Screening Manipulation Check 1—‘‘It is likely that the hiring organization accessed my Facebook profile before deciding who to hire’’

b Screening Manipulation Check 2—‘‘I believe the hiring organization gathered personal information about me, without my permission, when

deciding who to hire’’ c

Consistency Manipulation Check 1—‘‘The hiring organization used exactly the same procedure to evaluate all applicants in the same way’’ d

Consistency Manipulation Check 2—‘‘It seems like the hiring organization gathered more information about some applicants than others’’

78 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

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responses ranging from 1 (to a small extent) to 5 (to a large

extent). An example item is, ‘‘There was enough commu-

nication during the selection process.’’

Organizational attractiveness (5 items, a = 0.95). Organizational attractiveness was measured using items

developed by Highhouse et al. (2003). An example item is,

‘‘For me, this company would be a good place to work.’’

Each item was presented with a Likert-type scale, with

responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly

agree).

Manipulation checks (4 items). Manipulation check

items were administered to assess the degree to which

participants perceived that their social networking websites

were screened (two items) and the degree to which they

perceived screening to occur consistently across applicants

(two items). These items are shown in Table 1 and were

presented with a Likert-type scale, with responses ranging

from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Results

Background Analyses

Prior to data collection, a power analysis was conducted

using G*Power 3 (Faul et al. 2007). The results suggested

that for analyses utilizing an F statistic with three condi-

tions, a minimum sample size of N = 159 were needed to

produce sufficient statistical power at a value of 0.80 for

a = 0.05 to detect a medium effect size of 0.25 (see Cohen 1988). Thus, the final sample size of N = 175 can be

considered adequate to detect a medium or large effect.

Table 3 provides means, standard deviations, and cor-

relations among the study variables. Prior to testing the

research hypotheses, the data were checked for violations

of normality assumptions. All scales were within accept-

able ranges for skewness and kurtosis.

Next, experimental manipulations were checked. First,

the data were examined to determine the extent to which

participants believed their social networking websites had

been accessed by the organization, as the conditions were

not fully crossed. Table 1 shows the two questionnaire

items relevant to the screening manipulation, along with

the mean responses per item, per condition. One-way

ANOVAs on both of the screening manipulation check

items were significant with Tukey post hoc tests revealing

that the mean rating for the no screening control group was

significantly lower than the rating for both the consistent

and inconsistent screening conditions. Participants in the

consistent and inconsistent screening conditions did not

produce significantly different mean ratings, as mentioned

previously these groups were collapsed, and consistency

was not included in further analysis.

Hypothesis Tests

Table 1 provides the means and standard deviations by

group for the three primary outcome variables of interest.

Hypothesis 1 which predicted that applicants whose social

networking websites were screened would report higher

levels of privacy invasion than those whose social net-

working websites were not screened was examined first in

order to satisfy conditions for model building. An inde-

pendent samples t-test comparing the no screening versus

the screening group with respect to the invasion of privacy

ratings were significant, t(173) = -3.56, p \ 0.01. In support of Hypothesis 1, the mean score for the no

screening condition (M = 1.87, SD = 0.73) was signifi-

cantly lower than the mean score for the screening group

(M = 2.30, SD = 0.74, d = 0.59), see Table 1.

Next, the relationships shown in Fig. 2 were collectively

examined via a path analysis which encompasses Hypothe-

ses 2–4. As noted above, the consistent and inconsistent

screening groups did not hold significantly different views of

privacy invasion, as expected. Therefore, the two screening

groups were collapsed into a dummy coded variable with a

‘‘0’’ for the no screening control group and a ‘‘1’’ for the other

two conditions. We first ran a baseline constrained path

model (using Mplus 5; Muthén and Muthén 2007), which

posited full mediation for justice perceptions and a moder-

ated relationship between the presence of screening and

justice perceptions as in Fig. 2. The initial model did not fit

the data well based on commonly accepted fit criteria (Hu

and Bentler 1999): v2(6, N = 175) = 13.960, p = 0.03, TLI = 0.88, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.05. Thus it

appears that the hypothesized mediation relationship is

partial rather than full in nature, or the proposed moderation

does not exist. In order to test Hypothesis 3 (i.e., whether the

effect of privacy invasions on organizational attractiveness is

fully mediated by justice perceptions), a second model was

estimated which was identical to the baseline model except

the direct path from invasion of privacy to organizational

attractiveness was allowed. The resultant model demon-

strated very good fit, v2(5, N = 175) = 5.60, p = 0.34, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.03, SRMR = 0.03. The

Table 2 Responses per Study 1 screening status

No screening Screening Total N

Eligible participants 182 320 502

Respondents 55 120 175

Response rate 30 % 38 % 35 %

Note: Participants were randomly assigned to condition via a Java-

Script application embedded in the online study materials. The con-

sistent and inconsistent screening conditions were collapsed for model

analysis and presented collapsed above

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 79

123

likelihood ratio test was significant (Dv2 = 8.46, Ddf = 1, p \ 0.01) indicating significantly improved model fit after freeing the aforementioned path. Figure 3 shows the unique,

significant variance explained by each link of the model and

provides estimates of effect size. Therefore, Hypothesis 3

was partially supported in that justice perceptions mediate

the relationship between invasions of privacy and organi-

zational attraction as expected, but this mediation was partial

rather than full as hypothesized. By extension Hypothesis 2

(partial mediation of screening on procedural justice) and

Hypothesis 4 (the interactive effect of agreeableness) both

demonstrate significant effects (see Figs. 3, 4).

Finally, in order to rule out alternative models, a third

model was estimated that reversed the order of invasion of

privacy and procedural justice (social). The resultant model

demonstrated mediocre fit, v2(5, N = 175) = 10.44, p = 0.06, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.03.

The likelihood ratio test was not significant (Dv2 = 3.52, Ddf = 1, p [ 0.05) indicating reversing the order of effects did not significantly improve model fit.

Study 1 Discussion

The results empirically demonstrate that pre-employment

social networking website screening increases applicants’

perceptions of invasion of privacy decreases their percep-

tions of organizational justice and ultimately lowers orga-

nizational attraction. Moreover, we found that perceptions

of invasion of privacy partially mediated the relationship

between screening and justice perceptions as hypothesized.

On the other hand, justice perceptions only partially med-

iated the relationship between perceptions of invasion of

privacy and organizational attraction, which we expected

to be fully mediated. It appears that violations of privacy

led to a negative view of the organization for reasons above

and beyond those pertaining to perceptions of injustice.

Additionally, agreeableness moderated the effect of

social networking website screening on procedural justice

perceptions as expected. Justice perceptions represent

Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlations among the Study 1 variables

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4

1. Invasion of Privacy 2.16 0.76 (0.78)

2. Procedural Justice (Social) 3.85 0.63 -0.59** (0.95)

3. Organizational Attractiveness 3.66 0.69 -0.41** 0.42** (0.95)

4. Agreeableness 4.23 0.50 -0.09 0.10 -0.03 (0.80)

N = 175, ** p \ 0.01, Coefficient alphas on diagonal

Fig. 3 Model of relationship between the presence of social

networking website screening

and organizational

attractiveness in Study 1.

**p \ 0.01, *p \ 0.05. Effect size estimates in parentheses

1

2

3

4

5

1 3 5

P ro

ce d

u ra

l Ju

st ic

e P

er ce

p ti

on s

(S oc

ia l)

Agreeableness

Screened

No Screening

Fig. 4 Interaction between the presence of social networking website screening and agreeableness on perceptions of procedural justice in

Study 1

80 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

123

applicants’ reactions to a particular organizational process;

in this context, they represent applicants’ condemnation of

the selection procedure. As expected, agreeableness had no

relationship with justice perceptions for applicants whose

social networking websites were not screened. Conversely,

there was a clear positive relationship between agreeable-

ness and justice perceptions for applicants whose social

networking websites were viewed by the organization

(Fig. 4). Highly agreeable respondents tended to have very

similar views of justice regardless of condition. However, as

expected, applicants low in agreeableness had very adverse

reactions (i.e., justice perceptions) when they were told that

their social networking websites had been screened.

Study 2

Study 2 was designed to replicate the findings of Study 1 in

a non-student sample, which may be more reactive to

privacy invasions from social media screening (Lorenzen-

Huber et al. 2010). We also sought to more fully test our

Fig. 1 model by including another moderator (i.e., hiring

decision) and examining applicant intentions to sue an

organization that uses social network website screening

(see Fig. 5). In light of the tenuous legal status of screening

via social networking websites applicant intentions to liti-

gate when an organization uses social network screening is

particularly relevant (Brown and Vaughn 2011). Moreover,

this environment is quickly changing as U.S. states begin to

pass laws governing social networking website screening

practices (Stern 2012; Valdes and McFarland 2012). Given

the documented relationship between justice perceptions

and legal challenges (Goldman 2001), disgruntled appli-

cants who feel their privacy has been invaded may be prone

to legal complaints. Thus, the following hypothesis is

proposed:

Hypothesis 5 The effect of privacy invasion on inten-

tions to litigate will be fully mediated by procedural justice

perceptions.

It is prudent to keep in mind that none of the applicants

in Study 1 had been turned down for the job at the point at

which they completed the applicant reactions survey

assessing perceived invasion of privacy, procedural justice,

and organizational attractiveness. They all believed they

were still ‘‘in the running’’ for the position. As such, the

results from Study 1 likely underestimate negative reac-

tions that may be expected among applicants who have

been rejected for a job based on their social networking

websites. Previous work has found that procedural justice

is more positively related to reactions in the presence of

unfair/unfavorable outcomes (Brockner and Wiesenfeld

1996). Moreover, selection methods are generally rated

more positively when applicants are accepted versus

rejected for a position (Gamliel and Peer 2009). Thus, we

expect the negative effects of social networking website

screening on applicant reactions to be stronger among

rejected applicants, whose sense of self is more directly

impacted and explicitly devalued by the organization,

regardless of whether others are exposed to this type of

screening. As such, the organization’s hiring decision is

expected to affect the relationship between social media

screening practices and applicant perceptions of procedural

justice (social):

Hypothesis 6 The effect of social media screening

practices on procedural justice will be moderated by

organizational hiring decision.

Consistent with privacy framework for applicant reac-

tions to social media screening in selection (Fig. 1), we

predict that social network screening affects applicants’

perceptions of organizational attractiveness through

Fig. 5 Proposed model of relationship between the

presence of social networking

website screening and

organizational attractiveness in

Study 2

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 81

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perceptions of privacy and procedural justice (H1–H3; see

Fig. 5).

Method

Participants

Participants (N = 208) were U.S.-based adults utilizing

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) crowdsourcing web-

site. MTurk connects requesters (e.g., researchers) with

workers willing to complete Human Intelligent Tasks

(HITs), tasks that cannot be completed by a computer. Par-

ticipants were paid U.S. $1.00 for their participation in the

HIT outlined in the subsequent section. The level of com-

pensation was chosen in an attempt to be close to the median

pay rate for HITs requiring similar time and resource com-

mitment at the time of data collection; for a more detailed

explanation of using MTurk in psychological research see

Barger et al. (2011) and Behrend et al. (2011). The mean age

of the sample was 35.79 years (SD = 12.55). With respect to

ethnicity, 86 % of the sample was Caucasian, 4 % was

African-American, 5 % was Asian-American, 2 % was

Hispanic, and approximately 3 % reported another ethnicity.

Over half of the sample, 62 %, was working 30 or more hours

a week at the time of data collection, while 33 % were

seeking full-time employment.

Design

The study used a 2 9 2 fully crossed design where

screening presence and hiring decision were directly

manipulated. 2

Procedure

Participants were asked their opinions on a proposed hiring

process. Specifically, they were instructed to imagine a

university-affiliated firm had asked the Industrial-Organi-

zational psychology program at a large Southeastern U.S.

university to help develop its hiring program. While par-

ticipants were not actually applying for the job, we asked

that they imagine they were applying for a job in their field.

They were then given a short statement describing the

hiring organization adapted from the previous literature

(Bauer et al. 2001), ‘‘[The hiring firm] is offering a yearly

salary 10% higher than other companies in your industry as

well as generous stock options. [The hiring firm] is located

in a town you like. In talking with people hired in the last

5 years, you have discovered that employees have received

an average of three promotions in that time. The company

also has been rated as a leader in the industry in terms of

proactive environmental policies and was rated as one of

the top 100 places to work by US News & World Report.’’

At this point, participants completed an online selection

battery that gathered information about each individual’s

personality, Internet experience/knowledge, and employ-

ment status.

After completing the selection battery, the respondents

were, unbeknownst to them, randomly assigned to one of

the four study conditions via a JavaScript routine embed-

ded in the online study materials. All participants were then

directed to a common statement indicating that (a) 2 weeks

had passed, since they completed the ‘‘selection battery,’’

and (b) the hiring firm was contacting them via email with

the results of the hiring process.

Of the 208 participants, 181 (87 %) indicated that they use

Facebook on a regular basis; unlike Study 1, all participants

were retained for this experiment as the scenario was purely

hypothetical. The no screening control group received no

information regarding screening practices. The screening

group was told that the hiring organization had just finished

evaluating their social networking websites in order to assess

professionalism. These individuals were informed that the

employer was able to evaluate ‘‘each and every’’ finalist’s

social networking website after logging onto these sites with

the help of current employees with friend-links or because

the hiring firm initiated friend-links with the participant.

After providing the information described above, the

participants continued the study completing an applicant

reactions survey, which measured the variables of interest:

invasion of privacy, procedural justice (social) of the

selection process, organizational attractiveness, and inten-

tions to litigate.

Measures

Invasion of privacy (5 items, a = 0.92), procedural justice (social; 18 items, a = 0.94), and organizational attrac- tiveness (5 items, a = 0.94) were measured using the same items as Study 1.

Intentions to litigate (4 items, a = 0.93). Intentions to litigate were measured using items developed for this study

based on the previous literature (Bauer et al. 2001). An

example item is, ‘‘An organization that uses a hiring sys-

tem like this would likely be sued by applicants.’’ Each

item was presented with a Likert-type scale, with responses

ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Results

Table 4 provides the means, standard deviations, and cor-

relations among the study variables. For a comparison

2 Study 2 also collected data on screening consistency, background

analysis revealed a lack of efficacy in the manipulation, therefore this

data were dropped from further analysis.

82 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

123

between Study 1 and Study 2, variables see Table 5. Prior

to testing the research hypotheses, the data were checked

for violations of normality assumptions. All scales were

within acceptable ranges for skewness and kurtosis.

In order to establish the conditions for model testing,

Hypothesis 1 was examined. Table 6 provides means,

standard deviations, and confidence intervals by study

condition. Hypothesis 1 predicted that applicants whose

social networking websites were screened would report

higher levels of privacy invasion than those whose social

networking websites were not screened. An independent

samples t-test comparing the two screening conditions to

the two no screening conditions with respect to the inva-

sion of privacy ratings was significant, t(206) = -2.39,

p = 0.02. In support of Hypothesis 1, the mean score for

the no screening conditions (M = 3.21, SD = 1.16) was

significantly lower than the mean score for the screening

conditions (M = 3.60, SD = 1.20, d = 0.33), see Table 6.

Next, the relationships shown in Fig. 5 were collectively

examined via a path analysis, which encompasses Hypoth-

eses 2–3 and 5–6. The two screening groups were collapsed

into a dummy coded variable with a ‘‘0’’ for the no screening

control groups and a ‘‘1’’ for the other two conditions. We

first ran a baseline model as in Fig. 5. The initial model did

not fit the data well based on commonly accepted fit criteria

(i.e., Hu and Bentler 1999): v2(17, N = 208) = 56.80, p = 0.00, TLI = 0.85, RMSEA = 0.11, SRMR = 0.06.

Thus, it appears that one or both of the hypothesized

mediation relationships are partial rather than full in nature.

In order to test Hypothesis 3 (i.e., whether the effect of

privacy invasions on organizational attractiveness is fully

mediated by justice perceptions), we estimated a model

identical to the baseline model except the direct path

between privacy invasions and organizational attractive-

ness was allowed to be estimated. This model also did

not fit the data, v2(16, N = 208) = 56.79, p = 0.00, TLI = 0.83, RMSEA = 0.11, SRMR = 0.06, and a like-

lihood ratio test did not indicate significantly better fit

than the baseline model (Dv2 = 1.08, Ddf = 1, p [ 0.05). Thus, it appears that allowing partial mediation did not

significantly improve model fit, which supports Hypothe-

sis 3 (full mediation).

A third model was estimated which was identical to the

baseline model except the direct path from invasion of pri-

vacy to intentions to litigate was allowed. The resultant model

demonstrated very good fit, v2(16, N = 208) = 20.34, p = 0.21, TLI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMR = 0.05.

The likelihood ratio test was significant (Dv2 = 59.97, Ddf = 1, p \ 0.001) indicating significantly improved model fit after freeing the aforementioned path. Figure 6

shows the unique, significant variance explained by each link

of the model and provides estimates of effect size. Therefore,

Hypothesis 5 was partially supported in that justice percep-

tions mediate the relationship between invasions of privacy

and intentions to litigate as expected, but this mediation was

partial rather than full as hypothesized.

Finally, in order to test Hypothesis 6 and rule out

alternative models, a fourth model was estimated which

was identical to the previous model except the path from

screening to justice perceptions was estimated, removing

hiring decision from the model (moderation). The resultant

model demonstrated poor fit, v2(21, N = 208) = 284.12, p = 0.00, TLI = 0.45, RMSEA = 0.25, SRMR = 0.14.

The likelihood ratio test was significant (Dv2 = 263.78, Ddf = 5, p [ 0.001) indicating the previous model fit the data significantly better than the current model.

Study 2 Discussion

The results again demonstrate that pre-employment social

networking website screening increases applicants’ per-

ceptions of invasion of privacy. Ultimately, applicant’s

Table 4 Descriptive statistics and correlations among the Study 2 variables

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4

1. Invasion of Privacy 3.42 1.19 (0.92)

2. Procedural Justice (Social) 3.38 0.73 -0.66** (0.94)

3. Organizational Attractiveness 3.55 1.02 -0.48** 0.68** (0.94)

4. Litigation Intentions 3.13 1.12 0.63** -0.58** -0.48** (0.93)

N = 208, ** p \ 0.01, Coefficient alphas on diagonal

Table 5 Comparison of descriptive statistics between Study 1 and Study 2

Variable Study 1

(N = 175)

Study 2

(N = 208)

M SD M SD

1. Invasion of Privacy 2.16 0.76 3.42 1.19

2. Procedural Justice (Social) 3.85 0.63 3.38 0.73

3. Organizational Attractiveness 3.66 0.69 3.55 1.02

4. Agreeableness 4.23 0.50 – –

4. Litigation Intentions – – 3.13 1.12

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 83

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perceptions of organizational justice lowered organiza-

tional attraction and increased intentions to sue the orga-

nization. Additionally, in Study 2, we manipulated the

hiring decision experienced by applicants, proposing that

the effect of social media screening practices on procedural

justice would be moderated by organizational hiring deci-

sion. Results indicated that this was not the case; the hiring

decision of the organization had no effect on applicant

perceptions of procedural justice. This is a notable finding

as it indicates that social media screening practices affect

privacy outcomes (e.g., organizational attractiveness,

intentions to litigate, etc.) irrespective of whether or not the

applicant is offered a job.

While the moderating effect of hiring decision on

applicant perceptions of procedural justice (social) was not

found to be significant, it should be mentioned that the

model results indicated that the proposed moderation aided

model fit, which is consistent with the extant literature.

Therefore, the lack of significant findings could be related

to the power problems of moderated multiple regression

(MMR) analyses (cf. Aguinis and Stone-Romero 1997;

Aguinis 1995).

General Discussion

This investigation provides an initial examination of the

effects of social networking website screening on job

applicants’ perceptions. Based on anecdotal accounts in the

popular press (Goldberg 2010; Levinson 2011; McNichol

2010), this practice is quite common. This examination

applies theory from the electronic performance monitoring

and privacy literature to the selection context by proposing

a model of job applicant reactions to employers’ use of

social networking sites for screening purposes (see Fig. 1),

in addition to investigating the conditions under which

these relationships may be altered (e.g., individual differ-

ences, hiring decision, different screening methods).

Study Limitations and Future Research

While this research offers a notable first step in examining

applicants’ reactions to social networking website employ-

ment screening, it has several limitations that should be

acknowledged. First, while applicants in Study 1 were

Table 6 Criterion means, standard deviations, and 95 % confidence intervals by Study 2 Condition

Condition No screening, No screening, Screened, Screened,

Not hired (N = 41) Hired (N = 56) Not hired (N = 49) Hired (N = 62)

M (SD) CIL CIU M (SD) CIL CIU M (SD) CIL CIU M (SD) CIL CIU

Invasion of Privacy 3.44 (1.20) 3.07 3.82 3.03 (1.11) 2.74 3.32 3.80 (1.13) 3.47 4.13 3.44 (1.23) 3.13 3.75

Procedural Justice (Social) 3.39 (0.71) 3.17 3.62 3.64 (0.64) 3.47 3.81 3.02 (0.74) 2.81 3.24 3.43 (0.70) 3.25 3.61

Organizational Attractiveness 3.72 (0.92) 3.43 4.01 3.88 (0.85) 3.64 4.10 2.96 (1.20) 2.61 3.30 3.61 (0.87) 3.38 3.83

Litigation Intentions 3.06 (1.18) 2.70 3.44 2.83 (1.02) 2.56 3.10 3.41 (1.22) 3.06 3.76 3.22 (1.03) 2.96 3.48

N = 208

Fig. 6 Model of relationship between the presence of social

networking website screening

and organizational

attractiveness with partial

mediation in Study 2.

**p \ 0.01, *p \ 0.05. Effect size estimates in parentheses

84 J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88

123

students who received course credit for completing the pilot

study pre-screen, they were under no obligation to further

pursue the position and, in fact, nearly half chose not to seek

out the job opening. Given that additional effort was

required without compensation to complete the selection

system feedback survey, these participants can be consid-

ered representative of the larger workforce of part-time

employees, contingent workers, and job applicants in simi-

lar situations. In other words, these participants were not

students asked to simply imagine a hypothetical scenario

and how they may react.

The nature of the job and selection procedure examined

in Study 1 may serve as boundary conditions. The job was

a short-term, temporary assignment, where applicants

possessed limited information about the hiring organiza-

tion. This is arguably similar to situations encountered by

individuals who seek employment through temporary work

agencies, and it should be noted that such individuals

comprise a non-trivial segment of the labor force.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005), over 15

million workers are employed in some non-traditional

capacity (e.g., contractors, on-call workers, contingent

workers) in the United States. Similarly, individuals con-

tacted about employment by a headhunter may not know

the name or attributes of their future employer during the

early stages of the selection process. Thus, although this

study included unique features, we expect it will readily

generalize to similar settings (e.g., temporary employment,

employment through headhunters) and to non-similar set-

tings as well. The theories of violations to the sense of self,

which occur with the non-consensual breach of private and

public barriers are robust. To this extent, we imagine our

findings would generalize to any employment situation,

demonstrated further by the significant findings of Study 2.

The hypothetical nature of Study 2, however, should also be

mentioned as a boundary condition as it likely served to atten-

uate the effect of screening on both invasions of privacy and

procedural justice (social). Therefore, what remains unknown is

the magnitude of the effects witnessed when applicants are

seeking long-term employment with an organization with

which they are quite familiar. When the stakes are higher (e.g.,

when applying for a more important position, in a non-simu-

lated setting), the effects may be even stronger.

Additionally, the severity of the manipulation in Study 1

and Study 2 may limit the generalizability of the manu-

script. The practice of ‘‘friending’’ applicants may appear

to be overly draconian, but was done in an effort to be in-

line with the anecdotes of the popular press (cf. Ducklin

2009; Goldberg 2010; Palank 2006) and is, therefore, likely

consistent with hiring procedures experienced by real

world applicants.

Future research is needed to more fully investigate Fig. 1

and determine the conditions under which these findings

generalize. Looking at the various proposed moderators,

investigating whether these findings generalize to other

social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn which have

different system characteristics, but are also commonly

used to screen applicants is a valuable future direction. As

LinkedIn is intended for use by job seekers, we expect that

applicants would react differently than they do with non-

work-related sites examined in this study. Other moderators

such as making screening practices known to job candidates

in advance of the screening process (i.e., system charac-

teristics) could be examined in future investigations. In

addition, future research could examine the content of

applicants’ social networking websites. By doing so,

researchers can determine whether the effects of the

screening practice examined in this study depend on factors

such as the degree to which the applicant’s social media

sites contain information generally regarded as inappro-

priate or unprofessional and whether the applicant has

attempted to make his or her social media profile inacces-

sible to the general public. These questions become perti-

nent because the effect of screening has now been

empirically linked to privacy invasion and its consequences,

the second and third links in the model (see Fig. 1). As

mentioned previously, a multitude of outcomes exists when

individuals feel their privacy has been invaded (e.g.,

devaluation of the self, decreased OCB, psychological

disenfranchisement), future investigations could explore

more outcomes than those investigated here (i.e., procedural

justice, attractiveness, and intentions to litigate). Further-

more, organizations’ use of social media in recruitment

likely affects the selection process as well. Future investi-

gations could examine the effects of social media on

applicant perceptions of the organization measured before

and after exposure to social media presence and how this

affects organizational attraction; this could be looked at in

addition to a social media screening manipulation. Addi-

tionally, researchers could examine the effect of recruiting

applicants from different social media websites, which have

different user profiles, to determine if issues such as adverse

impact may be present when using a recruitment strategy

that employs social media.

Outside of the hiring context, research should also

examine the consequences that occur when organizations

use social networking websites as a mechanism to check

up on job incumbents. Such efforts may wish to examine

whether this represents a violation of an implicit psy-

chological contract and/or whether it affects outcomes

such as organizational commitment, deviant and counter-

productive work behaviors, organizational citizenship

behavior, and turnover. While the framework presented in

the present manuscript (Fig. 1) is focused on the selection

process, the underlying mechanisms of privacy invasion

are predicated on reactions to a form of electronic

J Bus Psychol (2015) 30:73–88 85

123

monitoring and therefore the framework would apply in

such instances as well.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

From a theoretical standpoint, this study demonstrates how

research from the disparate literatures such as electronic

monitoring, notions of the self, privacy, and applicant

reactions can be integrated to better understand responses

to new technological innovations in the workplace. This

integration is expected to lay fruitful groundwork for future

research and theory devoted to understanding the conse-

quences that occur when employers use social media to

gain information about applicants and employees.

This research has important practical implications for

organizations. The results indicate that organizations

seeking to hire individuals should consider the costs and

benefits of the clandestine use social networking websites

to screen employees. Such practices could reduce the

attractiveness of an organization during various phases of

the selection process, especially if the applicant pool at

large knows or suspects that the organization engages in

such screening. Internet message boards and social media

provide easily accessible forums for job seekers to share

their experiences and opinions with others. Thus, a soured

applicant could affect others’ perceptions of the organiza-

tion as well (cf. Hausknecht et al. 2004). Job candidates

may be discouraged from accepting offers of employment

if they interpret poor treatment of applicants as a preview

or indication of how they would be dealt with in the future

(Gilliland 1993). This may be particularly true of appli-

cants low in agreeableness. As for those who do accept an

offer of employment, research has indicated that applicants

selected under unfair procedures are prone to unfavorable

attitudes post-hire, causing Ployhart and Ryan (1998) to

suggest that the negativity resulting from procedural justice

violations during selection could carry forward onto the

job, leading to low performance and turnover.

Furthermore, the results indicated that applicants that

feel their privacy has been invaded may be more likely to

sue the organization, which can be costly to an organization

regardless of complaint validity. Indeed, legal claiming

does not occur in isolation, and the ripple effect of litigation

can serve to tarnish an organization’s reputation, customer

loyalty, and shareholder value (Goldman 2001). Conse-

quently, organizations should weigh the consequences of

applicant legal action when considering social network

screening practices.

Finally, this investigation suggests that applicants view

social networking websites as a space separate from their

work environment. Practically speaking, if organizations

continue to use the information found on these websites to

make work-related decisions, applicants may need to

change their conceptualization of social networking web-

sites. Applicants may wish to reconsider using their Face-

book pages as private forums for casual discussion with

their friends and instead adopt a much more guarded tone.

Additionally, there could soon be demand for services

geared at inspecting clients’ social networking web pages

and other presence on the Internet in an attempt to ‘‘scrub’’

such pages. This is especially true for applicants with more

objectionable material found on their social networking

websites as well as those applying for sensitive positions,

such as jobs requiring security clearances.

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