The Effectiveness of Organizational Sustainability Messaging to New Hires: An Exploratory Analysis of Signal Cost, Perceived Credibility, and Involvement Intention

A critical sustainability task is to communicate an organization’s sustainability values in a manner which yields favorable new hire perceptions and involvement. However, factors influencing the impact of sustainability messaging on new hire perceptions remain unexplored to the authors’ knowledge. This exploratory study explores these factors using an experimental vignette study design in which signal costliness and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were manipulated in the administration of a hypothetical new employee orientation presentation. The findings suggest that conditions in which extrinsic motivating factors were noted as the reason for organizational sustainability yielded higher perceived credibility and involvement intention among respondents. More costly sustainability messaging was detrimental to the perceived message credibility and employee involvement intentions.