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Online background checks in personnel decision-making

  • Abstract Paper 1: Cybervetting has become common practice in personnel decision-making processes of organizations. While it represents a quick and inexpensive way of obtaining additional information on employees and applicants, it gives rise to a variety of legal and ethical concerns. To limit companies’ access to personal information, a right to be forgotten has been introduced by the European jurisprudence. By discussing the notion of forgetting from the perspective of French hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricoeur, the present article demonstrates that both, companies and employees, would be harmed if access to online information on applicants and current employees would be denied. Consistent with a Humanistic Management approach that promotes human dignity and flourishing in the workplace, this article proposes guidance for the responsible handling of unpleasant online memories in personnel decision-making processes, thereby following Ricoeur’s notion of forgetting as “kept in reserve”. Enabling applicants and employees to take aAbstract Paper 1: Cybervetting has become common practice in personnel decision-making processes of organizations. While it represents a quick and inexpensive way of obtaining additional information on employees and applicants, it gives rise to a variety of legal and ethical concerns. To limit companies’ access to personal information, a right to be forgotten has been introduced by the European jurisprudence. By discussing the notion of forgetting from the perspective of French hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricoeur, the present article demonstrates that both, companies and employees, would be harmed if access to online information on applicants and current employees would be denied. Consistent with a Humanistic Management approach that promotes human dignity and flourishing in the workplace, this article proposes guidance for the responsible handling of unpleasant online memories in personnel decision-making processes, thereby following Ricoeur’s notion of forgetting as “kept in reserve”. Enabling applicants and employees to take a qualified stand on their past is more beneficial to both sides than a right to be forgotten that is questionable in several respects. Abstract Paper 2: When hiring new employees, managers often conduct online background checks on applicants. This practice has led many applicants to reach out to legal and technological solutions that render unpleasant online memories forgotten. With this article, we question the effectiveness and social value of approaches aimed at permanently erasing information from the web. Furthermore, we provide practitioners with guidance toward responsible handling of applicant information from the web. In this conceptual article, we review the literature on organizational memory and interpret it through a philosophical lens by turning to the works of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur and the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. We conclude that legally or technologically enforced forgetting on the web fails to provide true protection from a memory in a hiring situation, as remembering in an organization is a complex social process that hardly lets a memory disappear completely. As a result, legal and technological approaches that aim at erasing unpleasant memories from the web represent only an illusion of protection for job applicants. Alternatively, we propose a selection process that makes the erasure of unpleasant memories from the web unnecessary. Previous literature on organizational memory has already criticized a purely mechanistic view of memory in organizations, by which memories are treated as objects that can be retrieved and deleted on demand. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article that establishes a connection between organizational memory and the use of online information in selection. Abstract Paper 3: Companies have started using social media for screening applicants in the selection process. Thereby, they enter a low-cost source of information on applicants, which potentially allows them to hire the right person on the job and avoid irresponsible employee behavior and negligent hiring lawsuits. However, a number of ethical issues are associated with this practice, which give rise to the question of the fairness of social media screening. This article aims to provide an assessment of the procedural justice of social media screening and to articulate recommendations for a fairer use of social media in the selection process. To achieve this, a systematic literature review of research articles pertaining to social media screening has been conducted. Thereby, the benefits and ethical issues relating to social media screening, as well as recommendations for its use have been extracted and discussed against Leventhal’s (1980) rules of procedural justice. It turns out that without clear guidelines for recruiters, social media screening cannot be considered procedurally fair, as it opens up way too many opportunities for infringements on privacy, unfair discrimination, and adverse selection based on inaccurate information. However, it is possible to enhance the fairness of this practice by establishing clear policies and procedures to standardize the process. Abstract Paper 4: Social media platforms have presented individuals with sheer endless possibilities for networking, creating and exchanging information. Yet, overwhelming social demands, privacy concerns, and even a lack of access to new technologies have led many users to discontinue social media usage. Simultaneously, companies screen and select applicants on social media. As previous research suggests that employers may view missing social media information with suspicion, we ask if non-users of social media face disadvantages in hiring: Are they discriminated against? In this study, we employ a 2 x 2 experimental survey design to verify whether absence from social media may result in discriminatory behavior towards job applicants. We conduct the study with two samples: The first comprises business students, and the second consists of more senior members of the workforce. Although this study does not confirm discrimination against non-users of social media in the selection process, it adds to the literature in two respects: Firstly, it shows differences in call-back between highly and less qualified candidates as a result of social media information. Secondly, it suggests unintentional, systemic rater biases. Against these findings, we formulate recommendations for applicants and employers and give recommendations for future research in this field.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Wack, Eva
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus4-8098
Subtitle (English):practices, challenges, and ethical recommendations ; [cumulative dissertation]
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Habisch, André, Prof. Dr. Setzer, Thomas
Document Type:Doctoral thesis
Language of publication:English
Year of creation:2023
Date of first Publication:2023/04/26
Publishing Institution:Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Awarding Institution:Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Date of final examination:2023/02/14
Release Date:2023/04/26
GND Keyword:Social Media; Personalauswahl; Unternehmensethik; Corporate Digital Responsibility; Personalbeschaffung; Personalpolitik; Berufliches Profiling; Personalplanung
Faculty:Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
License (German):License LogoKeine Lizenz - es gilt das deutsche Urheberrecht
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