Miss Madiha Nawaz, Publishing
Miss Madiha Nawaz, Publishing
Miss Madiha Nawaz, Publishing
Abstract
Acquiring a talented workforce is a dream for every organization. Over the years, firms
have been using traditional approaches to capture/exploit market talents. Unfortunately,
the success rate of these conventional approaches is relatively low. The present study aims
to find some appropriate practices that the firms may use to capture the best talent from the
market. From a sample of 509 participants across the different cities of Pakistan, the
relationship between HR marketing practices and valuable human capital was assessed.
The results show that better HR marketing practices will result in improved capturing of
talented individuals from the market. The study provides deep insight to managers for
introducing the best HR marketing practices to acquire the best talent. It also recommends
that HR officials promote valuable jobs ads and promotions, which could attract prospective
candidates.
Keywords: HR Marketing Practices, Intentions to Apply, Human Capital, AMOS.
Introduction
Talent hunting and its management have now become a global phenomenon. People with
intelligent minds and skills are complex to find and critical to retain. Digitalization, labor
deficiencies, growth through acquisitions, synchronized downsizing and extensions, and
workforce demographic changes are just a few trends prioritizing talent (Guerrero &
Barraud, 2004). Organizations are putting substantial resources into recruiting competitive
human resources from the market. The role of human resource management departments
(HR departments) has now moved to the next generation, where technology, logistics, and
techniques are as necessary as other business operations (Shamout et al., 2022). Since the
pandemic of Covid-19, the importance of technology and its usage has become a core
requirement in every organization around the globe. Like others, HR departments are also
tracing new tools and techniques to hunt talented workers for their workplaces, as what is
considered the best HRM practice is most likely different (Lawler, 2007). As literature has
widely advocated that HR practices impact organizational performance (Tangthong et al.,
2014) and help retain existing employees (Othman & Lembang, 2017), it is necessary to
follow or apply those practices that could satisfy both.
Over the years, firms have used various HR practices and methods to attract prospective
employees from the market and retain and motivate existing workers to stay longer term
1
Lecturer, Superior College and University Campus Gujrat. Email: Bilal.sadi@gmail.com
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Business Education, The University of Chenab, Gujrat.
Email: kaleem@be.uchenab.edu.pk
3
Assistant Professor, Department of Business Education, The University of Chenab, Gujrat.
Email: shahzada@be.uchenab.edu.pk
4
MS Scholar, Department of Management Sciences, The Superior College Lahore.
Email: madeehanawaz61@gmail.com
145 Journal of Asian Development Studies Vol. 12, Issue 4 (December 2023)
(Zheng et al., 2009). The use of these practices is not new or surprising, but despite being
in literature for many years, a complete/thorough settlement on them is still awaited. It is
advocated that HR practitioners must grasp marketing and branding concepts with
communications and web-based tools that allow them to gain profit from the social media
possibilities offered to recruit talent. They are maintaining a customer-oriented relationship
with marketing and human resources management, considering prospective and existing
talents as consumers, and adopting the HR marketing philosophy (Ruel & Bondarouk,
2014). It allows companies to create systematic talented-management practices objectives
and improve productivity by enhancing skilled and talented employee recruitments,
retentions, and commitments.
Though multinational companies have a brand image and recognition that helps them attain
and retain valuable human resources around the vicinity, they still need help meeting their
human resource objectives. Local firms even suffer more from this. Candidates applying for
jobs consider multiple factors and motivations to use. The intangible assets for any firm are
equally important, or it can be claimed that they are more critical than tangibles (Khuwaja
et al., 2020). Companies invest more in developing their intellectual capital instead of
spending on high-end buildings or infrastructures. However, for every business, a challenge
still exists to recruit and gather a stable workforce that can help the organization grow
everlastingly.
Within these encounters, it is challenging to locate the appropriate staff. But how do we
attract workers from the market? One of the objectives of this work is to solely investigate
the potential impact of HR marketing practices on capturing valuable human capital from
the market. Secondly, the study will also focus on extracting features in any advertising ad
that will help to increase a person's intentions to apply for a particular post. Lastly, the study
will try to find out the role of choices that were improved by better HR marketing strategies
in attaining valuable human capital. To answer these questions, the present study is
performed to:
1. Assess the factors or attributes that motivate an individual in applying for a particular
job.
2. To investigate the relationship between assessed factors and intentions to use.
3. To check the role of HR policies and practices that dominantly impact the candidate's
Intention to use.
Valuable human capital, employee job satisfaction, commitment, motivation, stress,
attitude, and behavior are affected by selecting and hiring the appropriate workforce.
Previous research shows valuable human capital, like skilled and motivated labor, can play
a better role than poor strategies adopted by organizations before. HR practices are always
looking for fruitful initiatives, as Rundle (1997) recommends that his Humanoid source of
the association, nevertheless firm, remains an acceptable apparatus for defining how firms
drive the answer to search for skilled labor. Relation theory can help us to get better HR
marketing practices with gratification, inspiration, and enlarged information, plus the
obligation of a company's top skilled workers, resulting in a basis of reasonable profit on
behalf of the organization.
The present research aimed to provide evidence about how HR marketing practices collect
valuable workforces for the organization, in which hip crack becomes a foundation of
economic benefit (Terpstra & Rozell, 1993). It was argued that companies would build
profits by putting talented people first as their valuable human capital (Kerzner, 2002).
Hence, this research will be beneficial for industrial recruiters to capture the importance and
usage of HR marketing practices.
146 Journal of Asian Development Studies Vol. 12, Issue 4 (December 2023)
previous knowledge are more likely to be linked to radical innovation and how multivariate
combinations of human capital can be utilized to comprehend the results of technology
businesses in the future. In summary, this research examines the general and particular forms
of human capital related to radical innovation results and how human capital's
configurations may be linked to better standards of radical innovation. The paper is written
in the following lines. In the following part, we examine briefly the literature on the results
of creation and the contractor. We next provide a theoretical explanation as to why elements
of the individual human capital affect differing results in innovation. There are suggested
hypotheses relating to general and particular human capital and its impact on radical
innovation. We then report on our empirical examination techniques and findings. A
discussion follows, and the article ends with research and practical implications.
This section aims to examine the research and to develop hypotheses linking elements of
the human capital of technology contractors to the radical nature of their inventions. First,
the idea of human capital is explained, and this theory helps improve our knowledge of how
certain people identify innovation possibilities. Well-known elements of human capital are
examined, and hypotheses are made. We next explore particular kinds of information shown
to affect opportunity identification and offer views unique to the previous knowledge
framework used to analyze human capital for technology entrepreneurs.
Education is another element of a person's human capital necessary for discovering and
exploiting possibilities. Education improves the store of knowledge and abilities of a person,
particularly those required to identify and follow a business opportunity effectively. The
success of Canadian biotechnology companies has been studied by Smith et al. (2001) and
founders with master's degrees have shown quicker employment and income growth than
others in the sample. Many types of research on capital have embraced the concept that
"more is better," using formal or school years as a measure of human capital. However,
results have been mixed regarding a beneficial connection between education and risk
creation and education and the identification and use of possibilities. Dimov and Shepherd
(2005) argue that broad actions need to be sufficiently sensitive to capture the effect of
human capital on the different consequences of entrepreneurship.
This approach predicts the growth of HR marketing practices by new investments in human
capital.
H1(a): Employer legitimacy has a positive relationship with valuable human capital.
H1(b): Practice employment has a positive relationship with valuable human capital.
H1(c): Technology innovation has a positive relationship with valuable human capital.
H1(d): HR practice has a positive relationship with valuable human capital.
H1(e): Firm reputation positively correlates with valuable human capital.
Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 Conceptual Framework
Methodology
To achieve the desired goals, descriptive research phenomena were used. In addition, the
study was analytical and correlational. This study adopted the characteristics of interest
normally dispersed amongst the employees. Therefore, we used the non-probability
convenience sampling technique in this study, in which respondents were selected based on
our convenience for getting the required response. Since all measures were collected using
the same survey from self-reporting informants, potential problems arising from common-
method bias were evaluated using Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2012). A
précised survey-based questionnaire was used to get the results from different schools,
colleges, universities, banks and the general public across various cities of Pakistan. Cross-
sectional data of 509 respondents were collected from workers at various levels working in
various sectors. Data was collected at distinct levels, and the hypotheses in the study were
nearly examined.
Measures
The study variables were measured using an established scale for the evaluation and survey
questionnaires. The details of the authors and research from where the scale was adopted
are highlighted and described in Table 1. The first section covers demographics, including
name, marital status, designation, experiences, education, etc. The Second segment includes
the measurement of Employer legitimacy and its dimensions (Employer Legitimacy,
Practice Employment, Technology innovation, HR practices and Firm Reputation).
Results
Reliability Analysis
Though the study uses established measures for the studied variables, the reliability of the
construct was assessed using Cronbach Alpha. Table 2 highlights the reliability test results
for the variables where all the values are above the threshold, i.e. 0.70. The values range
from 0.89 to 0.75, and the overall reliability score of the questionnaire appeared to be 0.80.
Qualification
HR Practices
Employment
Technology
Intention to
Legitimacy
Experience
Reputation
Innovation
Employer
Deviation
Valuable
Practice
Human
Marital
Gender
Capital
Apply
Status
Mean
Firm
Std.
Gender 1.2613 0.43977 1
Marital
1.5344 0.49931 .322** 1
Status
Qualification 2.6169 0.58238 0.084 .089* 1
**
Experience 1.6248 0.89104 -.242 -.495** -.141** 1
Employer
1.4878 0.38122 -0.020 0.017 -0.057 -0.026 1
Legitimacy
Practice
1.3170 0.43437 -0.022 .112* -0.052 -0.049 .753** 1
Employment
Technology
1.2849 0.46797 -0.050 0.083 -0.054 -0.033 .676** .772** 1
Innovation
HR Practices 1.2719 0.40674 -0.017 0.020 -0.023 -0.028 .661** .680** .750** 1
Firm
1.3678 0.41795 -0.004 0.039 -0.053 -0.043 .741** .780** .686** .803** 1
Reputation
Intention to
1.2863 0.39568 -0.033 0.070 -0.037 -0.030 .755** .864** .894** .912** .756** 1
Apply
Valuable
Human 1.2811 0.43632 -0.014 0.019 -0.029 -0.033 .604** .656** .723** .958** .899** .833** 1
Capital
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
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Journal of Asian Development Studies Vol. 12, Issue 4 (December 2023)
Table 4 Random Coefficients Regression Analyses
Predictor
Model 4
Model 5
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 6
Model 7
Human
Human
Human
Human
Human
Human
Human
Capital
Capital
Capital
Capital
Capital
Capital
Capital
Value
Value
Value
Value
Value
Value
Value
Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE Est. SE
Age -0.056 0.080 -0.053 0.046 -0.046 0.043 -0.062 0.082 -0.037 0.081 -0.014 0.072 -0.091 0.052
Gender -0.024 0.022 0.032* 0.013 0.038* 0.013 -0.023 0.023 -0.035 0.022 -0.123 0.037 0.031* 0.074
Marital 0.122 0.077 -0.061 0.044 -0.007 0.045 -0.092 0.080 -0.092 0.077 0.056 0.043 -0.083 0.113
Status
Qualification 0.080 0.053 -0.133* 0.035 -0.110* 0.031 -0.047 0.052 -0.012 0.053 0.058* 0.013 -0.064 0.122
Experience -0.032 0.033 0.014 0.027 0.007 0.025 0.027 0.029 0.026 0.026 -0.072 0.051 -0.192 0.091
Employer 0.205* 0.067 0.140 0.091 0.230 0.078 -0.058 0.167 0.043 0.011 0.079 0.031
Legitimacy
Practice 0.256 0.062 0.087 0.058 0.012 0.038 0.205* 0.030 -0.021 0.100
Employment
Technology 0.205 0.072 -0.231 0.171 0.083 0.081 0.039 0.092
Innovation
HR Practices -0. 506 0.052 -0.091 0.132 -0.157 0.199
Firm 0.173* 0.092 0.038* 0.013
Reputation
HR Practices 0.429* 0.216 0.038 0.013
Intention to 0.035* 0.018 0.096* 0.040
apply
HR practices 0.061 0.079 0.007 0.025
X Intention
to apply
Δ χ 2 (Δdf) 3221.97 (20) 3977.84(25) 3001.02(21) 3231.74(17) 3410.16(16) 2710.16(16) 2501.16(15)
Δ R2 0.152 0.172 0.616 0.182 0.214 0.283 0.250
Note: Δ R is the degree of reduction in error variance.
2
Hypotheses Testing
Table 4 confirms the proposed hypotheses, indicating preliminary support for Hypothesis 3.
Moreover, the interaction of “HR marketing practices” and “value intention capital” under
the mediation effect of “Intention to apply” had a significant coefficient in Table 4,
indicating preliminary support for Hypothesis 4. Hence, H1, H2 and H3 aligned with the
proposed hypotheses.
As given in Table 4, all the hypotheses are significantly correlated with the proposed
hypothesis. Detail is given as follows:
Employees Legitimacy was positively related to Value Human Capital (γ = 0.025,
t = 0.067, p > .05) provides confirmation for Hypothesis 3a.
Practice Employment was positively related to Value Human Capital (γ = 0.256,
t = 0.062, p > .05) provides confirmation for Hypothesis 3b.
Technology Innovation was positively related to Value Human Capital (γ = 0.205,
t = 0.072, p > .05) provides confirmation for Hypothesis 3c.
HR practices was positively related to Value Human Capital (γ = -0.506, t = 0.052,
p > .05) provides confirmation for Hypothesis 3d.
Firm Reputation was positively related to Value Human Capital (γ = 0.173, t = 0.092,
p > .05) provides confirmation for Hypothesis 3e.
The mediation effect of “Intention to apply” was also positively related to the Value
of Human Capital (γ = 0.007, t = 0.025), confirming Hypothesis H4.
Hence, we can say that our implied HR marketing practices, along with its dimensions
(employer legitimacy, firm reputation, HR practices, technology innovation and practice
employment), all as independent variables, have significant positive by affecting Valuable
human capital (dependent variable) along with the mediating role of the intention to apply
has to contribute its very special role to reduce the cost of potential organizations and profit-
oriented institutions as well. In the modern world of strategic human resource management,
every employer is looking into reducing cost and time for the sake of their current
organization with skilled employees and trained entrepreneurs. Research is also contributing
to the field of marketing for the attraction of intelligent job seekers in Pakistan and outside
Pakistan as well. Generally, the researcher also highlights the importance of valued and
trained employees for the institution's long-term benefit to survive in the competitive
market.
Normally, sustainable organizations want to reduce employee turnover with the help of the
latest and advanced HR marketing practices to save costs and time. One of the novelties of
this study was to extract the practices that could be adopted to gain the best available
resources in the market.
(2013) inferred that the HRM rehearses representative commitment interface still needs to
be clarified, and there's a requirement for additional questions in the HRM field. Chen
(2007) gives a well-known examination which characterizes that the differences in the
human asset practice can likewise have different effects on the conduct of the worker, so it
is in every case hard for thought to create convincing human asset practice perhaps a heap
of human asset practice to permit a thorough data of incredible practices to human asset
practice experts. Parker and Griffin (2011) clarified that business-related segments on the
lower level, for instance, do not generally apply a down and out-degree of representative
commitment as other authoritative resources, for example, saw backing of association may
repay the effects of sad factors connected to worker commitment. These investigations give
a reasonable hole; the significant goal of this examination is to discover the connection
between value-able human capital and HR practices with the positive mediation role of
intention to apply (Agarwal & Helfat, 2009). Empower this consider conceptualizes the
directing piece of apparent hierarchical help (POS) inside the connection between HR
practices and its dimensions (employer legitimacy, firm reputation, HR practices, practice
employment and technology innovation) and valuable human capital as the study's
dependent variable.
This study's results justify the need for HR practices with major issues relating to valuable
human capital and their attention to application. As a part of the employee's honest
engagement with the help of organizational support, this research will help to upturn the
good impacts on the market to capture valuable human capital by exploiting the latest
opportunities in the environment. The advanced form of HR marketing practices
intentionally provides abilities to attract experienced and skilled would-be employees and
intend them to apply for their organization. Skilled and trained human capital is not a piece
of cake for HR marketing practices to attract them easily and break their loyalty to the
organization where they work. Undoubtedly, it can be the biggest challenge for HR
marketing practices to inspire and hire them.
This research has solved several issues at different levels by contributing to their HR
practices with significantly positive dimensions. As Chen (2007) shared, the outcome of HR
marketing practices is to encourage the skilled and potential human capital to work in
different profit-oriented sectors and look for jobs in different private and national sectors.
So, our research is also helpful for such organizations to improve their HR marketing
policies to attract valuable job seekers at national and international levels. In older times,
HR policies were less important for companies as they were only looked at in terms of
production and profit graphs. Still, in today's world of competition, the need for better HR
marketing practices is increasing daily with the rapid advancement of employees and
intelligent job seekers.
Research Implications
The research has several implications for industrial managers and academic scholars. Firstly,
the industry managers learned which practices the HR department should adopt to bring
talented human capital to the firm. Secondly, the research empirically evidences that HR
marketing practices improve the intentions of the prospective candidate to apply to the
company. Third, the manager may convince management to use this research to develop
their firm's HRD or talent acquisition departments/sections. That will not only help them to
capture the best possible resources but also highlight the low-performing workers within the
Journal of Asian Development Studies Vol. 12, Issue 4 (December 2023)
155
organization. Finally, the managers could use these factors as their competitive advantage,
restricting their competitors to minimum market shares.
In addition to managers, the research also has several implications, including a significant
addition to literature and body of knowledge with context to Asian and especially Pakistani
settings. Secondly, the research created a new source of antecedents for valuable capital and
Intentions to apply. Finally, the research creates a new avenue/door for upcoming works in
the field of business.
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