Porcelain Publishing / JCHRM / Volume 14 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.47297/wspchrmWSP2040-800502.20231402
ARTICLE

Employer Branding in the Healthcare Sector: The Role of Instrumental and Symbolic Image Attributes Among Potential Applicants and Doctors

Jiaxin Luo 1 Aristides I. Ferreira 2 Filip Lievens 3 Beatriz R. Trigo 4
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1 BGI Medicine, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
2 ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, Lisbon, Portugal
3 Lee Kong Chian School of Business Management University, Singapore
4 ISCTE -Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, Lisbon, Portugal
© Invalid date by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

This study draws from the instrumental-symbolic framework to analyze the employer image of public hospitals among final-year students and employed doctors. We examine the relative importance of perceived instrumental and symbolic employer image attributes in public hospitals in China among two groups of individuals (211 final-year students and 200 currently employed doctors). Both instrumental and symbolic attributes are significantly related to hospitals' attractiveness as an employer. Symbolic trait inferences explain incremental variance in employer attraction beyond instrumental attributes. Although both attributes explain similar portions of the variance in the two groups, the attributes that emerge as significantly related to hospitals' attractiveness are different. Finally, potential applicants have more favorable perceptions of both instrumental and symbolic attributes than employed doctors. Practical and theoretical implications deal with how hospitals should audit their employer image and manage their employer branding practices.

Keywords
Recruitment
Employer branding
Employer image
Instrumental-symbolic framework
Employee retention
Public hospitals
China
Funding
This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, grant UID/GES/00315/2013. This is a Research and Development project co-financed by the Lisbon 2020, Portugal 2020, and European Union programs through the FEDER – code LISBOA-01-0247-FEDER-045216 –, which includes the participation of ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN).
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