What is not beautiful should match: how attractiveness similarity affects consumer responses to advertising

This study introduces the concept of attractiveness similarity, empirically examines its main effect and whether it moderates the effect of endorser attractiveness on consumer responses to advertising. The results show a positive main effect of attractiveness similarity over and above the mere effect of endorser attractiveness. In addition, a consistent moderating effect of attractiveness similarity on the effect of endorser attractiveness emerges: attractiveness similarity buffers against the less positive effects of lower levels of endorser attractiveness (i.e., it compensates for lower levels of endorser attractiveness). Overall, these findings reveal attractiveness similarity as a new variable in endorser advertising, which has important managerial implications. Advertising campaigns employing averagely attractive endorsers should pay special attention to attractiveness similarity.     

The role of employees for post-entry firm growth

While the majority of existing studies on the determinants of post-entry firm growth focus on the role of the founders or on the impact of firm-specific characteristics, possible effects of the characteristics of a start-up’s workforce have been widely neglected to date. In this paper we examine the role of initial worker and job characteristics (e.g., qualification, age, workload, marginal employment) of start-ups for their post‐entry employment growth. The analyses are based upon a capacious panel dataset comprising a representative 50 % sample of establishments in Germany. Our empirical results show that, inter alia, high-skilled and young workers are conducive to growth in terms of both the number of employees and full-time equivalents. With respect to flexible work forms, however, establishments using part-time employment show higher post‐entry growth only in terms of total hours worked, but a significantly lower growth with respect to the number of employees.     

Fostering employees' proactive strategic engagement: Individual and contextual antecedents

Proactive strategic scanning is an important aspect of employee proactivity and contributes to engaging employees in the organisation‐wide strategy process. It also contributes to strategic renewal and innovation by helping to identify potential strategic opportunities and threats. However, little is known about its antecedents and how HRM may support this valuable resource. To address this gap, we develop and test a model of individual and contextual antecedents of proactive strategic scanning. We hypothesise and find a positive effect of future‐focused personality on strategic scanning which is mediated by promotion‐focused self‐regulation at work. Moreover, we investigate how work design functions as a contextual boundary condition of this mediated effect. The effect is strengthened under high social support but is not influenced by the level of decision‐making autonomy. Our findings point to specific variables which can be targeted by HRM to enhance employees' strategic engagement and innovative behaviour.