Referral hiring in a recruitment situation: The importance of favoritism, fairness and gender.

Sammanfattning: Which factors will influence who you choose to recommend in referral hiring? Questions regarding nepotism and referral hiring were examined in the study. Special focus was laid on in group favoritism, perceived fairness and gender. With an experiment participants were faced with a scenario where they were asked to select a replacer for a job spot. In the experiment the participants were faced with a fairness priming, using words (primes) and a control condition. The participant also completed a moral test which was treated as a moderating variable. The conclusion was that the participants chose more friends of the same gender as themselves. The participants also chose to select their friends instead of two unknowns despite the fact that the friend was less suitable for the job. No connections were found between the sex, the fairness manipulation or the concept of fairness. The manipulation had no effect.