Will it be Disclosure or Fabrication of Personal Information? An Examination of Persuasion Strategies on Prospective Employees

Individuals are increasingly reluctant to disclose personal data and sometimes even intentionally fabricate information to avoid the risk of having it compromised. In such situations, , organizations face an acute dilemma: they must obtain accurate job applicant information in order to make good hiring decisions, but potential employees may be reluctant to provide accurate information because they fear it could be used for other purposes. Building on theoretical foundations from social cognition and persuasion theory, we propose that, depending on levels of privacy concerns, organizations could use appropriate strategies to persuade job applicants to provide accurate information. We conducted a laboratory experiment to examine the effects of two different persuasion strategies on prospective employees’ willingness to disclose information, measured as their intentions to disclose or falsify information. Our results show support for our suggestion. As part of this study, we propose the term information sensitivity to identify the types of personal information that potential employees are most reluctant to disclose.