Abstract:
Various studies have highlighted the importance of talented human capital
to organisations in their quest for commercial success and competitive
advantage. Studies in diverse fields including HRM, organisational
attractiveness and, more recently, employer branding, have sought to
address the important question: how can organisations attract high calibre
management?
At the same time, mounting evidence indicates that SMEs experience
unique difficulties in attracting senior executive talent, and that this
problem is the major limiting factor to their growth, development, and
ultimately, survival. A systematic review of the literature revealed that no
research exists on what attracts executives to SMEs, therefore it was
necessary to return to the wider attraction literature to synthesise existing
theoretical frameworks into an integrated model. This provided a basis for
a qualitative study using interviews with executives who had left large
organisations to join medium-sized enterprises.
This study makes three contributions to theory. Firstly, it proposes a model
that describes attraction of executives to medium-sized enterprises. The
model integrates both organisational-related and employer-related
attraction factors, sheds light on which job and organisational attributes
are seen as important attraction factors by executives, and introduces novel
attributes that positively impact attraction in the research context.
Secondly, in explaining what attracts executives to medium-sized
enterprises, this study lends support to the emerging compensatory theory
of employer attractiveness. Thirdly, this research reveals the existence of
three distinct profiles of executive job seekers who take up jobs in medium-
sized enterprises.
