"The Trustworthy Headhunter" – A Study on Trust in Headhunting

Trust has long been a subject of academic interest and due to corporate scandals and recent social, political, financial and economic crises and turbulence around the world, it is now more important than ever. This is... [ view full abstract ]

Trust has long been a subject of academic interest and due to corporate scandals and recent social, political, financial and economic crises and turbulence around the world, it is now more important than ever. This is fundamentally more relevant when it comes to consulting services. The focus of this study is on the headhunting business where the client has to pay a retainer and the service contains critically discussed, somewhat secretive aspects. This means high costs of failure and an inherent possibility for opportunistic behaviour (Britton and Ball, 1999). In selling headhunting services questions arise about why clients and candidates are willing to take the risks in trusting a headhunter, despite possible vulnerabilities connected to trust behaviour, and when a headhunter is perceived as trustworthy enough to justify those risks?

The paper describes and discusses a study that is looking at the impact of perceived trustworthiness on the willingness to take risk, and therefore on trust behaviour, in the trust formation phase of the triad between an Executive Search Consultant/Headhunter (trustee) and Clients (trustors) and Candidates (trustors). The focus of research lies in examining the role and impact of perceived trustworthiness on the trust behaviour of clients (exclusive contract with retainer fee) and candidates (providing personal data).

Following an extensive literature review the author has developed a conceptual framework, elucidating the factors of trustworthiness and positing the influence the perception of trustworthiness might have on trust behaviour in the search context. Following the research question the author formulated four hypotheses:

H1: If candidates or clients perceive a headhunter as trustworthy it will have a direct positive impact on their trust behaviour.

H2: If candidates or clients perceive a headhunter as trustworthy they are willing to take risk.

H3: The influence of perceived trustworthiness on trust behaviour is mediated by the willingness to take risk and is therefore causing the candidate or client to act on that risk, i.e. to show trust behaviour.

H4: Whether and how perceived trustworthiness and the willingness to take risk will indeed cause the candidate or client to show trust behaviour is also dependent on or influenced by identified moderating factors.

This model is based on the “integrative model of organisational trust” by Mayer et al. (1995), a well discussed, studied, and tested model, that suggests itself to be transferred into different contexts. So far it has been mainly used in the organisational context (Davis et al., 2000; Mayer and Davis, 1999; Mayer and Gavin, 2005; Mayer et al., 2011). With the developed framework the author transfers the model into the context of executive search, looking into the headhunter-client-candidate triad. As Mayer et al. (1995) suggest, three antecedents of trustworthiness– competence (ability), responsiveness (benevolence) and integrity - are used to explain how trustworthiness can be perceived. The impact trustworthiness (independent variable) has on trust behaviour (dependent variable) is the focus of the framework. A mediating (risk perception) and some moderating variables are introduced.

Design / Methodological Approach

To study how the perception of trustworthiness directly, and indirectly through the perception of risk, influences the manifestation of desired trust behaviour of both clients and candidates, the author has conducted a self-administered, web-based, cross-sectional survey on a sample from the author's company's database. Following the author’s research philosophy and in the light of this specific research context and research question, the author has pragmatically chosen a deductive, (neo-)positivist, objectivist research strategy. For the survey, two questionnaires were created, one for candidates, one for clients and an account was created on the web-survey platform SurveyMonkey. The author has found 44 articles that have used Mayer et al.'s (1995) model for empirical studies on various subjects related to trust. However, most of this research is focussing on the organisational context. Transferring the measure of trustworthiness with its three factors into the context of headhunting requires a considerable amount of adaptation. To achieve this, the author has developed a 15-item questionnaire to measure trustworthiness. The items reflect the construct of trustworthiness, as described by the author, representing the specific research scenario of headhunting. The dependent variable trust behaviour (the actual risk taking) is measured through a four-item construct (Mayer and Davis, 1999). Five questions relate to the perception of risk (Plummer et al., 2011). Trust propensity as a moderating factor is measured with a four-item construct, developed by Frazier et al. (2013). Other moderator items are covering possible additionally influencing factors (seven for clients and five for candidates). A five-point Likert-type scale was used for all constructs. Additional questions were asked regarding some demographics such as gender, hierarchical level, industry, company size and salary band, in order to test representativeness of the sample. The two units of analysis, clients and candidates, received different questionnaires respectively.

Findings

This study is part of a Doctorate in Business Studies (DBA) at Waterford Institute of Technology and full findings are expected in March 2018 with the finalised survey having been sent to both groups in January 2018. To date, a pilot survey has been conducted to test the items, check reliability and validity, and reduce possible measurement errors. Initial results from the pilot survey indicate that trustworthiness makes a significant unique contribution to the prediction of trust behaviour. With statistical significance provided, it can be assumed that trustworthiness makes a significant unique, although weak contribution to the prediction of willingness to take risk via the mediator of risk perception. An important take-away from the pilot study is the confirmation of the reliable and valid measurement of trustworthiness through the three antecedents/dimensions competence/ability, responsiveness/benevolence and integrity, as suggested by Mayer et al. (1995).

Practical and Social Implications

It is expected that the results could be beneficial both for research and business by understanding the mechanisms behind being perceived as trustworthy. It can help to explain why some headhunters are more trusted than others, help search firms in hiring and developing their consulting talent and help companies and candidates alike to make better selection decisions for headhunters. If perceived trustworthiness is shown to significantly affect trust behaviour, one implication can be that headhunters focus more on trust in selling their services to clients as well as convincing candidates to cooperate. Headhunters can learn how to maximise the perception of trustworthiness in the initial phase and beyond, and as a result, improving the probability of creating trust behaviour. If that is the case business success is clearly increased. It is also possible to extending this insight to more general business circles, where one can extrapolate that people engage more when they trust more – again, reinforcing the importance of trust in business.

New academic insight into the role of trust in today's world of business is provided, extending existing theorizing and research on trust into the context of headhunting for the first time. This can also form the basis for further research, studying how trust is further established (or not) in the process following the initial decision. The research can also be extended into other, related business fields, e.g. coaching, HR consulting, and any other professional services that relate to the human factor in the organisation or are rather personal in nature. It could also form the basis for pragmatically applying different methodology choices (e.g. interpretative, qualitative type of research). Therefore, a contribution to both management practice and theory is anticipated.

List of References

Britton, L. C. and Ball, D. F. (1999) ‘Trust versus Opportunism: Striking the Balance in Executive Search’, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 132-149.

Davis, J. H., Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C., and Tan, H. H. (2000) ‘The trusted general manager and business unit performance: empirical evidence of a competitive advantage’, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 563-576.

Frazier, M. L., Johnson, P. D., and Fainshmidt, S. (2013) ‘Development and validation of a propensity to trust scale’, Journal of Trust Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 76-97.

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., and Schoorman, F. D. (1995) ‘An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust’, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 709-734.

Mayer, R. C. and Davis, J. H. (1999) ‘The Effect of the Performance Appraisal System on Trust for Management: A Field Quasi-Experiment’, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 123-136.

Mayer, R. C. and Gavin, M. B. (2005) ‘Trust In Management And Performance: Who Minds The Shop While The Employees Watch The Boss?’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 48, No. 5, pp. 874-888.

Mayer, R. C., Bobko, P., Davis, J. H., and Gavin, M. B. (2011) ‘The effects of changing power and influence tactics on trust in the supervisor: A longitudinal field study’, Journal of Trust Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 177-201.

Plummer, M., Hiltz, S. and Plotnick, L. (2011) ‘Predicting intentions to apply for jobs using social networking sites: an exploratory study’, System Sciences (HICSS), Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference onSystem Sciences 2011, IEEE, pp. 1-10.