Recruiting under the influence: New labor market entrants' reactions to workplace drinking norms

• Author: Anthony C. Klotz,Serge P. da Motta Veiga
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21906
• Date: 01 September 2018

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Recruiting under the influence: New labor market entrants'

reactions to workplace drinking norms

Anthony C. Klotz

1

| Serge P. da Motta Veiga

2

1

College of Business, Oregon State University,

Corvallis, Oregon

2

Kogod School of Business, American

University, Washington, DC

Correspondence

Anthony C. Klotz, Oregon State University,

College of Business, 368 Austin Hall, Corvallis,

Oregon 97331.

Email: anthony.klotz@oregonstate.edu

Prior research indicates that the influence of alcohol use, at work or at home, on employees'

personal and professional lives is often harmless, but that it can be detrimental under certain

circumstances. Alcohol's prevalence in and around some workplaces suggests that some

employees value it, and that companies seeking to hire and retain these employees perhaps

see a competitive advantage in embracing permissive workplace drinking norms. In this article,

we draw from signaling theory and the fit, applicant attraction, and political skill literatures, to

propose that during the recruitment process, organizations that promote workplace drinking

norms are likely to attract applicants with high levels of political skill while turning off those

with low levels of political skill. We conducted two studies and found that new labor market

entrants with lower levels of political skill perceived lower levels of fit with companies that pro-

mote the acceptance of alcohol use at work-related events during the recruitment process

compared to companies that do not signal the presence of workplace drinking norms in their

recruitment activities. In turn, these lower fit perceptions related to reduced organizational

attraction.

KEYWORDS

alcohol, applicant attraction, perceived fit, political skill, recruitment

1|INTRODUCTION

The presence of alcohol at work is not uncommon. Indeed, based on

a national probability sample of over 2,000 Americans, most workers

report that they could use alcohol during the workday if they chose

to do so, and nearly one in four report that they have come in con-

tact with an alcohol-impaired coworker on the job in the prior year

(Frone, 2012). Moreover, recent media coverage suggests that organi-

zations may be increasingly embracing the consumption of alcohol on

the job as a part of their organizational culture (Flinn, 2011); indeed,

some technology, marketing, and consulting firms provide full bars

and beer fridges as a perk for employees (Silverman, 2013).

One impetus for offering alcohol-based benefits is to attract tal-

ented employees to the firm, while another is to entice employees to

stay at work in the evening and night hours (Farnham, 2012; Silver-

man, 2013). Further, some managers seem to believe that moderate

drinking fuels creativity (Amoroso, 2013), and there is some empirical

support for this assertion (Jarosz, Colflesh, & Wiley, 2012). Finally,

leaders also report that encouraging employees to drink at work,

rather than in public, may reduce the chance that workers will harm

their companies' reputation as a result of being under the influence

of alcohol at a bar or restaurant (Chappell, 2012). Taken together, this

mainly anecdotal evidence suggests that some companies actively

foster permissive drinking norms in hopes of making the work envi-

ronment more attractive to current and potential employees.

Although alcohol use is often harmless, there is someempirical evi-

dence thatalcohol can be detrimentalto employees' worklives, and that

permissive organizational drinking norms may predict problem drinking

by employees (Bacharach, Bamberger, & Sonnenstuhl, 2002; Frone &

Brown, 2010). Nonetheless, many employers offer their personnel the

opportunityto drink at work eventsor even in the workplace.Of course,

implicit within this decision to allow or provide alcohol at work is the

assumption that applicants are attracted to organizations with permis-

sive drinkingnorms. This assumption may be especially likelywhen hir-

ing new college graduates, given the prevalence of alcohol use among

collegestudents compared to theirnoncollege peers (Slutske,2005).

Alcohol consumption, in general, is a divisive issue; not everyone

views the ability to drink in the workplace as a benefit rather than a

deterrent. For example, in explaining his decision to only provide kegs

filled with nonalcoholic beverages (i.e., kombucha and cold brew cof-

fee) as a perk for employees at the new headquarters for his firm,

Elemental Technologies CEO Sam Blackman described how allowing

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21906

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:1303–1316. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1303