The Predictive Relationship Between Organizational Innovativeness and Airline Pilots' Perception of Employer Attractiveness

Abstract

As airline leaders compete for talent during pilot shortages, they may create a competitive advantage by attracting more job candidates than their competitors. Literature shows that other industries faced with competitive employment markets enticed new applicants by marketing an organization’s innovativeness in addition to traditional employment factors of pay, location, and reputation. The purpose of this study was to understand if airline pilots reacted similarly to innovation in recruitment marketing, as seen in other industries. The study’s research question was “To what extent do the five factors of organizational innovativeness predict employer attractiveness amongst pilots flying for United States airlines?” Framed by agency theory, this was a nonexperimental, quantitative, survey-based study of 93 pilots flying for airlines based in the United States. The resulting analysis leveraged multiple regression to identify any potential predictive relationships. The results indicated that while no individual factor provided statistically relevant correlations, the overall model showed a positive correlation between organizational innovativeness and employer attractiveness. As found in other industries, the results added additional, pilot-specific evidence to a connection between innovation and employer attractiveness. This connection may be helpful to researchers and practitioners seeking ways to ease a pilot shortage.