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Private Taiwanese kindergarten management personnel contend that it is difficult to attract students; and that they must perform better than public kindergartens to recruit and retain teachers. The focus in this study was to determine the best way to recruit and retain teachers with superior performances. We surveyed private teachers from 23 cities and counties in Taiwan, obtaining 732 valid samples. The results show that contemporary teachers have more education, are younger, and tend to focus on urbanized job searches through formal channels, such as newspapers, network bulletins, posters, and human resource banks. The extent of understanding the prospective job is a primary factor in predicting teachers' performance and satisfaction, which can decrease teachers' turnover intentions. Teachers recruited through formal channels had higher turnover intentions; however, their job performances showed no significant differences compared to informal channels, which suggests that understanding a prospective job can predict teachers' performance, satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Therefore, management should design a system that can provide a clear understanding of a prospective job.
Keywords: recruitment channel, prospective job, job performance, turnover intention, kindergarten teachers.
Taiwan's declining birthrate has affected the country's educational system, and kindergarten operators - who often face high turnover rates (Chen, 2009; Chien, Liaw, Lin, & Lin, 1995) - hope to recruit high-quality teachers who will have higher performance and longer retention rates. According to the h terature, formal recruitment methods include newspaper classified advertisements, network bulletins, posters, and human resource banks, while informal methods include personal connections and introductions through teachers and other staff (Moser, 2005; Quaglieri, 1982).
In this study we aimed to determine which are the best recruitment channels for kindergartens looking to recruit qualified teachers.
Literature Review
There are two popular theories found in the literature which can be used to explain the relationship between recruitment channels and job performance: the realism hypothesis and the individual difference hypothesis. The realism hypothesis focuses on the gap between job reality and expectations (Taylor & Schmidt, 1983). When the gap is not obvious, job satisfaction and performance are better and turnover intentions are lower. In contrast, if the gap is obvious, job satisfaction and performance are lower and turnover intentions are higher. Based on this theory, some researchers have determined that informal channels are more...