An examination of the factors influencing future workplace attractiveness as perceived by current students of business & engineering in Vienna

Abstract

With steadily increasing competition between companies to hire the top talent among the pool of prospective employees, employer branding has seen a surge in interest both in practical application as well as in theoretical research. This study investigates organizational or workplace attractiveness, the ultimate goal behind employerbranding, as perceived by students of business and engineering in Vienna during the time of research. A randomly selected sample of that demographic group was subjected to a questionnaire in order to discern those attributes of workplace attractiveness that matter most to potential employees in office jobs. The collected data was subjected to both a descriptive analysis to compare responses given between the two fields of study as well as an exploratory factor analysis to unveil underlying correlations in the entire data set. Eight factors were found to significantly influence workplace attractiveness as perceived by business and engineering students in Vienna, which will be described. Furthermore, the theoretical background is expanded upon by giving an overview of existing research in this subject matter.Finally, implications of the research are discussed, limitations detailed, and possible future research directions suggested.