If you spend it, they will come: recruiting expenses, reputation, human capital acquisition, and performance.

In this study, we extend the scope of recruitment research to encompass the organizational perspective. We investigate how recruitment expenditures, the reputation of the organization, and the reputation of its managers contribute to a firm's capacity to acquire top-tier human capital, which in turn drives superior organizational performance. Relying on signaling theory and the resource-based view, we suggest the quality of human capital acquired will mediate the relationships between recruitment expenses, organizational reputation, managerial reputation, and organizational performance. Additionally, we expect recruitment expenses to be a stronger predictor of human capital quality than organizational or managerial reputation. With a sample of NCAA football teams over five years, we find the quality of human capital acquired at least partially mediates both the relationships between recruitment expenses and organizational performance and between organizational reputation and organizational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]