Organizations have begun taking public stances on politically charged social justice movements as they often relate to societal diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges. This is a recent phenomenon that management scholars have attempted to explore. However, there is a lack of consensus on conceptualizing this phenomenon, its relationship with DEI practices, and the consequent stakeholder reaction. To understand this phenomenon, we propose the concept of social justice engagement intensity (SJEI) as a related but separate construct from DEI. We focus on job applicants to understand stakeholders' reactions to SJEI. Drawing from signaling theory, we propose that a high degree of public engagement in socio-political movements can be perceived as “virtue signaling” by job applicants if the organization’s DEI practices are incongruent. In contrast, a congruence between SJEI and DEI practices will be perceived as “commitment signaling.” Because SJEI signals implicitly endorse political beliefs, we further propose that a belief inconsistency between the political ideology endorsed by the organization and the political ideology of the applicant will increase the virtue signaling perception. However, a belief consistency will increase the commitment signaling perception. We discuss the consequences of perceived virtue signaling and commitment signaling on job applicants' organizational attractiveness.
