The relationship between employers’ brand attractiveness and elites tendency to emigrate: The moderating role of migration possibility

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between employer’s brand attractiveness and tendency of Iranian elites to emigrate. We examined the moderating role of migration possibility as well. In order to identify the criteria of Iranian employers brand attractiveness, we conducted a semi-structured interviews with 44 graduate students from Iran’s well-known universities of technology. We also customized two questionnaires for measuring employer’s brand attractiveness and the possibility of migration. The statistical population of the study consisted of 12624 final year graduate students from Iran's top technology and engineering universities based on the Shanghai (2017) ranking. We used stratified random sampling to choose 694 students. For analysis of qualitative data, thematic analysis and for quantitative data, structural equation modeling with partial least squares and PLS software approach were used. The findings show that the attractiveness of employer’s brand decreases students tendency to migrate, and this relationship is moderated by possibility to emigrate. Based on the research findings, it is likely that, the more improving the attractiveness of employer’s brand in areas of economic, development, innovation and social values, the less tendency for Iranian elites to emigrate.