Technological Competition and Skill Specificity of Job Postings

Human capital is a major impetus for technological innovation. Yet, there is little academic research about voluntary corporate disclosure targeted to labor market participants. Most prior research examines voluntary disclosure to investors and generally reports less disclosure as product market competition intensifies. We examine a novel type of disclosure—skill requirements in job postings—and focus on the technological dimension of product market competition. Technological competition may, on the one hand, raise the urgency of recruiting tech talent and make firms provide more-specific skill requirements and, on the other hand, increase the proprietary cost of skill requirement disclosure. We find that firms facing intense technological competition provide more-specific skill requirements for tech positions, suggesting that the benefit of the disclosure outweighs the proprietary cost when firms face pressure to innovate. We do not find that technological competition affects skill specificity for non-tech positions. Further, the positive association between technological competition and skill specificity exists for both junior and senior tech positions. Interestingly, the positive association is also observed for senior non-tech positions. Our study contributes to the literature by documenting a distinct relationship between technological competition and voluntary corporate disclosure targeted to labor market participants