TY - JOUR
T1 - New Horizons for Newcomer Organizational Socialization
T2 - A Review, Meta-Analysis, and Future Research Directions
AU - Bauer, Talya N.
AU - Erdogan, Berrin
AU - Ellis, Allison M.
AU - Truxillo, Donald M.
AU - Brady, Grant M.
AU - Bodner, Todd
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2025/1
Y1 - 2025/1
N2 - The effective socialization of newcomers into organizations is critical for employee and organizational success. As such, ensuring successful onboarding has become even more pivotal for newcomer adjustment, performance, and retention. The literature has seen significant growth and incorporated new theoretical perspectives, such as resource-based approaches since the most recent comprehensive meta-analytic review of the literature. Therefore, we extended earlier reviews by presenting an updated model of the socialization process, reviewing the literature, and examining this updated model via meta-analysis. In all, we identified 256 studies that met our meta-analytic inclusion criteria, and 183 with sufficient k across construct categories were included in our meta-analysis. At the correlational level, we analyzed antecedents to proximal adjustment indicators and proximal adjustment to distal outcomes. We examined a potential moderator, whether the study took place in a horizontal-individualistic (HI) versus vertical-collectivistic (VC) culture. Last, we analyzed a path model to identify unique relationships between specific antecedents (age, full-time work experience, organizational tenure, proactive personality, information seeking, organizational tactics, insider mentoring/supporting), proximal adjustment indicators (social acceptance, role clarity, task mastery, perceived fit), and distal outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, other-rated performance, and well-being). Our analyses uncover the role of proactive personality and proactive newcomer behaviors in newcomer adjustment and the importance of social acceptance for newcomers. They also identify perceptions of fit as an important but relatively under-examined adjustment indicator and newcomer well-being as an additional socialization outcome. We develop future directions for socialization theory and research methods.
AB - The effective socialization of newcomers into organizations is critical for employee and organizational success. As such, ensuring successful onboarding has become even more pivotal for newcomer adjustment, performance, and retention. The literature has seen significant growth and incorporated new theoretical perspectives, such as resource-based approaches since the most recent comprehensive meta-analytic review of the literature. Therefore, we extended earlier reviews by presenting an updated model of the socialization process, reviewing the literature, and examining this updated model via meta-analysis. In all, we identified 256 studies that met our meta-analytic inclusion criteria, and 183 with sufficient k across construct categories were included in our meta-analysis. At the correlational level, we analyzed antecedents to proximal adjustment indicators and proximal adjustment to distal outcomes. We examined a potential moderator, whether the study took place in a horizontal-individualistic (HI) versus vertical-collectivistic (VC) culture. Last, we analyzed a path model to identify unique relationships between specific antecedents (age, full-time work experience, organizational tenure, proactive personality, information seeking, organizational tactics, insider mentoring/supporting), proximal adjustment indicators (social acceptance, role clarity, task mastery, perceived fit), and distal outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, other-rated performance, and well-being). Our analyses uncover the role of proactive personality and proactive newcomer behaviors in newcomer adjustment and the importance of social acceptance for newcomers. They also identify perceptions of fit as an important but relatively under-examined adjustment indicator and newcomer well-being as an additional socialization outcome. We develop future directions for socialization theory and research methods.
KW - meta-analysis
KW - newcomer adjustment
KW - onboarding
KW - organizational socialization
KW - well-being
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85205536512&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/01492063241277168
DO - 10.1177/01492063241277168
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85205536512
SN - 0149-2063
VL - 51
SP - 344
EP - 382
JO - Journal of Management
JF - Journal of Management
IS - 1
ER -