Getting ahead or getting along? How motivational orientations forge newcomers' cohort network structures, task assistance, and turnover

Abstract

SummarySocial connections play a vital role in helping newcomers fit into a new work environment. In addition to seeking valuable support from organizational “insiders” such as coworkers and leaders, newcomers also need support from other newcomers with similar experience during the onboarding process. Drawing upon socioanalytic theory, we propose that newcomers with a competitive or cooperative orientation will follow different networking patterns within their friendship cohort network. Specifically, newcomers with a highly competitive orientation will experience a high increase in coreness centrality in the friendship cohort network, which captures employees' relative position (i.e., core or periphery) in the entire cohort, while those with a highly cooperative orientation will have a high increase in in‐degree centrality, which reflects the number of personal friendship ties. To test our hypotheses, a cohort of 607 newcomers in a manufacturing company was tracked for 18 months (in seven waves) and the results show that competitive orientation is positively related to newcomers' increase in coreness centrality and that a cooperative orientation is positively related to an increase in in‐degree centrality. Furthermore, the increase in coreness centrality is positively related to newcomers' task assistance from other newcomers, which in turn reduces their likelihood of leaving the organization.