Sustaining newcomers' career adaptability: The roles of socialization tactics, job embeddedness and career variety

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, we aim to examine how socialization practices predict newcomers' career adaptability during their organizational transitions. Drawing on career construction theory and conservation of resources theory, we argue that newcomers' job embeddedness, as predicted by their perceived organizational socialization tactics, positively predicts their career adaptability during career transitions. We investigate the role of past transition experiences (i.e., career variety) in moderating the relationship between job embeddedness and career adaptability. Data were collected at three time points from 492 newcomers in an information technology company in China. The newcomers' perceived organizational socialization tactics (i.e., training, future prospects and coworker support) positively predicted their job embeddedness, which was positively associated with their career adaptability. Additionally, career variety weakened the positive effect of job embeddedness on career adaptability. Furthermore, career variety moderated the indirect effects of future prospects and coworker support on career adaptability via job embeddedness, but not that of training. We conclude the article with discussions of our theoretical and practical contributions.