Social Tactics Research Articles

Digital onboarding and employee outcomes: empirical evidence from the UK

PurposeGiven the sharp rise in the adoption of digital onboarding in employment relations and human resource management practices, largely caused by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, this study explores the impact of digital onboarding on employees' wellbeing, engagement level, performance, and overall outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an interpretive qualitative research methodology, undertaking semi-structured interviews with 28 participants working in the UK services industry.FindingsThe study finds that digital onboarding has a significant impact on employee outcomes, following the perceptions of “dwindling social connectedness and personal wellbeing”, “meaningful and meaningless work”, and “poor employee relations” among employees and their employers in the workplace.Practical implicationsDue to the increased adoption of digital onboarding, human resources teams must focus on having considerable human interaction with new hires, even if this means adopting a hybrid approach to onboarding. Human resources teams must ensure that they work together with line managers to promote a welcoming culture for new hires and facilitate organisation-driven socialisation tactics and the “quality” information necessary for supporting new employees. For new employees, besides acquiring the digital skills that are essential in the workplace, they must accept the changing digital landscape in order to practice effective communication and align their goals and values with those of their organisation.Originality/valueQualitative research on the influence of digital onboarding on employee outcomes is limited, with much of the research yet to substantially consider the impact of digitalisation on the human resources function of onboarding employees as full members of an organisation.

The long walk together: The role of institutionalized socialization in shaping newcomers' future expectations about their networks

Although a future orientation plays an important role in Van Maanen and Schein's (1979) classic conceptualization of organizational socialization tactics, human resource management practices and scholarly research tend to focus on individuals' adjustment to the present. We address this significant gap by investigating how institutionalized socialization facilitates newcomer outcomes via its impact on newcomers' expected long-term friendship and cooperation networks. Based on construal level theory, we argue that expectations about one's long-term networks reflect perceptions of the stable nature of one's current networks. A 4-wave study with two samples of newcomers in diverse Chinese organizations found that institutionalized socialization predicted positive development in the size of newcomers' current and expected networks, which in turn predicted managers' ratings of newcomers' in-role performance and extra-role behaviors in the form of altruistic helping and taking charge. The study thus documents a relatively unknown benefit of socialization on newcomers' future expectations about their social relationships and the impact on newcomers' behaviors.

Improving newcomers’ work engagement: role of organizational socialization tactics with serial mediation

This study aims to add knowledge to the interactionist socialization approach that influences work engagement toward the organization through a self-determination theory lens. A sample of 383 Pakistani newcomers with different educational and organizational backgrounds joined an organization within two years. The data were examined with 5000 bootstraps using the structural equation modeling approach. Organizational socialization tactics and newcomers' socialization behaviors directly and positively predicted work engagement. Newcomers’ PSB encourages social capital resources and work engagement in the workplace. Our research advances the knowledge of social capital resources for effective newcomers’ adjustment that leads to work engagement, which adds to the socialization literature.

Medical Students' Socialization Tactics When Entering a New Clinical Clerkship: A Mixed Methods Study of Proactivity.

PurposeSocialization into clinical clerkships is difficult in part due to ambiguity around students’ new roles and expected behaviors. Being proactive reduces ambiguity and is essential to socialization. Proactive behavior can be taught and goes beyond having a proactive personality. Among students entering new undergraduate clinical clerkships, this study aimed to investigate (1) reported proactive behaviors and their association with social integration and (2) enabling and inhibiting factors for proactive behavior.MethodThis study was conducted at the 5-year MBBS program at Western Sydney University during academic year 2019–2020. Using a convergent mixed methods approach, survey and interview data from third-, fourth-, and fifth-year students were collected. Surveys explored 5 proactive behaviors: feedback seeking, information seeking, task negotiation, positive framing, and relationship building. Interviews elicited descriptions of how students described their proactivity and what influenced students to be proactive when entering a new clerkship. Data were integrated using the following the thread and mixed methods matrix techniques.ResultsStudents exhibited all 5 proactive behaviors. Survey data showed positive framing and task negotiation had the highest and lowest scores, respectively. Only positive framing correlated significantly with social integration scores (r = 0.27; P < .01), but this contrasted to interviews, in which students described how other proactive behaviors also led to social integration. Proactive behavior scores decreased across academic years. Integrated data showed 3 linked antecedents to whether students exhibited proactive behavior: feeling capable of being proactive, individual intention to be proactive, and the immediate environment and system-level factors.ConclusionsStudents who framed the experience positively were more likely to report increased social integration. Initiating task negotiation was challenging for most students. The authors propose a conceptual model for proactivity and social integration to support socialization and learning during clinical transitions for future research and interventional design.

A multilevel model of job inclusion of employees with disabilities: The role of organizational socialization tactics, coworkers social support, and an inclusive team context

AbstractThe main objective of this study was to examine the role of social context as a main mechanism to understand how organizational socialization tactics influence job inclusion of employees with disabilities (EWD). Specifically, we analyzed the influence of socialization that employees without disability received by the organization on two indicators of EWD's job inclusion, organizational learning, and desire to stay in the organization. First, we examined the mediator role of social support perceived by EWD in the aforementioned relationships. Second, we used a cross‐level moderating approach to examine how an inclusive team context (affective climate toward disability and stigma shared by team members without disability) impacts on the relationship between EWD's perceptions of social support and both indicators of job inclusion. Our sample was composed by 258 employees included in 66 teams from 15 organizations. Each team included one worker with disability. Two sources of information were used: EWD to measure perceived social support and indicators of job inclusion, and coworkers to measure socialization tactics, team affective climate toward disability, and team stigma. We used multilevel modeling and cross‐level moderation with MPLUS to test our hypotheses. Our results showed that EWD's perceptions of social support mediated the relationship between organizational socialization tactics and both indicators of EWD's job inclusion. Team affective climate toward disability and team stigma moderated the relationship between EWD's perceptions of social support and organizational learning. Thus, the social context showed potential improving EWD's job inclusion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Unhappy Dialectics

Unhappy Dialectics

Emergence and persistence of work relationships in early socialization: contrasting interpersonal and organizational perspectives

ABSTRACT The development and maintenance of work relationships is the primary mechanism for effective socialization, yet emerging work relationships in early socialization are fragile. We hypothesize that their persistence is related to frequency of information-based support between newcomers and support providers and perceived responsiveness of support providers. We contrast this relational effect with a more established effect of organizational socialization practices. In a three-wave longitudinal study of 40 newcomers involved in 601 work relationships, we examined the persistence of newcomers’ information-support relationships over time. We found support for arguing that the persistence of information-support relationships is positively related to the frequency of information support that newcomers receive from their support providers. Moreover, we show that the persistence of information-support relationships depends on relational factors – the perceived willingness of a support provider to provide informational support, while favourable socialization tactics as perceived by newcomers do not play a significant role. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Onboarding Salespeople: Socialization Approaches

The effective training of salespeople is crucial to a firm's success; there is arguably no more critical type of training than a salesperson's onboarding. In this study, the authors leverage a natural field experiment in which a firm's newly hired salespeople can undergo onboarding through either a decentralized program or a centralized program to examine the relative impact of each program. Drawing on organizational socialization theory, the authors consider whether an onboarding program that incorporates both individualized and institutionalized socialization tactics (the decentralized program) can develop salespeople into higher performers by encouraging them to take a more innovative and adaptive approach to different facets of the sales role. The findings reveal that salespeople who underwent the decentralized program achieved approximately 23.5% higher sales performance than those who underwent the centralized program. The performance benefits of the decentralized program were amplified for salespeople whose managers had a narrower span of control. In addition, these performance benefits were appreciable for those salespeople transitioning from another job but negligible for those transitioning from school. A scenario-based experiment enriches the field experiment's findings by showing evidence of the theorized mechanism underlying the sales performance benefits observed: the fostering of an innovative role orientation.

AN IMMIGRANT-FRIENDLY SCHOOL ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS

The aim of this research is to detect the problems that immigrant students experience during adaptation process; to demonstrate efforts made in the adaptation process to school and society and to provide a definition for immigrant-friendly school while also listing the qualities of this school. To achieve that objective, qualitative research method was adopted and via administering phenomenological approach, participants' views were analyzed in-depth. Semi-structured interview questions designed by researchers themselves were used as data collection tool. Population was determined through purposeful sampling method. The group consists of 8 immigrant students studying in high school grade during 2020-2021 academic year in Beykoz district of İstanbul city; 5 principals from high schools where immigrant students study and similarly 5 high school teachers having taught in immigrant students' lessons. Descriptive content analysis was administered to obtained data. Attained findings were examined within the framework of the theory of organizational socialization and interpreted by conducting immigrant-friendly city and immigrant-friendly hospital analogies. According to these findings during adaptation process immigrant students were exposed to academic, social, cultural and domestic(family-related) problems, and that immigrant-friendly schools put efforts in academic, social, cultural and parental support categories by harnessing varied organizational socialization tactics. Accordingly, immigrant-friendly school concept has been defined as; “an academic institution which-by making efforts needed- in academic, social, cultural support and parental support categories, expediting immigrant students' and their parents' adaptation to school and society”. According to findings, qualities of an immigrant-friendly school are; enabling social participation, cultural interaction, facilitating access, financial assistance, family participation; offering academic support, psychological support; welcoming immigrant students and equality.

The effects of on-the-job embeddedness and its sub-dimensions on small-sized hotel employees’ organizational commitment, work engagement and turnover intentions

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the impacts of links, fit and sacrifice as the sub-dimensions of on-the-job embeddedness (JE) on turnover intentions through the mediating roles of affective organizational commitment (AOC) and work engagement (WENG) and explore AOC and WENG as the two mediators linking on-the-JE to quitting intentions.Design/methodology/approachData collected from small-sized hotels in three waves in Ghana were used to assess the aforesaid relationships. The hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe findings reveal that on-the-JE is negatively related to turnover intentions. Additionally, the relationship between on-the-JE and turnover intentions is partly mediated by AOC and WENG. The findings further demonstrate that AOC and WENG partly mediate the impact of links on turnover intentions.Practical implicationsManagement of hotels should enhance formal and informal connections between employees and their coworkers and supervisors through socialization tactics. Establishing and maintaining an environment that fosters social support would increase employees’ sense of belongingness and their proclivity to remain with the organization.Originality/valueLittle is known about the effects of the sub-dimensions of on-the-JE on work-related consequences in the hospitality and tourism literature. The literature is also devoid of evidence concerning affective variables as the potential mediators relating the sub-dimensions of on-the JE to turnover intentions. The study sets out to fill in these gaps.

Here for My Peer: The Future of First Responder Mental Health.

Workplace interventions that leverage social tactics to improve health and well-being are becoming more common. As an example, peer mental health support interventions aim to reduce stigma and promote treatment seeking in first responder populations. Given the social nature of these interventions, it is important to consider how the preexisting social context influences intervention outcomes. A peer mental health support intervention was delivered among first responders, and self-efficacy and intention to have supportive peer conversations were measured pre-and post-intervention. Trust in peers was measured prior to the intervention. Results suggest a floor effect may exist for self-efficacy, in which a foundational level of trust and pre-intervention self-efficacy may be needed to maximize intervention effectiveness. As the future of work brings complex safety and health challenges, collaborative solutions that engage multiple stakeholders (employees, their peers, and their organization) will be needed. This study suggests that more frequent attention to pre-existing intervention context, particularly social context in peer-focused intervention, will enhance intervention outcomes.

When the past is strongly involved in the present: Examining the transference effects of past psychological contract violation on present deviance

Employees who experience psychological contract violation may quit the organization and join a new organization. However, how past psychological contract violation influences employees’ behavior in the new organization is less understood. Drawing on the social-cognitive model of transference, we hypothesize that past psychological contract violation is associated with lower psychological ownership and higher job insecurity in the new organization. These adverse transference effects can be buffered by institutionalized socialization tactics in the new organization. Furthermore, past psychological contract violation influences employees’ present deviant behaviors through psychological ownership and job insecurity in the new organization. These indirect effects are weaker when the new organization uses more (vs. less) institutionalized socialization tactics. The results across two field studies provide consistent and robust support for our hypothesized model. We discuss how our findings shed light on the transference effects of psychological contract violation and how to attenuate these harmful effects.

How entrepreneurial team heterogeneity impacts decision-making performance? An input-process-output approach

PurposeExisting studies mostly rely on the static characteristics of team members, and there is still a lack of empirical investigation on how entrepreneurial team members make decisions through dynamic team process and how team members’ cognition influences team decision-making. The purpose of this study is to validate how entrepreneurial team heterogeneity affects team decision-making performance from the perspective of dynamic team process.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the theory of input-process-output model, this study proposed and examined the mediating role of team interaction as well as the moderating role of proactive socialization tactics in the relationship between entrepreneurial team heterogeneity and decision-making performance. Based on a sample of 162 entrepreneurial teams that include pairing superiors and subordinates, hierarchical regressions and moderated mediation tests were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe research results show that the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial teams is positively correlated with both team interaction and decision-making performance. Team interaction plays a mediating role between entrepreneurial team heterogeneity and decision-making performance; information seeking of proactive socialization tactics moderates the impact of entrepreneurial team heterogeneity on team interaction.Originality/valueContributing to the literature on entrepreneurial team decision-making performance, this study identifies that proactive socialization tactics with a high level of information seeking can help entrepreneurial team members respond to environmental and organizational changes more effectively during team development and increase the effectiveness of team interaction. This finding helps us better understand the mechanism and context under which entrepreneurial heterogeneity may enhance the team’s decision-making performance.

A decade of sexual selection studies reveals patterns and processes of fitness variation in male collared lizards

Territory defence is widely assumed to be adaptive because it enhances reproductive success. However, empirical evidence for such a benefit is scarce or nonexistent for many types of territorial organisms. The roles of intraspecific aggression versus interactions with females in successful breeding by territorial males are also still poorly understood in lower tetrapods, including lizards. We address both of these important issues using 10 years of data on genetic parentage combined with field behavioural studies in collared lizards, Crotaphytus collaris . As predicted, territorial males (T-males) had more mates, sired markedly more total offspring and sired more surviving offspring with more females than did nonterritorial (NT) males. Territorial males in structurally simpler habitats sired a higher proportion of each female's offspring than their counterparts in complex habitats, indicating that the ability of T-males to accrue mating benefits is highest where topography maximizes contact with multiple females. All measures of T-male reproductive success increased with travel rate but decreased with the time spent courting individual females, suggesting a fitness trade-off between these behaviours. We found no evidence that aggressive behaviour was linked to any component of male fitness. Hence, activities of territory owners appear to be shaped by sexual selection to enhance mating opportunities rather than to aggressively dominate same-sex rivals. Our study illustrates the value of long-term research documenting behaviour and fitness of free-ranging individuals over multiple reproductive cycles in evaluating fundamental questions about the adaptive significance of social tactics. • Territorial male collared lizards had higher fitness than nonterritorial males. • Territorial tactics increased mating more effectively in simpler habitats. • Fitness of territory owners increased with travel but not with aggressive behaviour. • Limiting courtship per female promoted travel to interact with additional mates. • Male behaviour is selected to enhance interactions with multiple female mates.

Algorithms for operational decision-making: An absorptive capacity perspective on the process of converting data into relevant knowledge

The organisational mechanisms through which algorithms can be exploited in the process of converting data into relevant knowledge for operational decision-making have not yet been fully investigated from an absorptive capacity perspective. Previous studies underlined a rise in new digital specialised roles, but they said little about how the organisational knowledge and structures should be redesigned to take advantage of these data-rich operational environments. In this article, we present the findings of a case study on the way algorithms can be exploited in the electrical sector to shed light on these issues. We then develop a framework to theorise how the organisational mechanisms associated with absorptive capacity influence the way algorithms can be exploited to convert data into relevant knowledge for operational decision-making. Our emerging framework reveals that to convert data into relevant knowledge for operational decision-making, the involvement of line employees and liaison roles are required to introduce system-level knowledge that algorithms are able to capture less effectively. Additionally, more formalisation is needed in operational work to ensure the quality of the data that feed such algorithms. Finally, socialisation tactics facilitate the convergence between the knowledge produced from algorithms and the experiential knowledge of line employees.

Defense Mechanism or Socialization Tactic? Improving Wikipedia’s Notifications to Rejected Contributors

Unlike traditional firms, open collaborative systems rely on volunteers to operate, and many communities struggle to maintain enough contributors to ensure the quality and quantity of content. However, Wikipedia has historically faced the exact opposite problem: too much participation, particularly from users who, knowingly or not, do not share the same norms as veteran Wikipedians. During its period of exponential growth, the Wikipedian community developed specialized socio-technical defense mechanisms to protect itself from the negatives of massive participation: spam, vandalism, falsehoods, and other damage. Yet recently, Wikipedia has faced a number of high-profile issues with recruiting and retaining new contributors. In this paper, we first illustrate and describe the various defense mechanisms at work in Wikipedia, which we hypothesize are inhibiting newcomer retention. Next, we present results from an experiment aimed at increasing both the quantity and quality of editors by altering various elements of these defense mechanisms, specifically pre-scripted warnings and notifications that are sent to new editors upon reverting or rejecting contributions. Using logistic regressions to model new user activity, we show which tactics work best for different populations of users based on their motivations when joining Wikipedia. In particular, we found that personalized messages in which Wikipedians identified themselves in active voice and took direct responsibility for rejecting an editor’s contributions were much more successful across a variety of outcome metrics than the current messages, which typically use an institutional and passive voice.

Haunted: An Inductive Study of Social Strategies to Manage Haunting Identities

Individuals with salient work and family identities embody a chosen identity which combines work and family, yet they are surrounded by others who embody much different, improbable selves that focus more exclusively on either work or family. Employing a grounded theory approach, we interviewed 65 working professionals and develop a model of how social reminders of improbable selves influence individuals’ self-concepts and how individuals manage their chosen work-family selves in their social environments. We find that individuals are haunted by improbable work-family selves, which in turn make disappointing, judged, and solitary feared selves salient. To escape feared selves, individuals employ others in the service of celebrating, liberating, or validating their chosen work-family selves and distancing from improbable selves. Our findings extend the identity literature by introducing the concept of identity haunting, a companion construct to identity threat that highlights the importance of managing improbable selves in maintaining the chosen work-family self, and exploring the social tactics individuals use to manage haunting identities.

Relationship among social tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment in newcomers: the moderating effect of workplace spirituality

AbstractThe cost of recruitment and training of newcomers can be a burden for enterprises, causing adverse effects on human resources management. Although much research has addressed employee turnover, less attention has been paid to methods of improving the retention of new hires. This study is an empirical examination of the increase in predictive strength of antecedents of affective commitment for comparing newcomers’ workplace spirituality. The results of an employee survey completed by 237 newcomers with under two years of work experience indicate that socialization tactics have a direct impact on job embeddedness, which in turn has a direct effect on affective commitment. Workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness. Also, workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment.

The interactive effects of socialization tactics and work locus of control on newcomer work adjustment, job embeddedness, and voluntary turnover

Previous research has tended to focus on general best practices for onboarding organizational newcomers. In this study, we shift the conversation to instead address the question: for whom are certain socialization tactics more or less beneficial? Whereas institutionalized socialization tactics provide considerable structure intended to reduce uncertainty and help newcomers adjust, less is known about whether and how individual psychological differences cause some newcomers to react differently to the same socialization tactics. To examine the interplay between organizational socialization efforts and newcomer individual differences, we hypothesize that newcomers’ work locus of control moderates the relationship between socialization tactics and voluntary turnover. We also examine the indirect role of newcomer work adjustment—role clarity, work mastery, social integration—and job embeddedness in transmitting the interaction between socialization tactics and work locus of control to turnover. Data collected from 676 newcomers at four time points over 12 months in various organizations provided general support for our hypotheses: newcomers with an external work locus of control showed higher social integration and embeddedness and lower turnover under institutionalized socialization tactics, but lower social integration and embeddedness and higher turnover under individualized tactics. Their turnover was also reduced (about nine times) from individualized to institutionalized tactics. In contrast, newcomers with an internal work locus of control were less influenced by either socialization tactic approach in terms of their social integration, embeddedness, or turnover.

The positive side of peer pressure: employees as “enforcers” of positive cultural values

PurposeThis paper discusses how peer pressure works and how to use it in a positive way to encourage employees to behave in ways that are beneficial to the organization.Design/methodology/approachThis viewpoint is prepared by an independent writer offering practical suggestions to improve employee compliance by applying academic theory.FindingsOrganizations can create positive peer pressure through institutionalized socialization tactics that set clear expectations for behavior. These expectations become ingrained in culture leading to employees acting as “enforcers” of cultural values.Originality/valueThis article saves executives and researchers hours of reading time by presenting decades of research in a condensed and easy-to-read format.