1. Organizational socialization is the process by which new employees learn the values, norms, and behaviors required of an organization's culture. It occurs through three stages - anticipatory socialization before joining, entry/encounter after joining, and metamorphosis as the employee adjusts fully. 2. In the entry/encounter stage, new employees compare expectations formed during anticipatory socialization to reality. The goal is to clarify roles and teach norms through indoctrination, apprenticeship, or training programs. 3. During metamorphosis, employees resolve socialization demands and fully accept their new role, with possible responses including rebellion, custodial acceptance, or innovative change/

1. Introduction
Organizational
Culture
Organizational
Socialization
What a new
employee needs
to learn.
The process by which
a new employee
learns the culture.
Organizational culture and organizational socialization

2. Introduction (Cont.)
• Organizational socialization: process by
which people learn the content of an
organization's culture
• Powerful process that affects an
individual's behavior
• Helps shape and maintain an
organization's culture
The “process by which people learn the
values, norms, and required behaviors
of an organization’s culture.”

3. Introduction (Cont.)
•Organizations leave their imprint on
individual members through the
socialization process
•Usually the first behavioral process
a person experiences after joining an
organization
•Socialization process unfolds
through three stages

4. Introduction (Cont.)
• Perspectives
• As an individual affected by the process
• As a manager using the process
• Process by which people adjust to new
organizations, new jobs, new groups of
people
• Focuses employees on acquiring
important values, attitudes, role
behaviors
• Deals with the basic question of
individual–organization fit

5. Roles and Role Behavior
• Role: activities, duties, responsibilities, required
behaviors
•Contributions from the person in exchange for
inducements from the organization (pay, fringe
benefits)—Psychological Contract
•Must roughly balance for the person to accept
the role

6. Roles and Role Behavior
(Cont.)
• Role behavior
Pivotal role behaviors: must accept
them to join and remain a member of
an organization
Relevant role behaviors: considered
desirable and good by the
organization, but not essential to
membership
Peripheral role behaviors: neither
necessary nor desirable but tolerated

7. Roles and Role Behavior
(Cont.)
•Role episodes
Series of role episodes
communicate pivotal and relevant
role behaviors
Start when an organization
recruits an individual
Continue during the early
employment period

8. Boundary Transitions
Socialization process is continuous
throughout a person's association with
an organization
•Most intense before and after
boundary transitions
Boundary transitions occur when a new
employee crosses the organization's
boundary upon joining the organization

9. Boundary Transitions
(Cont.)
• Also occur as the person's career unfolds
and she crosses other boundaries within
the same or different organization
• Employee is most susceptible to
organizational influences just before and
just after those transitions

10. Boundary Transitions
(Cont.)
• Dimensions
•Functional: emphasizes development and use
of skills and abilities in doing a particular task
•Hierarchical: move upward in organization
(promotion)
•Inclusionary: emphasizes acceptance of
values, norms, and required behavior. Become
part of the “inner circle.”

11. Individual and Organizational
Perspectives on Socialization
Organization
Socialization
Person
Individualization
Socialization Versus Individualization

12. Stages of
Organizational
Socialization
• Three stages of socialization
•Choice: Anticipatory socialization—
before joining the organization
•Entry/Encounter—after entering the
organization
•Change: Metamorphosis—late stage
featuring a new self–image
• Result of one stage becomes input to next stage

13. Stages of
Organizational
Socialization (Cont.)
• Individual perspective: experiences at
each stage
• Management perspective: each stage
helps the socialization process achieve
its goals
• When experienced?
•First job
•New position in same organization

14. Stages of
Organizational
Socialization
Choice: Anticipatory socialization
(“Getting in”)
Entry/encounter
(“Breaking in”)
Change: Metamorphosis
(“Settling in”)
Expectations
Reality
Taking on the role

15. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (“Getting In”)
• Happens before joining an organization
or taking a new job
• Prepares the person for organizational
entry
• First glimpse of the organization’s
culture
• Develops a person’s expectations or
beliefs about the organization

16. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
• Issues
• Realism of self and organization
• Congruence of self and organization
• Realism: responsibility of both the
organization and the individual
• Organization: present the positive and
negative sides of working for the company
• Potential employee: present an accurate
picture of self

17. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
•Congruence of self and organization
•Are your skills and abilities congruent
with the needs of the organization?
•Can the organization satisfy your needs
and offer you a congruent set of values?

18. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
• Lack realism and congruence
• Low satisfaction
• High turnover
• Low organizational commitment
• Poor job performance
• Clear negative effects for both the
individual and the organization

19. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
•Ways people learn about an
organization
•Advertising
•Press accounts
•Web pages
•Present employees, especially
alumni
•

20. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
• Socialization processes
• Recruitment advertising: presentation of the
organization
• Company recruiters: campus interviews
• Internships: experience the organization
while still a student
• Screening and selection devices: written
tests, oral interviews, job simulations

21. Choice: Anticipatory
Socialization (Cont.)
• Realistic job previews
• Balanced descriptions of job and organization
•Recruiting brochures or videotapes
•Interviews with present employees
• Creates realistic expectations
•Increases job satisfaction
•Reduces turnover
• Realistic employee previews: accurate, candid
presentation of self

22. Entry/Encounter Stage
(“Breaking In”)
• Crosses the organization’s boundary and
enters this second stage of socialization
• Brings expectations from the
anticipatory stage
• Compares expectations to the reality of
the organization
• Often eager to “learn the ropes”

23. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• New self–image
•Organization’s intent
•Focuses on pivotal and relevant role
behaviors
•Degree of change varies among
organizations
•Highlights the “tug of war” between
socialization and individualization

24. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Purposes
•Role clarification
•Organization: immediate supervisor
•Immediate workgroup
•Teach tasks, duties, and
responsibilities

25. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Purposes (cont.)
•Teach immediate workgroup norms
•Social status
•Bases of power
•Informal leaders
•Performance norms. Not always
same as organization’s or
individual’s values

26. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Conflicting behavioral demands and new
employee’s adjustment
• Work and nonwork roles
• Stress during this early adjustment
period

27. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Socialization processes
• Purpose: give employee a new self–image
• Process has three steps
•Unfreezing: discard old self–image
•Changing: move to new self–image
•Refreezing: puts the new self–image
solidly in place
•Metaphor: melting ice cubes in a heart
shaped mold and refreezing the mold

28. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Socialization processes (cont.)
• Indoctrination programs
• Teach formal rules and procedures (pivotal
role behavior)
• Uniform presentation to many new employees
• Apprenticeship or mentoring
• Assign to a veteran employee
• Teaches technical and social parts of job
• Varied results because organization has less
control than in indoctrination programs

29. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
•Socialization processes (cont.)
•Training programs
•Develop skills important to the
job
•Goes beyond what employee
learned in an academic setting
•Conveys organization’s values
and norms

30. Entry/Encounter Stage
(Cont.)
• Socialization processes (cont.)
• Debasement or upending experiences
•Quickly unfreezes new member from old self–image
•Give new employee an extremely easy or extremely
hard task
•Both task assignments have a humiliating effect
•Questions his or her self–image, making the person
ready for change

31. Change: Metamorphosis
(“Settling In”)
• Change in new employee as the
entry/encounter stage flows into the
metamorphosis stage
• Often clear separation from
entry/encounter stage with rites and
rituals (graduation)
• The word metamorphosis emphasizes the
extraordinary changes that can happen

32. Change: Metamorphosis
(Cont.)
• Successful resolution of multiple
socialization demands
• Comfortable in new role
• Some mastery of job requirements
• Acceptance of obvious values
• Adjusted to group norms
• Self–confidence up; anxiety down

33. Change: Metamorphosis
(Cont.)
• Results
•Rebellious response
•Rejects all aspects of role
•Socialization failure
•Custodial response: accepts existing role
•Innovative response
•Content innovation: changes role
•Role innovation: redefines role; a form of
accepting rebellion

34. Individual Differences
and Organizational
Socialization
• Reactions vary depending on person’s
characteristics
• Skills and abilities: quickly learn job if
skills and abilities apply to it
• Self–efficacy beliefs
•Low: custodial response
•High: innovative responses
• Perceptual processes: alter information from
role sender.

35. Individual Differences
and Organizational
Socialization
(Cont.)
• Reactions vary depending on person’s
characteristics (cont.)
•Attribution processes: giving meaning
to information not intended by role
sender
•Differences in needs
•Strong social need: drawn to group
•High achievement need: quickly