Newcomer adjustment: The relationship between organizational socialization tactics, information acquisition and attitudes

Abstract

A longitudinal study was designed to investigate relationships between socialization tactics, information acquisition, and attitudinal outcomes associated with successful organizational socialization. The research was conducted over three measurements with British Army recruits during their first 8 weeks of training. The key finding is the confirmation that information acquisition mediates the relationship between organizational socialization tactics and key socialization outcomes in terms of newcomer attitudes. These results strengthen the conception of organizational socialization as primarily a learning process. In addition, these results importantly show the rapidity with which newcomers can adjust during organizational socialization.