Supervisors’ roles for newcomer adjustment: review of supervisors’ impact on newcomer organizational socialization outcomes

What is it about?

Organizations need to accommodate and acclimate newcomers quickly so that they can reach their potential. Research has identified newcomer organizational socialization (NOS) as essential for assisting newcomers to adapt to their new organizations. Studies have reported that supervisors markedly impact NOS and ultimately a newcomer’s success or failure. Relatively little work, however, has investigated how supervisors’ roles in the NOS process can enhance newcomers’ successful NOS outcomes. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore and classify the fragmentary findings of previous studies and improve understanding of the overall roles of supervisors in NOS and their relationships to NOS outcomes (i.e., newcomer adjustment). The study chiefly involves undertaking a literature review with an emphasis on the perspective of human resource development (HRD). Five important roles of supervisors during NOS—supporting training transfer, providing information, clarifying newcomers’ roles, facilitating sensemaking, and providing feedback—were revealed from an examination of extant work. These roles markedly influence five different components of newcomers’ adjustment: task mastery, role clarification, organizational knowledge, social identification, and social integration.

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