The relative impact 1 Organizational socialization tactics : Determining the relative impact of context , content , and social tactics

This article follows a previous research, published in Revue de Gestion des Ressources Humaines, n° 72 (2009), examining the relationships between organizational socialization tactics and perceived fit. Using the same database, we made specific hypotheses regarding new and different outcome variables (learning and role innovation), in order to investigate a new research question. The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their precious feedback and comments that helped improve the paper. The relative impact 2 Organizational socialization tactics: Determining the relative impact of context, content, and social tactics Organizational socialization is known as a process in which employees are transformed through an interactive process between newcomers and their organizations from organizational outsiders to effective insiders (Feldman, 1981). The socialization process is primarily a learning process, although not all learning is considered as learning in three key organizational domains of how things work with the organization, the work group, and the actual job a person is hired to do (Haueter et al., 2003). Organizational socialization is an important issue for organizations because it contributes to developing the desired newcomers' attitudes and behaviors (Bauer, Bodner, Erdogan, Truxillo, & Tucker, 2007). In a growing economy, organizations tend to attract, develop, and limit unwanted turnover by developing induction programs with appropriate socialization tactics. During economic downturns, it is also important to make sure that newcomer socialization is effective because recruitment failures can be costly. Estimates of a failed hire range from 25% to 200% of the annual compensation for that hire depending on job type (Branham, 2000). Also important is that organizational socialization facilitates the transmission of an organization's culture and provides newcomers with essential clues to make sense of their new work environment proactive role of individuals in their own socialization. In this paper, we chose to focus 2007), which characterize the way organizations influence newcomers' socialization processes. Following Van Maanen and Schein (1979), Jones (1986) found that socialization tactics shared a common dimension on a continuum from individualized to institutionalized tactics. institutionalized tactics (Jones, 1986) were positively related to a large number of outcome variables including job satisfaction and organizational commitment dimensions are used to characterize socialization tactics, that can be grouped into three categories that include context, content, and social tactics (Jones, 1986). Despite a number of studies exploring the consequences of socialization tactics, an important gap in the literature is determining the relative influence of each type …