TY - JOUR
T1 - When onboarding becomes risky
T2 - Extending social learning theory to explain newcomers’ adoption of heavy drinking with clients
AU - Liu, Songqi
AU - Bamberger, Peter
AU - Wang, Mo
AU - Shi, Junqi
AU - Bacharach, Samuel B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - What drives newcomers to adopt behaviors that, while perhaps helping them meet short-term role demands and organizational objectives, may also place themselves and/or their organization at risk in the long term? Based on social learning theory, research on onboarding and newcomer socialization suggests that such behavior may be explained by peer modeling. But is this always the case? Using heavy drinking with clients as an empirical referent and incorporating factors from research on learning in risky choice into a model grounded on social learning theory, we examine how contextual variables moderate the effect of veteran peer modeling on newcomer adoption or intensification of work-related risky behaviors over time, and demonstrate the impact of adoption/intensification on newcomer outcomes. Data from a longitudinal study of newcomers, their veteran peers, and supervisors in sales and client-service indicate that the extent to which veteran modeling influences the adoption/intensification of newcomer heavy drinking with clients depends on newcomers’ prior experiences and veteran peer (but not supervisor) guidance. Moreover, they indicate that steeper increases in heavy drinking with clients over time, while associated with improved job performance, also link to higher work-to-family conflict and turnover risk. Implications for research on onboarding and newcomer socialization are discussed.
AB - What drives newcomers to adopt behaviors that, while perhaps helping them meet short-term role demands and organizational objectives, may also place themselves and/or their organization at risk in the long term? Based on social learning theory, research on onboarding and newcomer socialization suggests that such behavior may be explained by peer modeling. But is this always the case? Using heavy drinking with clients as an empirical referent and incorporating factors from research on learning in risky choice into a model grounded on social learning theory, we examine how contextual variables moderate the effect of veteran peer modeling on newcomer adoption or intensification of work-related risky behaviors over time, and demonstrate the impact of adoption/intensification on newcomer outcomes. Data from a longitudinal study of newcomers, their veteran peers, and supervisors in sales and client-service indicate that the extent to which veteran modeling influences the adoption/intensification of newcomer heavy drinking with clients depends on newcomers’ prior experiences and veteran peer (but not supervisor) guidance. Moreover, they indicate that steeper increases in heavy drinking with clients over time, while associated with improved job performance, also link to higher work-to-family conflict and turnover risk. Implications for research on onboarding and newcomer socialization are discussed.
KW - latent change score modeling
KW - newcomer learning
KW - onboarding
KW - risky behavior at work
KW - socialization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064535398&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0018726719842653
DO - 10.1177/0018726719842653
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AN - SCOPUS:85064535398
SN - 0018-7267
VL - 73
SP - 682
EP - 710
JO - Human Relations
JF - Human Relations
IS - 5
ER -