One of the research questions is to find out the sojourners’ organizational socialization process and see can their socialization process be explained by the three stage model of organizational socialization process developed by Daniel Feldman. The result showed all nine interviewees’ organizational socialization process can be described by the model.
Anticipatory socialization
This stage includes two factor, congruence and realism. Regarding to congruence, all sojourners had learning or working experience related to their works. (The details of how they thought experiences helped works will be discussed in the third stage of socialization process.) For example, interviewee E is an English and Spanish teacher in school, he described how he acquired the skills and abilities through his working and learning experiences, “I had a vocation about teaching Spanish in Japan before, and I got my master degree in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) in 2008”. (E)
Realism is related to the degree of correct expectation about the job and the organization that newcomers hold. To understand realism, questions related to expectation are asked. Eight out of nine sojourners already had general ideas about their work before they started to work. The sources of ideas about work of these eight sojourners are represented by pie chart below:
Sojourners who answer job description already see the job description provided by organizations before they apply for the job. “I already saw the description about this job on the internet, so I knew the work content before I started to apply”. (B) In addition, one sojourner mentioned the further information about the work was provided while interviewing. Sojourners who answer introducer got ideas from friends who introduced them to their jobs. “My
Figure 104.1 Framework Pie chart of source of expectationthis research
friend was a Japanese teacher in that school before, and she was going to quit, so she introduced that job to me; and I knew some working content from her.”(G) The only one who answers previous experiences has worked in the same organization as a volunteer before, thus he knows the working contents. Before he became a volunteer, he knew part of the working contents because he had contacted the organization for his status as a foreign student.
Regarding to expectation on sojourners from the organizations, only one sojourner answered the organization had no expectation on him because he was introduced to take over his friend’s work directly.
Encounter socialization
In this stage, the organization introduces and trains new comers the reality of the organization. Therefore, new comers will face task demands, role demands and interpersonal demands from their organizations. During their orientation or training period, new comers start to learn those demands:
1. Task demands
Sojourners will learn their task contents and some special things need to pay attention to.
“The manager arranged someone to teach me how to do my job. First is where to take those plates and bowls, and then where to put them. Second is things I should do, like cleaning or take out used plates or silverwares…she also taught me some tips about how to do this job efficiently. “(I)
2. Role demands
Sojourners need to not only learn how to do their job, but how to perform it well. Different positions in the same organization need to perform in different ways. To accomplish their tasks successfully, the trainee may ask them to perform their roles with some specific attitudes as the statement made by interviewee H.
“Because our role is kind of front desk, so Daphne (the staff who trained the interviewee) said we need to be more active and ask people who come into the office do they have any problem or need any help. So when she trained us, she wanted the student worker can ask questions during training program.” (H)
3. Interpersonal demands
When sojourners start to learn to be socialized, they may meet conflicts when working with other insiders of the organization; thus they need to learn how interact with insiders. Identically, insiders learn how to understand and get along with new comers and the outsider, “We will have a discussion meeting every week. I need to present my ideas. But in the beginning, I felt they were
tired of listen to me because my presentation and accent they couldn’t understand.” (D)
Change and acquisition socialization
The last stage of organizational socialization is change and acquisition. In this stage, sojourners already knew and adapted to the organizational culture.
After the adjustment period in the second stage, new members adjust their behaviors or attitudes to cooperate with existing members in the organization.
After the adapting process, sojourners should have certain understanding of the organizational cultures and be able to describe it. To be more specific, the results of this part were compared with the answers from colleagues as well to see could sojourners be able to understand the culture. From colleagues’
answers, there is no difference between sojourners’ and colleagues’
understanding.
Table 4.2 3 Answers of organizational cultures between sojourners and their colleagues
Answers from
uniform. But
actually the
connection of employees is not that close.”
From table 4.3, the understanding of organizational culture is examined.
After the second stage of socialization, sojourners already had the comprehension of the culture and had the awareness of their changes. Following are the changes sojourners have made,
1. Work proficiency
After the encounter stage, sojourners’ familiarity with the work was increased. They knew the procedures of the job, how to cooperate with colleagues better, specific languages colleagues use, and the organizational culture, like interviewee H had expressed: “changes…first of course is the language. I knew how to say things in different way…and some terms they use.”
Although sojourners still face problems from time to time, the quantity of problems already decrease compare to the previous stage, and sojourners can handle and find solutions by themselves more.
2. Self learning
Six out of nine interviewees answered one changes they have made was starting self learning, like interviewee A, “I think one change is that I start to study by myself except of working.” When in second stage of socialization, sojourners faced problems which they need to conquer, except for asking colleagues’ help, they also start to learn more knowledge by themselves. After the encounter stage, they keep this habit and do it whenever they have problems.
The reasons for them to start self learning are presented in table 4.4,
Table 4.2 4 Answers of organizational cultures between sojourners and their colleaguesReasons of self learning
Reasons of self learning,
Reasons of self learning1. Everyone has different responsibility, not many coworkers understand that sojourner’s work.
2. Do not have the related knowledge background
3. The willingness of working successfully 4. Independent organizational culture
Interviewee
5.
3. The willingness of working successfully 4. Independent organizational culture
5. The distance between foreigners and American
A, D
To better fit into the organizations, four out of nine sojourners mentioned they changed their living style for their works. Different living patterns were found through the lines from interviewees, “Any other changes?…I changed my life style…I get up and go to bed earlier than I did before” (H), or like what interviewee I described, “I eat more like Americans basically…I’ve learned the way they talked…” Basic daily living style like eating, dressing, or time management is changed for the needs of better cooperating with the work.
4. Others
One thing mentioned by sojourners is the change and acquisition do not happen only on sojourners, but also on their coworkers. Two out of nine interviewees stated that because of their foreign status, coworkers had a hard time to understand them in the beginning. However, after sojourners went through the organizational socialization process, this situation was also changed.
“I need to present my ideas. But in the beginning, I felt they were tired of listen to me because my presentation and accent they couldn’t understand…but now they are more familiar with me and now become more patient to listen to me” (D)
None of interviewees mentioned about the any changes in the organization, but the changes did happen on the original members in the organization.
Another thing should be discussed in this section is the congruence factor that mentioned in first stage. The learning and experience are sorted in this section is because after the socialization process, sojourners can clear understand the congruence factor help them in the whole process or not. All interviewees have the education background in the U.S. (four out of nine are current students), seven sojourners have previous working experience. According to the interview result, all sojourners approved the helping effects,
“I’ve been to Australia to study in the language school for two years…and my studies in the U.S…it helped, of course. First is my language. I can
communicate with people. And I start to know and understand the culture, too see how they act and interact…” (H)
From the result, the mentioned helping effects are,
Language
Getting know American culture
Interaction from work
The three-stage organizational socialization process developed by Feldman (1981) is used to exam sojourners’ socialization process, to see did their socialization process could be explained by the theory or were there any other situations. The findings show that sojourners’ socialization process can still be explicated.