Sojourners’ Organizational Socialization Process – A Study on the case of Workers from East Asian in the United States
Chiung-tzu, Kao
Graduate student in International Human Resource Development, National
Taiwan Normal University
Abstract
AIMS: To examine whether and how cross culture affects the process of organizational socialization
RESULTS: Sojourners’ organizational socialization were explained by the
organizational socialization process developed by Feldman (1981). For the first
stage, sojourners' congruence and realism factors were examined. Sojourners
had started to collect organizational related information since they realized the
existence of the job. In the encounter stage, the identity of sojourners had the
multiple effects on the conflicts. It was a two-way boundary, not only sojourners
feel harder to become insiders, but existing insider feel like harder to understand
the outsiders, sojourners. The performances in the third stage are changing the
speaking way, acting more like a insider, and adaption to the organization and
the job. One different thing is the changing and acquisition effect can be
observed more clearly on existing members.
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
This chapter includes background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, questions propose by the study, significance of the study, definition of terms, delimitations and limitations.
Background of the Study
Information technology is at the core of the current process of economic globalization (Madon, 1997). In the information-based economy, knowledge is a very important factor for success. But for many companies, knowledge is from not only domestic workers but also sojourners. Since globalization is common, the flow of people is easier to see than before. Laszlo Bock, Vice President for People Operations at Google, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration on June 6, 2007 (Bock, 2007). He stated that companies depend on employees for their success in a knowledge-based economy; and the success of Google is because of employees of different cultural backgrounds and encouraged Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas. In this testimony, the trend and advantage of having sojourners working in the company could be observed. But one problem for the company with sojourners is to help them understand and identify the organization. The solution to this problem is through organizational socialization, which means the process for newcomers adapting to the organization.
Organizational socialization is a well-known term in the managerial and organizational behavioral fields. As Van Maanen & Schein (1997) state that organizational socialization is the process in which a newcomer in an organization learns his or her roles and adapts to the new environments.
Generally speaking, organizational socialization is the process for newcomers to change from outsider into insider in the organization. The outcomes of completing the process of organizational socialization are better performance at works and high job identification in new employees (Uen, 2005). There are also six tactics of organizational socialization, they are: collective vs. individual, formal vs. informal, sequential vs. random, fixed vs. variable, serial vs.
disjunctive, and investiture vs. divestiture. The outcome of organizational socialization for a new comer in the organization could be different since different tactics are implemented. Also different organizations might use different tactics of organizational socialization.
Because of globalization in the labor market, the traditional organization
socialization could also be different since the entering of sojourners. How to
make newcomers from a different culture understand the organizational culture
and identify this organization is the problem managers will face.
However, different cultures have many different reactions about the same thing. And it will be hard to generalize the research outcomes for people from different cultures. Therefore, to be more specific, the organizational socialization in this study focuses on East Asian in the U.S.culture.
East Asian cultural circle
The concept of cultural circle was begun by Fraz Baos (1883). There is a main area in the cultural circle that extends its cultural feature to nearby countries. Now there are five big culture circles in the world: Western, East Asian, Islamic, Indian, and Orthodox.
The East Asian cultural circle is also known as the Sinosphere (Matisoff, 2003) or Chinese cultural sphere. In this cultural circle, the Chinese cultural sphere influences some countries, regions, and people with Chinese cultural legacies and Chinese words. Bennett defined the Sinosphere as countries that have Chinese cultural heritage like Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Countries from the East Asian cultural circle have a similar cultural background that was originated from Chinese culture. Northeastern Asian is separated into East Asian cultural circle (including Japan, Mainland China, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan), and the concept of eastern culture was began by Fenollosa (1897).
This concept represents the similarity in this area’s cultures.
The U.S.A is in Western culture circle, which also includes Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. This sphere is influenced by Christianity and the people are mainly Caucasian.
In 2000, 43 percent of the foreign-born Asian population had just immigrated into the United States within the past 10 years (Sincavage, 2005). As the Asian-American population continues to grow, so does the need to understand their adjustment in work. Therefore, this study tries to focus on East Asian sojourners’ organizational socialization in American culture.
Statement of the Problem
Although issues of organizational socialization are widely discussed (Bauer, Bodner, Erdogan, Trujillo, & Tucker, 2007; Maanen, &Schein, 1979;
Uen, Yi, 2006), most of the hypotheses are the newcomer and the organization has the same cultural background. There is limited research related to the issue of sojourners’ organizational socialization process. Hence this paper attempts to find out whether organizational socialization would be different or not in the cross culture field. The purpose of this study is to explore sojourners’
organizational socialization process.
Definition of Terms
1. Organizational Socialization
Organizational socialization is the process in which a newcomer in an organization learns his or her roles and adapts to the new environments (Van Maanen & Schein, 1997). The model of the organizational socialization process was developed by Daniel Feldman (1976) and is adapted in this research. This model includes three stages in the organizational socialization process, the first is anticipatory, the second is encounter, and the third is change and acquisition.
2. Sojourner
It means a person staying in a place that is not his or her home country for a period of time, including immigrants, non-immigrant workers, and expatriate workers.
3. Northeastern Asian
In this study, it means people from Japan, Mainland China, Korea, and Taiwan Significance of the Study
Many studies have been conducted in organizational socialization field. But in previous studies, few of them are in cross-cultural field and none of them studies sojourners. Furthermore, there are no qualitative studies related to cross-cultural organizational socialization. There are more and more sojourners and this issue should be studied, therefore this study focuses on sojourners’ organizational socialization. This study wants to fulfill the gap of organizational socialization in cross field.
Hopefully, this study can help both employers and sojourners. Employers can know what kind of different reaction sojourners will face and give them better support to overcome difficulties and can perform well in their jobs. Sojourners can adjust the working environment faster and better and reduce the difficulties that might happen.
Delimitations and Limitations
The delimitation of this study is to explore sojourners’ organizational socialization in a cross-cultural context. And if the answer is yes, the paper also tries to analyze what kinds of impact there are. In addition, this study tries to find out the organizational socialization process of sojourners and see if there are any differences among their process and their psychological experiences.
However, this study like many other studies also faces some limitations. First, the samples are from Northeast Asians who currently lives in Reno, Nevada.
The result might have different outcomes when conducting in different areas in
the U.S. Second, the number of interviewees are limited, thus the interview data
are restricted to those who were invited for the interview process.
CHPATER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews literatures of two major field, organizational socialization and sojourners.
Organizational Socialization
A successful adaption to an organization is often seen as a good condition for human resource management in a corporation. Therefore, topics related to organizational socialization is widely discussed in the field of organizational behavior.
Definition of organizational socialization
London (1985) defines organizational socialization as:
The process by which an employee learns the values, norms, and required behaviors that permits participation as a member of the organization. This process may also mean relinquishing attitudes, values and behaviors that do not fit. Socialization establishes shared attitudes, habits, and values that encourage cooperation, integrity, and communication. (p.20)
This study intends to know about organizational socialization, one issue will be deal with is organizational culture. Rhinesmith (1996) states, “The corporate culture contains the values, norms of behavior, systems, policies, and procedures through which the organization adapts to the complexity of the global arena.” And for organizational socialization, one task for newcomers are learning organizational culture and trying to adapt it. According to the study of IBM, Hofsted (2004) concludes that managers had to adjust the corporate management philosophy to fit the beliefs, values, and behaviors or the country in which they were working.
Organizational socialization is defined by as the process by which an
individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an
organization role. The result of this process is that someone who was considered
as an outsider by organizational member before is changed into an accepted
insider (Werner & Desimone, 2007). The positive influences of organizational
socialization toward newcomers are researched by many papers. For example,
employees completing organizational socialization in some degrees are
considered having better job identification and work satisfaction; and better job
identification is linked to better organizational performance (Chou, 1999; Uen,
2005).
Socialization is defined as the process of newcomers learning of adapting the organizational environment. The content of socialization could be divided into five categories of learning (Zaslow, 1991):
1. Preliminary learning — including the knowing of the necessity of learning, what to learn and whom to learn from
2. Learning about the organization — including the organizational goals, values, and policies
3. Learning to function in the work group — including the values, norms, roles, and friendship within the group
4. Learning how to perform the job — including the required skills and knowledge for a particular job
5. Personal learning — including self-identity, expectation, self-image, and motivation that learn from the experience of the job and organization Socialization researchers have suggested a wide variety of affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes of the organizational socialization process.
However, the outcome of organizational socialization could be positive or negative:
Successful and positive organizational socialization means newcomers could develop (1) greater knowledge of the organization and work group;
(2) attitudes that make performing, fitting into, and remaining with the organization and work group possible; and (3) behaviors that lead to personal and organizational effectiveness. Unsuccessful socialization is generally believed to result in unmet expectations, dissatisfaction, and lack of commitment (Werner &and Desimone, 2007).
The process of organizational socialization
Daniel Feldman (1981) developed a three-stage model of organizational socialization.
1. Anticipatory socialization — begins before newcomers joining the organization. This stage of socialization is about all of the learning related to the organization that occurs before a newcomer’s first day on the job. This stage includes two factors, realism and congruence. Realism is the degree to which the newcomer holds accurate expectations about the job and the organization. And different degrees of realism might affect the newcomer’s behavior. Congruence refers both to the extent to which a newcomer’s abilities match the demands of the job, and the extent to which the newcomer’s values match the values of the organization.
2. Encounter socialization — begins when newcomers make a formal commitments such as signing contracts or accepting the offer of employment to join the organization. In this stage, newcomers would face boundaries separating outside and inside organizational environment. And newcomers would encounter different demands from the task as well; these demands could be separated into task demands, role demands and interpersonal demands.
Figure 2. 1 2 Organizational socialization process by Feldman (1981)
3. Change and acquisition socialization — occurs when newcomers accept the culture of the organization and adapted themselves into the organization.
After completing this stage, the outcomes for newcomers would likely be newcomers are satisfied, involved in the job, and \ stay in the organization.
Similarly, Robbins (2006) also states a three-stage model which is depicted in Figure 2 to describe the process of organizational socialization.
Prearrival stage — the period of learning in the socialization process that occurs before a new employee joins the organization.
Encounter stage — the stage in the socialization process in which a new employee sees what the organization is really like and confronts the possibility that expectations and reality may diverge.
Metamorphosis stage — the stage in the socialization process in which a new employee changes and adjusts to the work, work group, and organization.
After completing this stage, the outcome for new employees would likely be the increasing productivity, stronger organizational commitment and lower turnover rate.
The character and influence of culture in organizational socialization
Societal culture is ingrained in the majority of members in that society. So organization socialization will reflect the culture value in the society in which that organization exist (Taormina & Bauer, 2000). People from different culture will value things in different weigh. For example, Asian people are more collective, so they may value other’s opinions more than American (Hofsted,
Outcomes
Prearrival
Prearrival EncounterEncounter MetamorphosisMetamorphosis
Productivity Productivity
Commitment Commitment
Turnover Turnover Socialization Process
Figure 2.2 3 Socialization process from “Organizational Behavior (third Canadian edition)” by Robbins & Langton (1998).
1980). Sojourners from the culture which is different from the organization, it means they might face problems from not only organizational culture but also from the societal culture behind the organizational culture.
People may face difficulties when they are in a new organization, as well as in a culture which is different from their own. Therefore this study combines these two possible difficulties together to see whether sojourners will face problems and what kind of problems in their process of organizational socialization.
In today’s expanding global economy, the opportunity of interaction among people from different culture is increasing. People who should go through the organizational socialization are not restricted to one culture as well. From the following literature review, it could be understood that the outcome of organizational socialization in cross culture field is also positive. Organizational socialization content areas are applicable across cultures (Taormina & Bauer, 2000). Lui and Lee (2008) state there are positive influences for organizational socialization on Taiwanese financial institution expatriates in the USA. Higher levels of organizational socialization have more significant influence in job adjustment and provide better assistance for expatriates (Chiu, 2005).
In current working environment, it is easy to work with people who have different cultural backgrounds. However, many managers believe that organizational culture can influence the national culture. They believe that national cultural differences do influence when working with foreign customers, but not in working with international colleagues within their own organization (Adler, 2008).
However, But actually employees and managers will bring their cultural and ethnicity to the workplace. The organizational culture won’t erase or at least diminish the national culture (Calori & Lubatkin & Veiga & Very, 1998). It is often assumed that organizational culture is a subset of national culture. This view is widespread since most organizations operate within given nation and employ members from the same national culture. Thus, managers and researchers often consider organizational culture as the micro context and national culture as the macro-context in which employees operate (Yeganeh, 2000). Furthermore, in Hofted’s study, national culture explained fifty percent of different employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Hofstede & Geert, 1980). In this paper, the research objectives are restricted in sojourners who are working in the U.S. companies. The organizational socialization processes are represented American culture.
Definition of sojourner
In this paper, cross-culture workers are termed sojourners. By the definition
of Macmillan English Dictionary (2007), sojourners mean people stay in a place that is not their home country for a period of time.
Cross-cultural influence to sojourner
According to Gudykunst (2005), intercultural encounters are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and anxiety, especially when cultural variability is high. Sojourners might feel anxious and stressful because the interaction and response from others are different from their own cultural perception and they might lose identification about things happen around them (Van Maanen &
Schein, 1979). Their feeling of anxiety and uncertainty is linked to the degree of difference between the in-group’s and strangers’ cultures (Gudykunst, 2005).
In AUM (Anxiety/Uncertainty Management) theory, Gudykunst states the axiom 45:
An increase in cultural individualism will produce an increase in in- group members’ use of person-based information to manage uncertainty with strangers; an increase in cultural collectivism will produce an increase in in-group members’ use of group-based and situation-based information to manage uncertainty with strangers.
Boundary Condition: This axiom does not hold when we are mindful.
(Gudykunst, 2005, p 309)
To reduce the anxiety and stress, organizations might provide trainings to help them undergo the adjusting process. But because of the cultural difference, sojourners might face more difficulties than new comers who share the same cultural background with the organization.
Different values between Northeast Asia and USA
Hofstede(2001) conducted a study to see how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. In this part, the indicators of values in two cultures that sojourners of this study are exposure to are discussed.
There are five cultural dimensions are used to describe the differences
between cultures. The fifth dimension, long term orientation was added after the
original study, and it was applied to twenty-three of the fifty original countries
in the study. The Buddhist/Shinto Countries of Taiwan and Japan have long
term orientation as the most closely correlating Dimension.
USA has the highest level of individualism in Hofstede’s research (97).
This score indicates USA is an individualistic society and people have relatively loose bonds with each others. USA has a relatively low score on power distance.
This represents that the societal levels is more equal, including government, organizations, and even within families. This also indicates that in work, they tend to have a more cooperative interaction with their supervisors and coworkers. The last one is the low uncertainty avoidance. Low in uncertainty avoidance is indicative of a higher tolerance of ambiguity and unstructured situation. Society with low uncertainty avoidance does not attempt to control all outcomes and results and more welcoming for risks.
Figure 2. 4 52 Organizational socialization processHofstede Dimension of Predominantly Buddhist, Tacist, Confucianism countries by Feldman Hofstede
(19812004)
Figure 2.4 Hofstede Dimension of United States by Hofstede (2004)Figure 2. 3 2 Organizational socialization process by Feldman (1981)
According to the numbers of Hofstede Dimension, the bigger differences between Northeast Asia and USA are power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation.
First is the power distance. In these countries, members of organizations accept power is distributed unequally. Therefore, members who have more power will be expected more talented or knowing the answers to problems.
Second, these countries are known as collectivism:
On the collectivist side, we found societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. (Hofstede, 2001)
Third, people in these low uncertainty avoidance countries will try to minimize the possibility of unstructured situations by setting strict laws, rules, and security measures. The last one is long term orientation. Values associated with long term orientation are thrift, perseverance, and stability. Hence, organizations in long term orientation cultures tend to base selection of candidates’ on “fit” with the organization, in terms of personal and background characteristics (Cullen & Parboteeah, 2005).
Theoretically, there are different values in workplace for sojourners to adapt besides for languages. Sojourners from Northeast Asia may expect answers from supervisors, want to maintain the harmony in the group, be used to work as a group, expect clear regulations and instructions.
CHAPTER III: METODOLOGY
This chapter provides description of the essential elements in this study. It includes the research framework of this study, the research approach, data collection and data analysis.
Research Framework
Figure
3.1 shows the framework of this study. This study will compare the mentioned model with the process collected from the practice in order to identify the similarities and differences between the model and practice in the cross-cultural setting. And because the samples are restricted to East Asian and American culture, the rectangle frame represents the different aspects between these two cultures. Within all aspects related to culture-difference issues, the factors of language, religion, education, law, and nonverbal communication are chosen, because the countries in the same cultural circle would be affected by the words, education, religion, technology and laws from the main area (Hsu & Lui, 1990).
American Company Culture
Values Attitudes Behavior
Sojourners
Culture Values Attitudes
Behavior Organizational socialization
process
Figure 5.1 Framework of this research
This research discusses whether sojourners’ cross-cultural background affects their organizational socialization process, and if yes, how it will affect.
The following is types of questions that will be asked. First, the interviewee’s motivation and overall situation of working abroad will be asked. Second, the interviewee’s cultural background will be understood. With Borden’s culture pattern (1991), the difference between the interviewee’s culture and American culture will be examined. Third, the most important part is to ask the interviewee if he or she faced any problem in the process of organizational socialization and what was the solution. Forth, any interviewees’ personal transformation related to the culture and organization is also part of the questions.
On the other hand, the interviewee’s colleague or supervisor will be
Language
Religion
Education
Laws
Nonverbal communication East Asian
culture
the US culture
Figure 6.1 Framework of this research
interviewed. The questions are related to following directions. First, the sojourner’s working situation and problems from the colleague’s or supervisor’s perspective. Second, after the sojourner worked in the organization, was there any change within the organization because of the sojourner. The answer from the sojourner’s colleague or supervisor will be an examination of the sojourner’s answer in different perspective.
Research Approach
This research is conducted in a qualitative method which contains observation andis by interview. Because this study will examine whether and how cross culture affects the process of organizational socialization and seeing which part of the process will be influenced the most, qualitative method is the approach that will be applied in this study.
Organizational socialization is a well-know topic in managerial and organizational studies, but fewer researches discuss organizational socialization in a cross-cultural context. To find out some interesting or creative points in the well-known topics, a qualitative method is often suggested. Unlike pursuing regular rules, qualitative research can describe an unusual situation deeply to search a better explanation. And the questions of this study focus on individuals’
perception and their own solutions. For feelings and personal issues, a qualitative approach is also recommended (Wang & Lui, 2004).
Besides interview, observation will also be conducted. The observation will be conducted in student restaurant in University of Nevada, Reno for two months. The researcher is a current worker in the restaurant and will make the observation during the working time there. Points of observation will include the working situation, the interaction between colleagues, and the training for new comers. The notification of observation will be revealed by informal chatting with colleagues.
Research ParticipantsData Collection
This part is composed by introduction of data collection and profiles of research participants.
Data waswill be collected in Reno city, Nevada State, U.S.A. Reno is the largest city in Northern Nevada, with a population of over 211,000. By 2005, the number of Asian population is 14,330, 7 percent of the total population. In Asian population, the most foreign residents are Japanese and people from Mainland China, all from the East Asian culture.
The samples will beare sojourners who work in the U.S. but American
culture are not their original culture. It will be student workers, people who stay
in the U.S.A and have jobs (including immigrants and people who take B1/B2,
H, J, and L visas). But East Asian who was born and lives in the U.S.A is not included. In addition, the working time for sojourners issojourners are restricted to people who already went through the training program and work for more than five months but less than three yearswithin one to six years. With these criteria, this study hopes to include sojourners, who already go through the process, but does not stay too long and has difficulties to recall the memories of his or her organizational socialization process. And the process of this study will be interviewing the sojourners, asking the permission of interviewing their colleague or supervisors, and interviewing them and analyzing the results. The profiles of research participants are represented as Table 3.1 and Table 3.2. The interviewing results from sojourners whose colleague and supervisor’s can’t be interviewed will not be adopted.
To make results can be widely used by other people rather than interviewees only, the source of interviews are restricted into northeast Asian.
The results of this research could be reference for people from this area. For people from this area, their mother tongue and official language are not English, and their cultural background is Confusions not western culture. The features make them have more difficulties in communication and culture adaptation than western people. The impacts and influence of cross culture will be easier observed. And also the interviewee’s colleague or supervisor will be interviewed as the supportive data for the interviewee’s statements.
Table 7.1
Profiles of Research Participants (Sojourner) Participan
t
Nationality Gender Type of Work Years
stayed in the U.S.
Seniority
A Japan Male Web master 4 years 8
months
B Japan Female Help desk 3 years 1 year
C Japan Male Help desk 5 years 17
months
D Japan Male Sales
Representative
3.5 years 6
months
E Japan Male English and
Spanish teacher
3 years 1 year
F Japan Female Japanese 9 years 2.5 years
teacher
G Japan Male Japanese
teacher
6 years 10
months
H Japan Male Student Worker 3 years 1 year
I Taiwan Female Student Worker 4 years 1.5 years
Table 8.2
Profiles of Research Participants (Coworker)
Participant Nationality Gender Type of Work Relationship with Sojourner
J U.S.A Male Help Desk Coworker (C)
K Japan Female Japanese
teacher
Coworker (F)
L Taiwan Female Cashier Coworker (I)
Data Analysis
This study is in-depth interview. The interview will take place after approving by the interviewee. All the content of the interviews will be recorded.
After data is collected, the next step is data analysis. Data analysis is conducted by three steps, data reduction, data display and data verification (Huberman &
Miles, 1998).
Figure 9.2 Framework of Data Analysis by Miles & Huberman (1994)
1. Data Reduction
This is a preliminary step of data simplification. It includes data summaries, coding, finding themes, clustering and writing stories.
2. Data Display
Display is the aggregation of information. According to previous information, structured summery, diagrams or matrices, vignettes and synopses, are displayed.
3. Conclusion drawing and Verification
This step includes interpretation of the issue of sojourners’ organizational socialization. New issues or problems of this topic will be proposed.
For coding and categorizing, the researcher use Microsoft Word to code the interview contents. The process of coding and categorizing was conducted in following four steps will be conducted (Phonmang, 2007):
1. Underlining the meaningful sentences.
2. Adopting useful words and giving a code.
3. Integrating similar meanings codes into a concepategoryt.
4. Integrating similar concepts category into a categorytheme.
CHAPTER IV: FINDING AND DISCUSSION
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
sojourners
Answers from
colleagues
Organizational culture
Interviewee C/J
“We need to face cultural differences a lot when receiving people.”
“It is an
environment full of diversity, and very welcoming.”
Diversity working environment Interviewee
F/K
“UNR has its own structure, but not pressure…the
coworkers are nice…
it’s not like she taught me, we’ll discuss.”
“Because I was amazed by teacher Yui, so I just did the same way…We discussed a lot, what I did was passed what we have…
there is more freedom…”
There is more discussion than supervising when
coworkers work together, loose structure
Interviewee I/L
“It has some rules, not very flexible, and the work autonomy is not high... because
of different
nationality,
employees have some distance.”
“The manager
supervised a lot…
Every work is connected with each other. The unity of employees seems to be emphasized because of the
Rules, work autonomy is low,
employees’
relationship is
not close
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.
1. 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
5. The distance between foreigners and American
A, D A, D B, C, E, G A, I
A, D, E
3. Living style
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.
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
For the first stage, Scholarios et al. (1993) state that recruitment and selection experiences are part of a process of pre-entry organizational socialization for newcomers, also known as anticipatory socialization. Compare to Feldman’s model, recruitment and selection are part of the two composing factors of anticipatory stage, realism. From the finding, sojourners had started to collect organizational related information since they realized the existence of the job.
In the encounter stage, sojourners face boundaries separating outside and inside organizational environment as newcomers. However, the identity of sojourners has the multiple effects on the conflicts. It is a two-way boundary, not only sojourners feel harder to become insiders, but existing insider feel like harder to understand the outsiders, sojourners.
There are no big difference in the third stage between sojourners and American. The performances in this stage are changing the speaking way, acting more like a insider, and adaption to the organization and the job. One different thing is the changing and acquisition effect can be observed more clearly on existing members.
Recommendation
In this global village, the internationalizing is no doubt getting higher.
Facing people with different cultural background can have multiple effects on organization’s human capital. To better training sojourners, human resources personnel should have assist the organization has a better program to help sojourners pass through the organizational socialization process. In addition, educate the existing members to better understand and cooperate with
Organization al Socialization
process
