Allen, N. and J. Meyer (1990). "Organizational Socialization Tactics: A Longitudinal Analysis of Links to Newcomer's Commitment and Role Orientation." Academy of Management Journal, 33(48): 847-858.

Jones summarized Van Maanen & Schein's 6 socialization tactics into a single polarity called institutionalized vs individualized dimension. Institutionalized is characterized by common initiatory and learning experiences. It is collective, formal, sequetntial, and fixed, and inveistiture. Invidualized socialization is individual, informal, random, variable, and disjunctive and divestiture.

Outcomes Related to Organizational Socialization

Role Orientation

Jones accepted the conformity-- innovation dynamic and felt insitutionalized socialization contributed more to a custodial orientation (and individualized to innovative). He had a little different viewpoint than VM & S on the impact of certain tactics on orientation. His findings confirmed his differences (obviously!).

Organizational Commitment

Is an affective attachment to an organization characterized by shared values, a desire to remain in the organization, and a willingness to exert effort on its behalf. Jones hypothesized that newcomers experienceing institutionalized tactics would be more committed than those given individual treatment because the training present newcomers with fewer problems of situational consistency.

He also found a negative correlation between innovation and commitment.

Method

The authors replicated Jones experiment, and added a longitudinal component (survey at 6 months and 1 year). They sampled MBA classes 170 returned. Replicated Jones scales. They also had a 8 item affective commitment scale and a 15-item Organizational Commitment Q (Mowday et al 1979)

Results

They found that institutionalized tactics are associated with a custodial orientation and individualized tactics with a innovative orientation. Each socilization tactic correlated with commitment . Instituational tactics tend to associated with higher levels of commitment.

Their results fit with VM & S except fixed-variable and investiture-divestiture, which agree with Jones. The best predictor or role orientation was serial-disjunctive. Maybe some other factor (degree of certainty) underlies all the co-variation between dimensions.

(I wonder if peoples reaction to a certain tactic depends on their reaction to their schooling socilization tactic).

Another study showed a negative correlation between role ambiquity and committment (Morris & Sherman, 1981).

It seems that other factors not measured also impact commitment. The negative correlation between role orientation and commitment was gone in 1 year.

It appears that to foster both innovativeness and commitment one should use investiture tactics but keep the "old timers" away from the impressional newcomers.

It's a tough balance because the best people to teach newcomers about the role also may teach the undesirable "old ways" as well. Maybe job descriptions performance appraisals can help accomplish the right balance (give newcomers belief they can affect their role descriptions).

Another study showed that confirmed expectations had significant long-term effect on commitment (Meyer & Allen 1988).