Newcomer adjustment: Examining the role of managers' perception of newcomer proactive behavior during organizational socialization.

Separate streams of organizational socialization research have recognized the importance of (a) newcomer proactivity and (b) manager support in facilitating newcomer adjustment. However, extant research has largely focused on the newcomers' experience, leaving the perspectives of managers during socialization relatively unexplored-a theoretical gap that has implications both for newcomer adjustment and manager-newcomer interactions that may serve as a basis for future relationship development. Drawing from the "interlocked" employee behavior argument of Weick (1979), we propose that managers' perception of newcomers' proactive behaviors are associated with concordant manager behaviors, which, in turn, support newcomer adjustment. Further, we investigate a cognitive mechanism-managers' evaluation of newcomers' commitment to adjust-which we expect underlies the proposed relationship between newcomers' proactive behaviors and managers' supportive behaviors. Using a time-lagged, 4-phase data collection of a sample of new software engineers in India and their managers, we were able to test our hypothesized model as well as rule out alternative explanations via multilevel structural equation modeling. Results broadly supported our model even after controlling for manager-newcomer social exchange relationship, proactive personalities of both newcomers and managers, and potential effects of coworker information providing. The implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Shrugging it off: Does psychological detachment from work mediate the relationship between workplace aggression and work-family conflict?

The current study investigates workplace aggression and psychological detachment from work as possible antecedents of work-family conflict. We draw upon Conservation of Resources theory and the Effort-Recovery Model to argue that employees who fail to psychologically detach from stressful events in the workplace experience a relative lack of resources that is negatively associated with functioning in the nonwork domain. Further, we extend prior research on antecedents of work-family conflict by examining workplace aggression, a prevalent workplace stressor. Utilizing multisource data (i.e., employee, significant other, and coworker reports), our findings indicate that self-reported psychological detachment mediates the relationship between coworker-reported workplace aggression and both self- and significant other-reported work-family conflict. Findings from the current study speak to the value of combining perspectives from research on recovery from work stress and the work-family interface, and point toward implications for research and practice.