ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIALIZATION AND ITS RELATION WITH ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Organizational socialization is the process by which an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organizational role (Maanen & Schein, 1979). It may be said that The Feldman model is the most used one to explain the socialization process in an organization. According to Feldman (1981),  individual socialization in an organization  pursues three distinct stages of socialization, and the different sets of activities that employees engage in each stage. The first of it is “anticipatory socialization” stage. The main activities that  the individual engages in at this stage are forming expectations about jobs and making decisions about employment. The second stage of socialization process is “accommodation”. At this stage the individual sees what the organization  actually  looks like and attempts to become a participating member of it. Learning new tasks, establishing new interpersonal relationships with co-workers, clarifying their roles in the organization and evaluating their progress in the organization are main activities at this stage. The third stage of socialization process is” role management”.  At this stage there is a need to mediate the conflicts between the individual’s work in their own group and other groups that may place demands on them. Possible outcomes of socialization are general satisfaction, mutual influence, internal work motivation and job involvement. Katz and Kahn (1978) state that one of the organizational socialization’s most important goals is to communicate work role expectations and role sending. Role sending messages tell things such as appropriate work related behaviors and performance requirements. As organizational socialization literature is examined in detail,  organization- individual interactions approaches are seen. From the perspective of organization studies, mostly, socialization content, process and socialization strategies and tactics are examined (Porter, Lawler & Hackman, 1975; Feldman, 1976, 1981; Schein, 1978; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979; Louis, 1980; Allen & Meyer, 1990; Chao, O’Leary Kelly, Wolf, Klein & Gardner, 1994, Taormina, 1994; Saks & Gruman, 2011). Perspective of individualistic approaches generally involve individualistic properties that the newcomer had gained in pre- socialization level (Ashford & Cummings, 1985; Asford, 1986, Bauer & Green, 1994; Grant & Ashford, 2008). Organization- individual interaction approach is generally focused on the interaction between newcomers’ proactive socialization process and organizational strategies and tactics (Jones, 1983; Reichers, 1987; Hartley, 1992; Song & Chathoth, 2010).    

The performance appraisal represents an assessment of an employee’s work. An employee’s future is closely tied to his/her promotions, pay raises and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes (Robbins, 2005). The prevalence of the socialization process not only preserves but also enhances sharing and development of key components of organizational culture, and thus creates strong organizational culture. Strong organizational culture is related to higher organizational performance (Vinsova, Komarkova, Kral, Tripes & Pirozek, 2013). The first thing to increase employee performance is to help employee complete his/her organizational socialization process.  Only the socialized employee can easily fit in and become part of the organization. Then the employee will be dedicated his/her skill and knowledge for organization’s future development (Yanfei, Xi & Fantiani, 2011). Based on the discussions above,  this research aimed to determine the organizational socialization levels and organizational performance levels of the teachers working in public and private anatolian high schools (lycees)  located in the area of Metropolitan Municipality of Ankara, and to inquiry the relationship between organizational socialization and organizational performance variables with respect to the views of the teachers.

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