Abstract:
When newcomers enter into organizations they often feel stressed and find difficulties
to adjust to the new organizational context. Through the socialization process they
learn how to adjust to the new context. Previous studies investigated the role of
organizations in the process of newcomer adjustment. However, the individual role in
newcomer adjustment has not been sufficiently discussed in the literature;
particularly there is no such study in the Sri Lankan context. This study examines the
influence of newcomer proactive behaviors (positive framing, relationship building,
information seeking and feedback seeking) on adjustment (job satisfaction and social
integration). This study was conducted with 114 newcomers who had less than one
year of work experience from banking sector in Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The
study employed PLS-SEM with Smart PLS to test the proposed hypotheses. The
findings revealed that among the four proactive behaviors, positive framing positively
influences both satisfaction and social integration. Information seeking, feedback
seeking and relationship building also positively influence either job satisfaction or
social integration. These findings suggest that newcomers need to engage in proactive
behaviors to achieve satisfaction at the workplace and to become acceptable members
of the organization. Further, this study contributes to the literature by investigating the
influence of proactive behavior in the socialization process among new employees in
the banking sector in the Sri Lankan cultural context.
