How newcomers use role models in organizational socialization

Being a newcomer is a great challenge we all face.
It creates uncertainty, along with a need for new
knowledge and skills in order to master a new job.
This is the focus of my thesis - how newcomers learn
to master their new job and how these learning
processes can be characterized. Established
colleagues as important knowledge sources is
central, and by using the term role model, newcomers
access to tacit and explicit knowledge is
recognized. In relation to understanding learning as
social and cultural, and not just limited to
individual knowledge aquisition.
The thesis also recognizes the need for
understanding organizational socialization as
learning and the important of informal learning
processes and colleagues informally bounding in
social practices at work. Thus, the thesis represent
a contribution of understanding newcomers learning
as both individual, social, cultural and contextual.
In doing so, colleagues as knowledge sources in
order to learn tacit knowledge, is crucial to
newcomers learning.

Autorentext

Dr/Associate Professor Cathrine Filstad at the Departement of Leadership and Organizational Management at Norwegian School of Management, BI. Research interests organizational learning, newcomers learning processes, knowing and practice at work. Ph.d. at Aarhus School of Business on newcomers organizational socialization, 2003.

Klappentext

Being a newcomer is a great challenge we all face. It creates uncertainty, along with a need for new knowledge and skills in order to master a new job. This is the focus of my thesis - how newcomers learn to master their new job and how these learning processes can be characterized. Established colleagues as important knowledge sources is central, and by using the term role model, newcomers access to tacit and explicit knowledge is recognized. In relation to understanding learning as social and cultural, and not just limited to individual knowledge aquisition. The thesis also recognizes the need for understanding organizational socialization as learning and the important of informal learning processes and colleagues informally bounding in social practices at work. Thus, the thesis represent a contribution of understanding newcomers learning as both individual, social, cultural and contextual. In doing so, colleagues as knowledge sources in order to learn tacit knowledge, is crucial to newcomers learning.