Ricerc@Sapienza

Socialization scholars have traditionally focused on organizational practices and newcomers' proactive behavior as antecedents of a successful work adjustment (Ellis, Nifadkar, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2017), whereas little is known on the triggering role that individuals' self-regulatory abilities may play. Likewise, evidence supporting integrative unfolding models of socialization are lacking (Ellis et al., 2015) and turnover research has relatively disregarded the military contexts (Smith, Holtom, & Mitchell, 2011).
All in all, the present research project aims to explore the relationship between regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs (ES, Bandura et al., 2003; Caprara et al., 2008), organizational socialization (OS, Bauer et al., 2007), organizational identification (OI) and turnover intentions (TI) (Van Dick et al., 2004). More in detail, we expect that ES negatively predicts TI through the longitudinal mediation of both OS and OI. We will test our hypotheses using a full mediation design consisting of three waves of data for each participant and the sample will be made of military newcomers. Such a well-structured research design is currently recognized as one of the strongest and less biased design to assess mediation (Little, 2013; O'Laughlin, Martin, & Ferrer, 2018) and to infer causality processes (Cole & Maxwell, 2003).
From a theoretical standpoint, the present study would contribute to fill several gaps in the socialization and turnover research among newcomers by showing how the work adjustment process may unfold over time starting from the individuals' self-efficacy beliefs. From a practical standpoint, results would provide practitioners with useful suggestions on the importance of considering the training of regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs as a part of mentoring programs in order to increase the chance of a successful work adjustment and, thus, reducing turnover.