The Impact of Organizational Socialization Tactics on Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict of Newly Hired Social Workers

ABSTRACT

This study sought to get a better understanding of the nature of social workers' adjustment to their new work environments. Its purpose was (1) to identify tactics that human service organizations use for socializing newly hired social workers, (2) to assess the relationship between various socialization tactics, and the outcomes of role ambiguity and conflict. A survey was administered to 210 MSW students from two successive annual graduating classes of a major southern university. The questionnaire included measures of socialization tactics (Jones, 1986), and role ambiguity and conflict (Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970). Among the tactics used to socialize social workers into human service organizations were serial, investiture, collective, random, variable, and informal. Results suggest that socialization tactics affect role ambiguity and conflict. Specifically, individual, investiture, and fixed tactics lead to lower role ambiguity, whereas investiture tactic leads to lower role conflict.

Key Words:

• Socialization
• human service organizations
• role conflict
• role ambiguity