Socialization Tactics, Content, and Career Effectiveness: The Role of Political Skill in Contextual Adjustment and Effectiveness

This research formulated and tested a process model of socialization tactics and content as they relate to personal learning and career effectiveness. The research consisted of two studies varying in scope, but designed to provide convergent validation evidence. First, Study 1 was conducted in order to test several salient aspects of the proposed model. Study 2 provided a more extensive investigation of the proposed relationships. More specifically, this research examined the outcomes of the relationship between the collective and serial socialization tactics (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979) and the politics and people categories of socialization content (Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994). In turn, this research sought to examine the effects of socialization tactics and content on individual political skill (Ferris, Kolodinsky, Hochwarter, & Frink, 2001) and political skill effects on career effectiveness (Hall, 1976, 2002). It was proposed that individuals that experienced collective and serial socialization tactics, would report a higher level of knowledge regarding the content categories of people and politics. Furthermore, it was proposed that individuals would, as a result of socialization processes, experience greater personal learning in the form of increased political skill, which, in turn, would result in increased perceptions of career effectiveness. In general, the results of this research supported the proposed relationships.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'Socialization Tactics, Content, and Career Effectiveness: The Role of Political Skill in Contextual Adjustment and Effectiveness' with ISBN 9781423501855 and ISBN 1423501853.