Mapping the organizational socialization and onboarding literature: a bibliometric analysis of the field

Figures & data

Figure 1. Annual distribution of the articles created with bibliometrix.

Table 1. Top publishing authors, institutions and countries.

Author	NP	TC	Institution	NP	Country	NP	TC
Saks AM	18	2544	UNIV AUCKLAND	23	USA	570	9242
Cooper-Thomas HD	14	430	TEXAS A&M UNIV	20	CHINA	214	701
Ashforth BE	11	1556	UNIV TORONTO	20	CANADA	109	2803
Bauer TN	11	1423	PORTLAND STATE UNIV	19	UK	73	475
Erdogan B	6	851	UNIV MINNESOTA	17	ITALY	47	173
Gruman JA	6	387	ARIZONA STATE UNIV	15	GERMANY	41	280
Kammeyer-Mueller JD	5	404	MICHIGAN STATE UNIV	14	AUSTRALIA	36	137
Steinmacher I	5	159	BEIJING JIAOTONG UNIV	13	NEW ZEALAND	33	192
Kramer MW	5	124	IOWA STATE UNIV	13	THE NETHERLANDS	32	226
Song Z	5	115	SAPIENZA UNIV ROME	12	BELGIUM	29	573

Note: NP = number of publications, TC = total citations.

Figure 2. Most publishing journals. NP = number of publications, TC = total citations.

Table 2. Most cited articles.

Authors	Title	Year	Journal	LC	GC	GC / Y
Bauer, T.N.; Erdogan, B. ; Bodner, T.; Truxillo, D.M.; Tucker, J.S.	Newcomer Adjustment During Organizational Socialization: A Meta-Analytic Review of Antecedents, Outcomes, and Methods	2007	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	218	694	40,82
Chao, G.T.; O’Leary-Kelly, A.M. Wolf, S.; Klein, H.J.; Gardner, P.D.	Organizational Socialization: Its Content and Consequences	1994	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	157	576	19,20
Ostroff, C.; Kozlowski, S.W.J	Organizational socialization as a learning process - the role of information acquisition	1992	PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY	138	432	13,50
Saks, A.M.; Ashforth, B.E.	Organizational Socialization: Making Sense of the Past and Present as a Prologue for the Future	1997	JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR	126	367	13,59
Ashforth, B.E.; Saks, A.M.	Socialization tactics: Longitudinal effects on newcomer adjustment	1996	ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	118	466	16,64
Saks, Alan M.; Uggerslev, Krista L.; Fassina, Neil E.	Socialization tactics and newcomer adjustment: A meta-analytic review and test of a model	2007	JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR	109	268	15,76
Ashforth, B.E.; Sluss, D.M.; Saks, A.M.	Socialization tactics, proactive behavior, and newcomer learning: Integrating socialization models	2007	JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR	78	257	15,12
Gruman, Jamie A.; Saks, Alan M.; Zweig, David I.	Organizational socialization tactics and newcomer proactive behaviors: an integrative study	2006	JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR	72	165	9,17
Morrison, EW	Newcomers’ relationships: The role of social network ties during socialization	2002	ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	71	551	25,05
Wanberg, C.R.; Kammeyer-Mueller, J.D.	Predictors and outcomes of proactivity in the socialization process	2000	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	68	291	12,13
Kim, T.Y.; Cable, D.M.; Kim, S.P.	Socialization tactics, employee proactivity, and person-organization fit	2005	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	67	231	12,16
Kammeyer-Mueller, J.; Wanberg, C.; Rubenstein, A.; Song, Z.	Support, Undermining, and Newcomer Socialization: Fitting in During the First 90 Days	2013	ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	63	183	16,64
Bauer, T.N.; Green, S.G.	Testing the combined effects of newcomer information seeking and manager behavior on socialization	1998	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	60	157	6,04
Bauer, T.N.; Green, S.G.	Effect of newcomer involvement in work-related activities - a longitudinal study of socialization	1994	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	51	150	5,00
Haueter, J.A.; Macan, T.H.; Winter, J.	Measurement of newcomer socialization: Construct validation of a multidimensional scale	2003	JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR	49	102	4,86
Major, D.A.; Kozlowski, S.W.J.	Newcomer information seeking: Individual and contextual influences	1995	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT	46	281	9,69
Allen, N.J.; Meyer, J.P.	Organizational tactics - a longitudinal analysis of links to newcomers’ commitment and role-orientation	1990	ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	43	303	8,91
Chen, G; Klimoski, R.J.	The impact of expectations on newcomer performance in teams as mediated by work characteristics, social exchanges, and empowerment	2003	ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	37	215	10,24
Klein, H.J.; Weaver, N.A.	The effectiveness of an organizational-level orientation training program in the socialization of new hires	2000	PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY	36	148	6,17
Ellis, A.M.; Nifadkar, S.S.; Bauer, T.N.; Erdogan, B.	Newcomer Adjustment: Examining the Role of Managers’ Perception of Newcomer Proactive Behavior During Organizational Socialization	2017	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY	32	78	9,67

Note: LC = local citations, GC = global citations, GC/Y = global citations per year.

Figure 3. Co-occurrence analysis map created with VOSviewer.

Figure 4. Network visualization of bibliometric coupling from 2018-2022 created with VOSviewer.

Table 3. Research fronts.

Research Front		Color in Figure 4	References	Potential research themes
#1	Psychological contracts and psychological capital	red	K. Kim & Moon, 2021; Lapointe & Vandenberghe, 2021; Woodrow & Guest, 2020; J. Xu et al., 2019	Further explore the dynamics of the psychological contract during socialization through longitudinal research methods. Examine the formation of psychological contracts during newcomer socialization. The influence of psychological capital on organizational socialization.
#2	Resources in organizational socialization and changing work contexts	green	(Cooper-Thomas et al., 2020; Harris et al., 2022; Petrilli et al., 2022; Saks & Gruman, 2018; Sani et al., 2022; Woo et al., 2022)	Investigate factors that influence the content of newcomer socialization. Examine through longitudinal research what resources are critical at different points during the socialization process. Organizational socialization in nontraditional working arrangements, i.e. contingent workers, remote workers, distributed projects Job design features relating to nontraditional work arrangements i.e. task variety, job complexity.
#3	Networks	blue	(Bakker et al., 2021; Batistič & Kaše, 2022; J. Liu et al., 2021; Yuan et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2022)	Examine relationship building among newcomers over the adjustment process. Investigate the dynamics of network creation by newcomers during socialization.
#4	Newcomer proactivity and interactions with supervisors	yellow	(Bauer et al., 2019; Nasr et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2022)	Explore different proactive behaviors and their dynamics. Investigate how supervisors and different leadership styles i.e. servant leadership influence newcomer proactivity. Examine what individual factors will lead to more proactive behaviors among newcomers.
#5	Onboarding in software engineering and open-source projects	purple	(Balali et al., 2018; Britto et al., 2018; Sharma & Stol, 2020; Steinmacher et al., 2019)	Combine literature from Open-Source software development with literature on organizational socialization. Develop specific onboarding strategies for distinct groups of professions such as software engineers.

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Lapointe, E., & Vandenberghe, C. (2021). Psychological contract breach and voluntary turnover among newcomers: The role of supervisor trustworthiness and negative affectivity. Journal of Management & Organization, 29(5), 947–967. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2020.43

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Data availability statement

No new data were generated in this work. The dataset from which the results of this article were analyzed and delineated are available on www.webofscience.com.