Adjusting to the Emergent: A Process Theory Perspective on Organizational Socialization and Newcomer Innovation

In her doctoral thesis Line Revsbaek explores newcomer innovation related to organizational entry processes in a changing organization. She introduces process philosophy and complexity theory to research on organizational socialization and newcomer innovation. The study challenges assumptions in standardized induction programs where newcomers are cast in roles as insecure novices needing to be “taught the ropes” of the organizational culture. Linked with this, it is suggested that the prevailing dichotomy of ‘newcomer assimilation’ versus ‘organizational accommodation’ is replaced with a notion of ‘adjusting to the emergent’. Newcomer innovation is portrayed as carrying a variety of possible significations, such as unintentional innovation effects of newcomer’s proactive self-socializing behavior; an inspirational basis for designing innovation-generating employee induction; ‘resonant instances’ of newcomers enacting the organizational emergent.
The study throws light on the informal socialization in work-related interactions between newcomers and veterans and reveals professional relational histories, as well as the relationship between veteran coworker and hiring manager, to be important aspects of the social ecology of newcomer entry.
The study makes a contribution to interpretive qualitative research methodology in taking a radical reflexive and autobiographic stance toward analyzing conventional interview material in a practice of Analyzing in the Present.