To foster the socialization process of new employees, organizations often implement onboarding programs, which are particularly important for helping newcomers develop organizational commitment. Empirical studies have, in fact, demonstrated that onboarding increases workers’ affective commitment to the organization. However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined the relationships between onboarding and the other two dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e., normative and continuance). In the same vein, to improve our understanding of onboarding’s effect on commitment, it is important to investigate the underlying mechanisms. Based on Social Identity Theory, organizational identification may serve as a mechanism through which onboarding affects commitment. While onboarding programs are commonly adopted across organizations, there is limited empirical evidence regarding their effectiveness. Therefore, this research investigates relationships between newcomers’ perception of onboarding program effectiveness and the three dimensions of organizational commitment, considering organizational identification as a mediator. The study comprised a survey of 131 workers from a private telecommunication company in Belgium. Results show that organizational identification mediated the effects of onboarding program effectiveness on the three dimensions of organizational commitment. Our findings contribute to theoretical development by integrating onboarding and organizational commitment literature from a social identity perspective.
Babic et al. (Tue,) studied this question.