Filling in the “Blank Slate”: Examining Newcomers’ Schemas of Supervisors During Organizational Socialization

Abstract

Newcomers have little knowledge of the behavioral tendencies of their future supervisors before they join the company; thus, they enter the organization with a “blank slate” regarding their assessments of their supervisors. We know little about how newcomers’ blank slates about their supervisors are gradually filled with mental images—or schemas—of their supervisors and how these schemas influence their adjustment to the organization. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to examine how newcomers’ schemas of supervisors develop, shape their information seeking from supervisors, and influence their adjustment. Further, previous socialization research has not distinguished between different forms of supportive supervisor behaviors or focused on unique outcomes of newcomers’ personal experience and indirect observation of supervisors’ behaviors. The findings of this study suggest that supervisors’ individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation, both forms of supervisors’ supportive behaviors, have distinct effects on newcomers’ warmth and competence schemas of supervisors; newcomers’ personal experience and indirect observation of supervisors’ behaviors have a unique influence on newcomers’ schemas of supervisors; and warmth and competence schemas of supervisors influence newcomers’ social and task-related information seeking to different extents. The primary contribution of the study lies in explaining how newcomers’ blank slate about their supervisors is filled with warmth and competence schemas of supervisors and how these schemas influence their information seeking and adjustment during socialization.

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