SOCIALIZATION OF NEW ENTRANTS INTO THE IT INDUSTRY IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Organization socialization occurs when a new employee enters an organization. It is the process by which new employees are 'broken in' or 'learn the ropes' as they enter the organization. This study of new IT entrants ( graduated from the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, NUS) with few months of working experience reports on the socialization practices available to these new IT entrants and the impact of socialization practices on subsequent job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results showed that those socialization practices which were rated as satisfactory or very well carried out are: support from senior co-workers, orientation program, social and recreational activities and interactions with supervisor. This study also reveals that this sample of new IT entrants reported a high degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using stepwise analysis, it was found that perceived match between respondent and his present job, interactions with supervisor, rank order of this present job among all jobs applied for and the present area of responsibility is the respondent first choice were strong predictors of job satisfaction, while perceived match between respondent and his present job, class room training programme for newcomers, respondent is the main financial support for present family and a mentor is assigned to newcomers were the main predictors of organizational commitment.