Relationship among social tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment in newcomers: the moderating effect of workplace spirituality

Abstract

The cost of recruitment and training of newcomers can be a burden for enterprises, causing adverse effects on human resources management. Although much research has addressed employee turnover, less attention has been paid to methods of improving the retention of new hires. This study is an empirical examination of the increase in predictive strength of antecedents of affective commitment for comparing newcomers’ workplace spirituality. The results of an employee survey completed by 237 newcomers with under two years of work experience indicate that socialization tactics have a direct impact on job embeddedness, which in turn has a direct effect on affective commitment. Workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness. Also, workplace spirituality has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment.

Introduction

Organizations seek to minimize voluntary turnover, maintain valuable expertise, and mitigate recruiting to increase work efficiency and grow human capital as a strategic advantage (Fazio, Gong, Sims, & Yurova, 2017; Nyberg & Ployhart, 2013; Reilly, Nyberg, Maltarich, & Weller, 2014). How to retain talents has become a critical issue for business. Because newcomers may become remarkable employees, organizations make substantial investments to cultivate them. Newcomers are encouraged to become more career resilient and participate in career-development programs to improve their expertise, skills, and abilities. Studies on leader–team member and team member–team member exchanges have indicated that newcomers who experience positive social exchanges are likely to receive more role-related information and support, leading to greater feelings of empowerment and improved work performance (Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000). However, newcomers also have the highest turnover among employees (Allen, 2006). Enterprises can be negatively affected when newcomers leave before they have made productive contributions, which lead to substantial resource losses and raises management costs. The costs incurred from recruiting, training, and even the vacant period during hiring can result in significant losses to the enterprise.

The introduction of new concepts, such as social tactics, job embeddedness, work spirituality, and affective commitment, which consider the matter from a much broader and comprehensive perspective, has made noteworthy contributions to the research on turnover of newcomers (Zhao et al., 2013). How to predict the quitting of the employee is a critical issue for organizations. Intention to quit a job has been shown to be one of the best predictors of actual quitting behaviors, and so such actions are significant effects of affective commitment (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). A considerable amount of research indicates that workers with low affective commitment may have intentions to leave (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Balassiano & Salles, 2012; Ito & Brotheridge, 2005). Affective commitment as a unidimensional construct was described as one's emotional connection to their organization (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974). Affective commitment can be described as a performance, turnover, absence, and efficiency predictor for employees (Becker, 1960). Affective commitment is related to the relative strength in recognizing and involving an individual in a particular organization (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Affective commitment indicates that employees in the organization have an emotional connection, identity, and sense of participation that fosters their willingness to stay. Employees with high levels of organizational commitment are more enthusiastic and able to achieve organizational goals and objectives (Albrecht & Andreetta, 2011; Freund, 2005). Therefore, determining what factors influence employees’ affective commitment is crucial.

Research has indicated that employees may lose enthusiasm for their work when they are not embedded in the enterprise (Landry, Vandenberghe, Bentein, Mignonac, & Roussel, 2016). The main reason why employees are willing to be embedded in an organization is that they are satisfied with the organization and have a sense of belonging (Ramesh & Gelfand, 1975). Job embeddedness represents all the factors that keep employees in the organization and can create a close relationship between employees and the organization (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001). High job embeddedness perceived by employees enhances their affective commitment and thus reduces their intention to leave the job (Zhao et al., 2013). In recent years, workplace spirituality has arisen as a topic of discussion in the field of human resources (Duchon & Ashmos Plowman, 2005). Howard (2002) argued that workplace spirituality could help employees find meaning and create goals in their work, thereby developing their potential. In other words, workplace spirituality influences employees’ affective commitment, behavior, and attitudes toward their work (Stevison, Dent, & White, 2009). The sense of cohesion of the team, a sense of contribution to society, and workplace satisfaction had significant influences on affective organizational commitment (Rego & Pina E Cunha, 2008).

Individuals often enter a new workplace with feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. Socialization tactics can reduce newcomers’ negative emotions and affect their willingness to stay in the organization and their sense of identification with the organization (Allen & Shanock, 2013). Organizational socialization is the process by which a person takes on the attitudes, actions, and information required to function as a member of the organization (Griffin, Colella, & Goparaju, 2000). Jones (1986) divided socialization into three dimensions – content, social, and context – and argued that socialization determines the active or passive role positioning of new employees. The socialization method can help employees improve their sense of identity within the organization (Greenhaus & Callanan, 2006). Socialization tactics can be one method of embedding newcomers in organizations, and embedding can be one mechanism whereby socialization tactics affect turnover (Allen, 2006).

The introduction of new ideas, such as social tactics, job embedding, workplace spirituality, and affective commitment, which approach the matter from a much broader and more detailed viewpoint, has made notable contributions to newcomer turnover research (Zhao et al., 2013). Newcomers often have the highest turnover rate within organizations (Allen, 2006). Suggested primary potential drivers of turnover among newcomers include inadequate socialization tactics, job embeddedness, workplace spirituality, and affective commitment (Allen, 2006; Jones, 1986; Mitchell et al., 2001). The associations between socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and turnover have been examined in several studies (Allen, 2006; Griffin et al., 2000; Halvorsen, Treuren, & Kulik, 2015; Holtom & Darabi, 2018; Wang, Hom, & Allen, 2017). Affective commitment has been reported to be a significant predictor of intended turnover (Eisenberger et al., 2014; Vandenberghe & Tremblay, 2008). However, our understanding of the effects of organizational socialization practices, job embeddedness, and workplace spirituality on affective commitment is relatively limited. This study fills the research gap by proposing a moderated mediation model in which job embeddedness mediates the relationship between socialization tactics and affective commitment, moderated by workplace spirituality. This study explores the relationship among socialization tactics, job embeddedness, work spirituality, and affective commitment for newcomers by examining first how socialization tactics (content, social, and context) influence job embeddedness; second the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment; third the relationship between workplace spirituality and affective commitment; and finally, the moderating effect of workplace spirituality in the relationships between socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment.

Literature review and hypotheses

Social exchange theory is a psychological theory of the social factors influencing the interactions of people in a reciprocal relationship. When employees are treated favorably by their organization, they may feel obligated to reciprocate with positive attitudes or behaviors, in forms such as increased commitment and citizenship behaviors (Blau, 2017). Social exchange theory ties attitudes and commitment to spirituality through organizational behavior. Drawing from studies on social exchange theory (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Cropanzano, Prehar, & Chen, 2002), we propose that newcomers are more likely to experience more aspects of job embeddedness and ultimately develop more affective commitment if they are provided socialization resources and support. Furthermore, providing opportunities and structures for newcomers to experience workplace spirituality should lead to reciprocity and strengthened relationships, which in turn should increase job embeddedness and affective commitment. Therefore, we believe that job embeddedness serves as a key mediating factor in the transformation of socialization tactics into affective commitment.

Socialization tactics and job embeddedness

Socialization has been discussed in sociology, psychology, and management. The original definition is the process that interaction of individual and social environment that makes an individual become a role conform to social expectation (Camilleri & Malewska-Peyre, 1997; Nasr, El Akremi, & Coyle-Shapiro, 2019). This process means that modifications, which appear to be adaptive, are produced in the individuals’ relationship with others (Baumeister & Muraven, 1996). Individuals transition from being a prospective member to being a new member, and they must embrace the culture of the group. At this stage, the individual embraces the norms, values, and perspectives of the group, and the group, in turn, adapts itself to the new member. In this process, individuals recognize society, adapt to society, and form separate individuals with different psychological characteristics. The socialization happening in the organizations refers to the newcomers to be adaptive to the new environment and learn new roles in the enterprise, there will appear a series of multistage of the learning process (VanMaanen & Schein, 1979). Socialization is the process in which individuals receive information and adjust themselves to meet the expectations of the organization. Socialization can be explained as a process in which that newcomer from learning to take control of their work.

Enterprise leads newcomers through socialization so that they can quickly acquire the knowledge and skills needed for their job. (Ashforth, Sluss, & Saks, 2007). Many studies confirmed the impact of socialization on individuals, which confirmed that socialization affects employees’ attitudes, performance, and turnover for work (Jones, 1986). Socialization has an essential influence on employee's behavior and attitude toward the job (Payne, Culbertson, Boswell, & Barger, 2008; Son, 2016). Allen and Shanock (2013) divided socialization into three crucial subjects. The first topic is to discuss the importance of newcomers to adapt to new jobs, such as role attributes, task control, and self-efficacy. These were considered to be the major regulatory factors involved. The second theme is to discuss the importance of newcomers in adapting to a new organizational environment that concerns the perception of newcomers and their new environment, as well as their understanding of organizational culture and politics. The third subject is the adaptation of newcomers to colleagues in the enterprise. The degree of acceptance and interaction of experienced employees in the organization will also help to explain the impact of socialization. All these subjects connect to the socialization tactics to realize socialization.

Socialization tactics represent a process of leading or teaching newcomers and thereby helping them to acquire the knowledge and skills they need for the job and internalize the organization's culture and norms (Ashforth et al., 2007). An organization can help reduce the anxiety of newcomers through three dimensions of social tactics: content, socialization, and context (Jones, 1986). Through the dimension of content, the organization can provide a more transparent and more specific learning activity. Through the dimension of socialization, the organization can offer more opportunities for interactions between members. Through the dimension of context, the organization can provide a more distinct collective learning experience. This review indicated that the three topics of socialization proposed by Allen and Shanock (2013) are remarkably similar to the three dimensions of socialization proposed by Jones (1986). Socialization tactics can help newcomers translate their abilities and attitudes into appropriate behaviors for the job roles that the enterprise has defined and signal that the firm is concerned with their well-being and willing to invest in them. Inadequate socialization is one of the primary drivers of withdrawal among newcomers (Feldman, 1976).

Job embeddedness, which includes the subcategories of links, fit, and sacrifice, is one of the factors affecting employee retention (Holtom, 2016; Mitchell et al., 2001). First, socialization tactics enable newcomers to create more links, which enhances the sense of integration into the organization. More and stronger links are associated with a reduced likelihood of turnover decisions that may require severing or rearranging connections; this explains the relatively low turnover rates in companies with networks that closely integrate workers. If workers are more integrated, they form closer relationships with their colleagues and thus want to remain in the company. Workers in a work setting are connected to other individuals, groups, and the community. Stronger associations lead to more workers being incorporated into the business (Lee, Mitchell, Sablynski, Burton, & Holtom, 2004). Second, fit perceptions are crucial in embeddedness. Therefore, socialization tactics that improve newcomer fit perceptions can also lead to increased feelings of embeddedness. Socialization tactics also affect the perceptions of fit and can thus affect turnover rates (Cable & Parsons, 2001). Third, sacrifice refers to the perceived cost of the material or psychological benefits forfeited upon leaving an organization (Holtom, Mitchell, & Lee, 2006). The greater is the loss resulting from quitting, the lesser is the likeliness for the individuals to quit (Mitchell et al., 2001). Because the main objective of socialization is to help individuals form connections and relationships within an organization and learn about their positions in the organizational network, the evaluation of job embeddedness can be particularly useful for understanding the influence of socialization tactics on turnover among newcomers (Allen, 2006).

Socialization tactics help employees improve their sense of identification with the organization (Wang et al., 2017). Therefore, socialization tactics can promote employees’ feelings of stability and willingness to be embedded in the organization. Socialization tactics represent a method of integrating newcomers into organizations, and embedding is a mechanism through which socialization tactics influence turnover (Holtom & Darabi, 2018). Moreover, socialization tactics allow newcomers to gain a better understanding of the organization, communicate more effectively with others, and form relationships within the organization (Mitchell et al., 2001; Peltokorpi, Feng, Pustovit, & Allen, 2017). Socialization tactics that provide newcomers with social support and relevant information are positively related to embedding (Allen, 2006; Nisar, Ahmad, Aziz, & Younus, 2019). Socialization tactics will promote employees' feelings of security and desire to join the organization. Socialization tactics are a way to incorporate outsiders into organizations, and embedding is a process by which socialization tactics affect turnover (Chelliah, Ling-Meng, Jaganathan, & Koay, 2019). These findings indicate that newcomers should be integrated into the organization as quickly as possible through socialization tactics and should establish a willingness to be embedded in the organization. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 1. Socialization tactics have a positive effect on job embeddedness.

Job embeddedness and affective commitment

Polani (1944) proposed the concept of ‘Embeddedness,’ which advocates that individual economic activities are embedded in the whole society. This point of this view emphasizes that the financial motivations of individuals are not rational, but embedded in social relations, highlighting the interaction of individuals in the relationship network. Any purposeful act is deeply embedded in social relations and has a broader explanation of the word ‘embedded,’ even in the field of management (Granovetter, 1985). Individual economic interests are not rational but rooted in social relationships, stressing the role of individuals within a network (Grabner-Kräuter & Bitter, 2015). In the field of human resources management, job embeddedness, which can be described as a construct that reflects employee retention at the psychological, social, and financial level, represents all of the factors that keep employees from leaving an organization (Mitchell et al., 2001). It is representative of a network that embeds employees tightly in the organization. When employees are more embedded, they are more connected to their colleagues and want to remain in the system. Employees are associated with people, groups, and society in a working or nonworking environment, and the deeper these connections are, the more employees are embedded in the organization (Lee et al., 2004). Sekiguchi, Burton, and Sablynski (2008) argued that job embeddedness could explain job stability or ‘why people stay’ in their organizations.

Mitchell et al. (2001) stated that job embeddedness is composed of links, fit, and sacrifice. The concept of the employee–organization link refers to the formal or informal relationship between an individual and an organization, including the relationships with other members of the organization. Embeddedness includes social and psychological links as well as interpersonal relationships with associates both in and outside of work (e.g., communication with partners or customers and friendships among colleagues). Therefore, a person with more network links also has a higher degree of embeddedness in an organization. The concept of fit between employees and organizations includes personal career goals, personal values, and specific job factors, such as job knowledge, needs, and skills. Therefore, when employees and organizations have a better fit, the employees are more embedded in the organization. The concept of sacrifice refers to the costs of leaving the organization, which is the loss of material (such as salary and welfare) or psychological (such as interpersonal relationships in the organization) assets.

Affective commitment as a uni-dimensional construct was defined as one's emotional attachment to its organization (Porter et al., 1974). The commitment can be described as a performance, turnover, absence, and efficiency predictor of employees (Becker, 1960). Affective commitment is characterized as ‘the relative strength to recognize and engage a person in a specific organization’ (Mowday et al., 1982). Affective commitment indicates that employees have an emotional connection, identity, and sense of participation in the organization that fosters their willingness to stay. In other words, affective commitment can be viewed as an employee's emotional identity in the organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Qian, Yuan, Niu, & Liu, 2019; Yang, Pu, & Guan, 2019). Affective commitment leads employees to share the firm's values, gain an emotional attachment to the organization, and demonstrate a willingness to achieve organizational goals. Affective commitment is known as significant precedents for intended turnover and turnover behavior (Eisenberger et al., 2014). Similarly, literature links firm-specific human resources with increased affective commitment and reduced intention to quit (Coff & Raffiee, 2015).

As noted, job embeddedness represents all the factors that keep employees in the organization and can create a close relationship between employees and the organization (Mitchell et al., 2001). Job embeddedness emphasizes that it is not only job-related factors that could influence an individual's decision to stay with the organization but also is essentially the force that binds employees to their current jobs and organizations as a result of their relationships with people. Organizational commitment is also similar to job embeddedness, although there are significant variations between the two variables. Organizational commitment focuses on the feeling that fosters continuous citizenship in the organization and evaluates dimensions on-the-job. At the same time, job embedding incorporates on- and off-the-job factors with nonimpact dimensions (Lee et al., 2004). Job embeddedness aims, firstly, to widen the spectrum of variables to explain why workers tend to have nonaffective factors (structural ties to other people) and, secondly, to consider nonemployment factors such as health in the community as contributing factors for remaining in the organization.

Since the concept of job embeddedness was developed in the literature on retention and turnover, a strong connection to the intention to leave and voluntary turnover is expected to exist (Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008). Jobs embeddedness and affective commitment are required to describe the turnover of a worker in a business. The study usually begins with a turnover by concentrating on work roles such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Job embeddedness is related to turnover and other local turnover models independently. Furthermore, affective commitment is distinct from job embeddedness as it is a psychological work mentality that recognizes why workers quit. Notably, turnover research moved away from forecasting why workers quit to understanding why workers stay and incorporating on-the-job factors in this decision to stay. An employee may remain voluntarily due to some untransferable personal interests. For example, these include a strong working relationship with his colleagues, unique acquired work skills, organizational participation, years of employment, and other benefits, which make it too costly for him or her to quit and pursue a job elsewhere. Job embeddedness and affective commitment have a significant positive correlation (Lyu and Zhu, 2019; Ramesh & Gelfand, 1975; Zhao et al., 2013). Because employees with job embeddedness are satisfied with their organization, they may have more affective commitment to the organization. These findings suggest that newcomers generate an affective commitment to an organization when they develop job embeddedness. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 2. Job embeddedness has a positive effect on affective commitment.

Moderating effect of workplace spirituality

A big phenomenon in business in the modern century is the spirituality of workers at work, and many books are concentrating on workplace spirituality. More recently, scholars have started studying business spirituality. This growing body of organizational literature has provided many perspectives but was criticized for lack of rigor or critical thought (Milliman, Czaplewski, & Ferguson, 2003). In this study, some of these limitations are addressed in the following ways. Although the associations between socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and turnover have been examined in several studies (Allen, 2006; Griffin et al., 2000; Halvorsen et al., 2015; Holtom & Darabi, 2018; Wang et al., 2017), the relationships between workplace spirituality, socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment have seldom been investigated. Affective commitment is a significant predictor of intended turnover and turnover behaviors (Eisenberger et al., 2014; Vandenberghe & Tremblay, 2008). Moreover, workplace spirituality has become a topic of discussion in the field of human resources (Duchon & Ashmos Plowman, 2005). Most studies on workplace spirituality have focused on organizational performance (Garcia-Zamor, 2003; Krahnke, Giacalone, & Jurkiewicz, 2003; Mousa & Alas, 2016; Rego & Pina E Cunha, 2008). The present study fills a research gap by demonstrating that workplace spirituality moderates the relationships between socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment.

Some studies have shown that workplace spirituality links with socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective engagement (Kim, 2017; Milliman et al., 2003; Trott & BS, 1996). Although socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and workplace spirituality enhance affective commitment, the literature has not established the interaction effect among these factors. We propose that workplace spirituality strengthens the relation between socialization tactics and job embeddedness. Furthermore, workplace spirituality also enhances the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment.

This research concerns the moderating effects of workplace spirituality on the relationship among socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment. Workplace spirituality represents the inner growth of the members of an organization through meaningful work (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). Employees with a strong sense of group and purposeful organizational goals were related to greater employee commitment and higher retention rates (Milliman, Ferguson, Trickett, & Condemi, 1999). A sense of community also leads to greater employee satisfaction with the organization (Brown, 1992). It is also a form of self-reflection that individuals apply to their work. Thus, employees can bring the positive energy of workplace spirituality into their work while positively influencing other members of the organization (Seaward, 1995). Trott and BS (1996) proposed that spiritual well-being, including a sense of community and engagement with organizational values, is often linked positively to the psychosocial adaptation of a person.

Workplace spirituality encourages respect for people with different intrinsic values, innovation, a sense of belonging, and achievement (Adams & Csiernik, 2002). It helps to reduce workplace stress, improve self-confidence, and prevent job burnout and can effectively improve work performance (Krahnke et al., 2003). Spirituality in the workplace is one way of tackling socialization tactics. Socialization tactics are certainly a method to direct or educate newcomers, allowing them to learn the skills and know-how they need for work to internalize the culture and values of the company (Ashforth et al., 2007). It represents the employee's confidence in what the company does and will give the employee. Socialization tactics allow workers to better associate themselves with the company (Wang et al., 2017).

On the other hand, workplace spirituality also reflects a type of self-reflection that people apply to their work. The positive energy of the workplace spirituality can thus be brought into the workplace, while other members of the organization have a positive impact (Seaward, 1995). Trott and BS (1996) indicated that a person's psychosocial adaptation is often linked positively with spiritual well-being, including a sense of community and adherence to corporate values. Meaningful work and sense of community linked significantly to affective organizational commitment (Mousa & Alas, 2016). Although independently developed, the two cognitive factors can be combined and provide feedback on each other. We form a social communication network to identify the consistency of the interaction between employees and organizations, where the formal or informal connection between a person and an institution is concerned, including the relationships with other members of the organization.

Therefore, in the process of socialization, newcomers with higher levels of workplace spirituality are more likely to accept the socialization tactics provided by the organization. Employees with workplace spirituality more readily accept the norms and standards of the organization and believe that the organization has ethical values, a conscience, and moral courage and cares about its employees (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). For newcomers, it can induce a sense of responsibility and acceptance of the socialization tactics during the orientation period. Employees with stronger workplace spirituality are more likely to dedicate themselves to their work because of their interaction with the environment (Kirpal, 2004) and consequently form a clear identification with their role and engage in more positive communication with colleagues. When employees are well treated and supported by their colleagues, the job embeddedness of employees increases quickly (Joiner & Bakalis, 2006).

Employees with a high acceptance of socialization tactics exhibit greater job embeddedness than those with a low acceptance of socialization tactics when they perceive higher workplace spirituality because they feel that they have a close relationship with the organization and actively interact with other employees. These findings indicate that workplace spirituality may positively moderate the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 3. Workplace spirituality moderates the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness, and this relationship is stronger when the level of workplace spirituality is higher.

Workplace spirituality has a significant influence on affective organizational commitment. It promotes the achievement of positive results, such as integrity, innovation, trust, and dedication, as well as organizational efficiency and long-term success (Rego & Pina E Cunha, 2008). As noted above, spirituality in the workplace often represents a kind of personal reflection that people apply to their work. The positive influence of spirituality in the workforce can also be applied to the crew and other participants have a positive impact (Seaward, 1995). Trott and BS (1996) suggested that the psychosocial adaptation of a person is also positively correlated with spiritual well-being, including group meaning and adherence to corporate values. On the other hand, affective commitment represents the employee's desire to maintain participation in the association and to work for the interests of the organization.

Although independently developed, workplace spirituality and affective commitment can be combined and provide feedback on each other. They form a social exchange circle to assess the nature of the relationship between employee and organization, where high workplace spirituality is considered to be an acceptable mutual response to high affective commitment. If the two variables are incompatible, the reciprocity principle is infringed, and cognitive dissonance arises (Dulac, Coyle-Shapiro, Henderson, & Wayne, 2008). In these situations, stress levels of workers are likely to increase, and turnover intention can be used to mitigate dissonance (Chiu, Chien, Lin, & Yun Hsiao, 2005).

Organizations with workplace spirituality have better work efficiency than others (Duchon & Ashmos Plowman, 2005). Research has indicated that workplace spirituality can help individuals to become more responsible for self-action and more motivated by their environment (Howard, 2002). It provides employees with the impression that they are related to the workplace, which helps them to remain committed to their jobs (Rajappan, Nair, Priyadarshini M., & Sivakumar, 2017). Additionally, workplace spirituality is a positive trait that helps to enhance trust among colleagues and foster a sense of belonging to the organization (Karakas, 2010).

Employees consider themselves to have a close relationship with their organization when they perceive higher levels of workplace spirituality (Garcia-Zamor, 2003). Therefore, employees with high job embeddedness have higher affective commitment than those with low job embeddedness. Workplace spirituality may thus positively strengthen the effect of job embeddedness on affective commitment. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 4. Workplace spirituality moderates the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment, and this relationship is stronger when the level of workplace spirituality is higher.

Research methodology

Research framework

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of socialization tactics on the affective commitment of newcomers through job embeddedness. Furthermore, we explore the moderating effect of workplace spirituality on the relationships between socialization tactics (content, social, and context), job embeddedness, and affective commitment. The conceptual framework is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Research framework.

Measurement and data collection

Table 1 presents the definitions of four constructs based on our research framework and a literature review. The measures of the research constructs were adopted from relevant literature and adapted to the research setting. A pretest was conducted on 54 participants to ensure the readability and absence of ambiguity of the questionnaire items. Cronbach's α values for dimensions on the pretest were >.7, except for socialization tactics (.62) and job embeddedness fit (.64). Ambiguous items were adjusted to improve reliability, and the final questionnaire was produced.

Table 1. The operational definition of each variable

A 5-point Likert scale was used to measure each of the questionnaire items. The means of the items for each construct are listed in Table 2. The socialization tactics items were set as antecedent variables. Socialization tactics refer to the methods adopted to help newcomers adapt to the organization and reduce their uncertainty and anxiety. Following Jones (1986), this study employed nine items to measure socialization tactics, which can be divided into three dimensions (i.e., content, socialization, and context). For instance, one of the items was ‘There is a clear pattern in the way one role leads to another or one job assignment leads to another in this organisation.’ Job embeddedness was set as the mediator. Job embeddedness refers to a force that influences an employee's attachment to the organization and allows employees to interact closely with the organization. Following Mitchell et al. (2001), this study employed 13 items to measure job embeddedness, which could also be divided into three dimensions (i.e., fit, link, and sacrifice). For example, one of the items was ‘I regularly interact with many of my co-workers.’ With reference to other studies, composite measures of socialization tactics and job embeddedness were used (Gruman, Saks, & Zweig, 2006; Mitchell et al., 2001). Higher scores indicated greater institutionalized socialization or greater job embeddedness.

Table 2. Measurement items and confirmatory factor analysis

Note: SFL = standardized factor loading. CR = composite reliability. AVE = average variance extracted.

Affective commitment, which refers to the degree to which identifying with an organization affects newcomers decision to stay, was set as a dependent variable. This study measured newcomers’ affective commitment by using four items devised for this construct (Allen & Meyer, 1990). In this study, workplace spirituality functioned as the moderator. To measure workplace spirituality, with reference to Ashmos and Duchon (2000), this study employed 12 items, which could be divided into three dimensions (meaningful work, community, and inner life).

This research has adopted the convenience sampling to obtain the sample data. The anonymous questionnaires were issued to the sample over 20 years old of newcomers (working years below two years in the current company) via online surveys or hard copies. The questionnaire was posted on a famous internet web site in Taiwan. The constructs were not shown in the questionnaire to avoid priming effects, and the items were not presented in order. A total of 237 valid questionnaires were received. Descriptive statistics analyses including mean and standard deviation of variables are listed in Table 3.

Table 3. Descriptive statistic and zero-order correlations

Note: *p ＜ .05; **p ＜ .01; ***p ＜ .001, () reports the square root of average variance extracted (AVE).

Data analysis and result

Sampling structure

Most of the respondents were female, which accounts for 67.6% of the sample. Most newcomers, 76.3% of the sample, were aged between 20 and 25. Most of the survey participants (64.7%) graduated from university or college. Furthermore, 41.5% of participants had <6 months of work experience within the company, and 58.5% of participants had 6 months to 2 years of work experience within the company. Most newcomers’ (45.2%) number of brothers and sisters is 1, and 66% of participants have contact co-workers after going off work.

Measurement model

A two-step procedure was adopted (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). Confirmatory factor analysis was first employed to assess the construct validity, and a structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses. All Cronbach's α values exceed the threshold value of .7 recommended by (Nunnally, 1978), as shown in Table 2. We use the average variance extracted (AVE) to measure convergent validity. Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggested that the AVE should be >.5 to indicate that the construct has good reliability and convergent validity. The AVE values of the exogenous variables of this study, shown in Table 2, are in the range of .53–.70, demonstrating that all constructs have good convergent validity.

According to the results presented in Table 3, the values of the AVE square root for all constructs were greater than the correlation coefficient between the two respective constructs, revealing an acceptable discriminant validity for the measurement model (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Therefore, the measurement model in this study had acceptable discriminant validity, and no problems with multicollinearity were detected (Grewal, Cote, & Baumgartner, 2004).

In addition, the results of the measurement model indicate an appropriate model fit (χ²/df = 2.34, Goodness of fit index (GFI) = .941, Normed fit index (NFI) = .96, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .97, Root Mean Square Error Approximation (RMSEA) = .075; Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010).

Structural equation modeling (SEM)

Confirmatory factor analysis verifies the satisfactory performance of the measurement scales of this study. The measures of overall fit primarily satisfy conventional standards (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988; Chin & Todd, 1995; Hair et al., 2010), which suggests that the model of this study fits the data well (χ²/df = 2.19, GFI = .93, NFI = .94, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .071; Hair et al., 2010).

Figure 1 illustrates the relationships between the constructs in the tested model. First, socialization tactics had a significant positive relationship with job embeddedness, supporting Hypothesis 1 (γ = .94, t = 12.60), and job embeddedness had a significant positive relationship with affective commitment, supporting Hypothesis 2 (β = .86, t = 10.44).

The moderating effect of workplace spirituality proposed in Hypothesis 3 was analysed using a multigroup comparison approach. The mean score of workplace spirituality was used to divide the sample into high and low groups (low group = low workplace spirituality; high group = high workplace spirituality). SEM was used to estimate the path coefficients for each group (Sarstedt, Henseler, & Ringle, 2011), and the differences between the coefficients’ paths were analysed. Significant differences were interpreted as moderating effects. A chi-square (χ²) difference test of high and low workplace spirituality was performed to examine the moderating effect of workplace spirituality, and the results are presented in Table 4. A significant difference was observed in the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness in the low and high workplace spirituality groups (χ²(1) = 7.14, p < .05). The results further indicated that socialization tactics had a stronger effect on job embeddedness when employees had higher workplace spirituality, which supports Hypothesis 3 (γ_High = .91 vs. γ_Low = .76).

Table 4. Moderating effect

Note: *p ＜ .05; **p ＜ .01; ***p ＜ .001.

A multigroup comparison approach was adopted to investigate Hypothesis 4. A significant difference was observed in the relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment in the low and high workplace spirituality groups (χ²(1) = 3.91, p < .05). Moreover, the results indicated that socialization tactics had a stronger effect on job embeddedness when employees had higher workplace spirituality, which supports Hypothesis 4 (γ_High = .89 vs. γ_Low = .66).

Discussion

The emergence of appropriate ideas such as social tactics, job embeddedness, work spirituality, and affective commitment, which approach the matter from a much broader and systematic perspective, has made notable contributions to newcomer turnover research (Zhao et al., 2013). Socialization within companies is designed to help employees rapidly organize and familiarize themselves with company procedures. If newcomers have ever been on the receiving end of a successful initiation plan, they know how beneficial early adjustment can be. Evidence shows that successful early socialization can impact long-term organizational outcomes. Studies have reported that companies can use these socialization approaches to enhance job embeddedness (Allen, 2006; Holtom et al., 2006; Reitz & Anderson, 2011). The researchers believed that the tactics contribute to the degree to which employees should have a good understanding of what is expected and what they will do on the job.

For newcomers, socialization tactics have a significant impact on job embeddedness (Hypothesis 1). This result is consistent with those of other studies (Allen & Shanock, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2001; Uen, 2005). Socialization tactics allow workers to understand the company better (Uen, 2005; Wang et al., 2017). Socialization tactics can also foster positive emotions and the ability of workers to be integrated into the organization. Socialization is a way of incorporating immigrants into organizations, and incorporation is a process by which strategies of socialization affect turnover (Chelliah et al., 2019; Holtom & Darabi, 2018). Socialization techniques also allow newcomers to gain a better understanding and communication of the organization and to establish ties within it (Mitchell et al., 2001; Peltokorpi et al., 2017). Socialization tactics that assist newcomers and knowledge related to embedding are successful (Allen, 2006; Nisar et al., 2019). In other words, newcomers’ adherence to operational flow and identification with their organization can be promoted through the use of socialization tactics. Newcomers are more willing to be embedded in an organization. Therefore, more complete and transparent socialization tactics provided by firms help to enhance newcomers’ job embeddedness. These results suggest that newcomers should be incorporated into the organization as soon as possible by socialization tactics and should create an enterprise-wide network of relationships.

The job embeddedness of newcomers has a significant positive impact on their affective commitment (Hypothesis 2). This result is similar to the findings of other researchers (Lee et al., 2004; Sekiguchi et al., 2008). Job embeddedness and affective commitment are necessary to characterize the turnover of the employee in a company. Job embeddedness represents all the factors that keep employees in the organization and can create a close relationship between employees and the organization (Mitchell et al., 2001). Job embeddedness emphasizes that it is not just work-related variables that may affect an individual's decision to remain with the company, but is also ultimately the force that ties workers to their current job and organizations as a result of their relationships with people. Affective commitment is similar to job embeddedness, although the two variables differ greatly. Affective commitment focuses on a feeling that promotes on-the-job citizenship in the organization (Lee et al., 2004). Affective commitment emphasizes emotions that cultivate ongoing citizenship within the organization and focuses on on-the-job dimensions, whereas job embeddedness focuses on both on-the-job and off-the-job aspects, and its dimensions are nonaffective (Mitchell et al., 2001). Job embeddedness and affective commitment have a strong association (Lyu and Zhu, 2019; Ramesh & Gelfand, 1975; Zhao et al., 2013). Since workers with job embeddedness are happy with their company, they may be more affective to the company. These results indicate that newcomers produce an organization's affective commitment when creating job embeddedness. When new employees have work embeddedness, it indicates that they feel secure, satisfied, and have a sense of belonging and an emotional connection to the organization. Therefore, if companies can embed new hires, their level of passionate commitment will increase.

We found that the workplace spirituality of newcomers has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness (Hypothesis 3). Spirituality at work reflects the internal development of an organization's members through meaningful work (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). Spirituality in the workplace encourages respect for people with various intrinsic values, innovation, sense of belonging, and achievement (Adams & Csiernik, 2002). It helps to alleviate tension in the workplace, enhance self-confidence, and avoid job burnout and can increase work performance effectively (Krahnke et al., 2003). Spirituality in the workplace is one form of overcoming socialization tactics. Socialization tactics are certainly a tool for leading or training newcomers, helping them to learn the skills and know-how they need for work to internalize the company's culture and values (Ashforth et al., 2007). It reflects the trust of the employee in what the firm is doing and will offer the employee. Tactics of socialization encourage employees to identify themselves more with the organization (Uen, 2005; Wang et al., 2017). Upon initial entry into a new work environment, newcomers with workplace spirituality are more likely to accept the socialization tactics employed by the organization and be able to overcome problems with a positive attitude. They are also likely to acquire a sense of responsibility for their work, accept the norms set by the organization, and identify with the organization, thus leading to increases in their job embeddedness.

Our findings indicate that the workplace spirituality of newcomers has a moderating effect on the relationship between their job embeddedness and affective commitment (Hypothesis 4). The result supports Hypothesis 4. Spirituality in the workplace has a significant impact on the affective contribution of the organization. It encourages positive outcomes, such as honesty, creativity, confidence, and commitment, as well as organizational productivity and long-term performance (Rego & Pina E Cunha, 2008). The psychosocial adaptation of a person is also positively correlated with spiritual well-being, including group meaning and adherence to corporate values (Trott & BS, 1996). The higher employees’ workplace spirituality is, the easier it is for them to attain a sense of inner achievement from their work (Halvorsen et al., 2015). A mental effort is motivated, such as adapting the understanding to the workplace or adapting the affective commitment to the company. During these cases, worker stress is likely to increase, and quit intention can be used to reduce dissonance (Chiu et al., 2005). Workplace spirituality promotes a positive attitude toward an employee's colleagues, supervisors, or role. This positive attitude benefits interpersonal relationships and performance and generates emotional attachment to the organization. Therefore, we could confirm that higher workplace spirituality among new employees has a significant impact on the relationship between job embeddedness and organizational commitment.

Managerial implications

In today's complex function of environment and competitive circumstances, newcomer always feels an atrocious sense of having to do a lot of work with so little time. Additionally, greater emphasis on temporary, project-based work and expertise as a key human resource asset allows workers to regularly rotate between new teams, either in the same or in a different organization (Belout & Gauvreau, 2004). Often, we neglect the reality and keep on working based on various factors we might encounter. In these situations, stress levels of workers are likely to increase, and turnover intention can be used to mitigate dissonance (Chiu et al., 2005). A mental effort is inspired, like adapting the understanding to the culture of the workplace or adjusting the affective contribution to the organization. It would decrease the turnover intention of newcomers.

The introduction of new concepts such as social tactics, job embeddedness, work spirituality, and affective commitment enables a broader understanding of career development (Zhao et al., 2013). Specific socialization tactics involving the provision of appropriate resources, information, and support can be employed to encourage newcomers to join projects within an organization (Batistič & Kenda, 2018). Project-based management is becoming increasingly widespread; it is being applied in new industries and countries and is continually developing to meet continually changing demands (Crawford, Pollack, & England, 2006). The majority of companies now rely on project-based systems to deal with growing market competitiveness and technological innovation. Project work, which relies on interdependent teams, is becoming increasingly central to everyday business; thus, staffing compatible newcomers for projects is becoming increasingly important (Batistič & Kenda, 2018; Kloppenborg & Opfer, 2002). The increased reliance on interdependent teams within an organization has allowed researchers to investigate the factors affecting individual success in a team environment and how each team member contributes to team output (Chen, 2005). ‘Talent’ is the most critical asset of a company. When recruiting, companies often emphasize the educational background and professional skills of applicants and pay less attention to their personality traits or likelihood of fitting in the workplace. However, applicants with superior educational backgrounds or professional skills may not necessarily be willing to stay. They may leave at any time if they cannot be integrated into the organization or if they receive more favorable offers from other firms. The results of this study show that socialization tactics have a positive impact on the job embeddedness of newcomers. Therefore, firms should focus on providing newcomers with a complete employee training and mentorship program (socialization tactics). Firms must help newcomers understand the content and procedures of socialization tactics, such as how to prepare themselves for a promotion or a mentorship program. This would make newcomers feel valued and may help them to form stronger interpersonal networks, thus making them more willing to stay in the organization and demonstrate a greater affective commitment to the organization.

We also suggest that firms include workplace spirituality in their training programs to enhance the degree of connectedness between newcomers and the organization. Cultivating workplace spirituality is a long and slow process. Employers must adopt an approach that promotes spiritual activities instead of only focusing on achieving goals. Wheatley (1994) indicated that self-organizing systems in nature can be used as a model to increase company efficiency by embracing the natural cycle of change, stability, and renewal. The ‘spiritual’ or constantly renewing nature of these processes has been recognized as a crucial blueprint for developing workplace spirituality (Gardner, 2000). Organizations can educate and train new employees in the skills of self-leadership and self-awareness, encourage them to realize their value and self-worth, create an environment of inclusion and diversity in the organization, and promote and encourage diversity of thoughts and ideas among newcomers (Cranmer, Goldman, & Houghton, 2019). Ashmos and Duchon (2000) identified three main components of workplace spirituality: meaningful work, community, and inner life. The present study prescribes the following for companies on how to cultivate workplace spirituality. (1) Managers can create opportunities for meaningful work by ensuring that work is intrinsically rewarding and employees have work–life balance, career progression, leisure time, and overall satisfaction with life (Cheney, Zorn, Planalp, & Lair, 2008). (2) Managers should create a context for sharing to enhance group cohesion. For example, a company can establish a coffee corner where employees can share their experiences with each other. Companies should not expect obvious and specific results from doing so; the main point is for everyone to share their experiences freely. (3) Managers must appreciate that everyone have their own inner life. Managers can, for example, encourage employees to practice self-awareness, which is a fundamental element of emotional intelligence, communication, and trusting relationships (Caldwell, 2009).

According to the research done, providing employees with workplace spirituality helps one achieve a sense of job embeddedness and affective commitment. Workplace spirituality helps newcomers to balance their work and personal lives and promotes harmonious relationships with colleagues. Even when they encounter difficulties at work, newcomers who have workplace spirituality are more likely to face challenges with a positive attitude. Providing workers with workplace spirituality also helps in better interaction and coordination. Improvement of contact among employees can establish relationships and trust among them. This helps the workers deal with their work stress issues and better perform their duties both at work and at home. Encouraging staff to participate and succeed, providing them with peer and supervisory encouragement, and making sure that their professional development plans are implemented, all these factors aid in inspiring workers to perform better.

Limitations and future research

Regarding limitations, the methodology of this study involved the conduction of literature analysis and a questionnaire. Because of the scale and limited coverage of the questionnaire, a limitation of this study is that it depended on the perspectives of newcomers rather than actual records to verify consistency with the test results. This study only investigated new employees in Taiwan. Therefore, the interpretation and inferences of the results are solely based on the data obtained from questionnaires, and care should be taken when applying our findings to different countries and cultures.

This study addresses research objectives through empirical assessments that involve numerical measurement and statistical analysis, which prevented us from understanding the real thoughts and feelings of the participants. When answering the questionnaire, participants may have been affected by emotions or interpersonal relationships; for example, they may have argued with colleagues or been admonished by a supervisor. We suggest that future research conduct in-depth interviews on workplace spirituality to provide a better understanding related to whether the participants’ mental state is consistent with their responses. Moreover, we did not compare newcomers from different industries and could not determine whether different work environments have different effects on workplace spirituality. Future research can compare the effects of workplace spirituality in different industries.

This study investigated newcomers who had worked at their company for less than 2 years. However, employees who had only worked at the company for 1–2 months may not have been able to provide truly representative answers on the questionnaire, especially for items pertaining to job embeddedness, affective commitment, and workplace spirituality. Future studies on newcomers in a company should consider the number of months required for employees to form comprehensive opinions regarding their relationships within a company.

Finally, we performed Harman's one-factor test to examine the threat of common method variance (CMV) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). The results revealed that the maximum variance that could be explained by the first factor was 45.23%, which is below the required 50% (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). Furthermore, five factors had eigenvalues >1. Therefore, we concluded that no significant CMV occurred in this study. Although the result of Harman's one-factor test indicated that CMV was not a significant problem in this study, we acknowledge that CMV may have had some effect on the validity of our findings. Future research should reduce the risk of CMV in self-report questionnaires through alterations to scale formats, anchors, and values (Podsakoff et al., 2003) and the use of different scale endpoints and formats for the predictor and criterion measures to reduce method bias (Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinski, 2000).

Conclusion

Companies can benefit from ensuring that new employees integrate well into the organization (Lee, 2011) because new employees are most likely among all employees to leave (Allen, 2006). Affective commitment is regarded as a significant predictor of turnover (Eisenberger et al., 2014; Vandenberghe & Tremblay, 2008). The present study investigated whether workplace spirituality moderates the relationship between socialization tactics and affective commitment through job embeddedness among new employees. The results indicated the following. First, socialization tactics play a critical role in job embeddedness for new employees. Second, job embeddedness strongly contributes to affective commitment; this finding also implies that job embeddedness is crucial to the intention to remain in a company. Third, the extent of workplace spirituality among new employees significantly moderates the relationships between socialization tactics, job embeddedness, and affective commitment. Specifically, greater workplace spirituality results in, first, a more positive relationship between socialization tactics and job embeddedness, and second, a more positive relationship between job embeddedness and affective commitment. This study fills a research gap by proposing a moderated mediation model in which job embeddedness mediates the relationship between socialization tactics and affective commitment, which is moderated by workplace spirituality.