Organizational Socialization And Onboarding For Individuals From A Different Culture : Processes, Challenges And Issues

The purpose of this final thesis is to define, determine and analyze the organizational socialization of employees internationally, meaning what are the best practices when onboarding and socializing new employees in a context of an international firm. A key concept of this paper is organizational socialization and onboarding practices, as well as all the themes and discussions that follow from it including theories about cultural differences. The significance of this paper is because although organizational socialization and onboarding are subjects that has been dealt with by many authors, there seems to be a lack of information on the specific aspect of the integration of people from different cultures at work and this is the very reason for the existence of this paper. In order to answer to research question and gaining knowledge about the topic, systematic literature review has been done using Kitchenham methodological approach to conduct literature reviews. The results obtained are as follows:
actions to facilitate the organizational socialization of a person from a different culture should be planned before the employee joins the company and during the first 6 months. Specific actions and behaviors should be planned by the employee and managerial practices should be planned by the organization (assigning a peer or using technology to improve the onboarding program for instance). However, the subject is very complex and if certain onboarding and socialization practices are adaptable to the international context, an in-depth study of the subject by the newcomer and the host company is essential. It has been shown that there are gaps in the literature due to the lack of large-scale studies and that the results of future research will further develop the theory of organizational socialization and help to strengthen the ability of companies to better manage international human resources.