Change of organizational newcomers' unmet expectations: Does proactive coping matter?

Katarzyna Ślebarska; Roman Soucek

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243234

Change of organizational newcomers' unmet expectations: Does proactive coping matter?

PLoS One. 2020 Dec 10;15(12):e0243234. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243234. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Katarzyna Ślebarska¹, Roman Soucek²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland.
² School of Business, Economics, and Society, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany.

Abstract

Unmet expectations are one of the major sources of strain for organizational newcomers. We explore the change of newcomers' expectations over time and propose that proactive coping should restrict the amount of unmet expectations. We recruited participants among employees from newly opened retail stores (N = 172) and accompanied them for six months after organizational entry. The results revealed a change of unmet expectations over time. Though proactive coping was related to a lower amount of unmet expectations right after organizational entry, unmet expectations increased after six months, especially in case of high proactive coping.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Psychological*
Adult
Employment
Female
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Motivation*
Organizational Culture*
Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work has been supported by the Polish National Science Center (NCN) within the project “Proactive coping with an adaptation to a new workplace after reemployment” (Project No. 2013/10/M/HS6/00550). The first author was also funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.