A Multi-Level Analysis of Role Negotiation: A Bona Fide Group Approach to Work Team Socialization

Abstract

This study used a multi-level analysis to gain a comprehensive understanding of work team socialization as a process that extends beyond work team and organizational boundaries. Findings, based on interviews of 27 IT employees organized into teams, reaffirmed some previous research on newcomer information seeking, but provided a more complex understanding of information seeking during socialization by identifying the importance of nexus or overlap with other internal and external groups. Nexus¹ included cross-functional meetings, as well as external workshops and conferences involving industry peers. Individual and group communication with members of internal and external groups helped employees negotiate and learn their roles as well as led to changes in their understanding of their team and organization. This multi-level analysis identified how individual, group, internal organizational communication, and extra-organizational communication all contribute to the process of socialization for team members.

Keywords

group socialization teams bona fide group meetings

Work teams have become such a salient part of organizational life that estimates indicate roughly half of United States organizations rely on work teams to some extent (e.g., Yukl, 2018). This trend creates a need to understand how newcomers successfully integrate specifically into work teams. Studies of group socialization, the process of joining, participating in, and leaving groups, primarily focus on group level influences as individuals and groups adapt to each other (Levine et al., 2001). By contrast, studies of organizational assimilation or socialization primarily focus on individual level influences, such as how supervisors and peers facilitate or hinder the process (e.g., Jablin, 2001) or on organizational level influences, such as how different socialization strategies encourage or discourage assuming innovative roles (e.g., Ashforth & Saks, 1996). These approaches implicitly recognize socialization involves negotiating membership roles through communication (Scott & Myers, 2010); however, the specific focus of each approach means each fails to provide a comprehensive understanding of socialization into work teams. As a result, this study answers scholars’ calls to conduct multi-level analyses that examine the combination of individual, unit (group), and organizational level influences on socialization to gain a comprehensive understanding of the process (Kramer & Miller, 2014). This multi-level analysis of work team socialization examined not only newcomers’ one-on-one interactions with individuals but also collective team interactions, such as meetings, interactions with other organizational teams, such as cross-team collaborations, and interactions with external constituents. Each of these contributed to newcomers’ work team socialization.

As a theoretical perspective, the bona fide group perspective (BFGP) emphasizes the need to examine work team socialization as a multi-level process. According to a BFGP, groups, such as work teams, are interdependent with their context and although they appear relatively stable, they have changing memberships and permeable boundaries (Putnam & Stohl, 1990). A BFGP emphasizes the importance of communication between individual team members, as a collective team, with other individuals and groups within the organization, and with individuals or groups in the broader external context (Beck et al., 2016). The BFGP indicates a comprehensive understanding of role negotiations during work team socialization involves examining individual, workgroup, organizational, and extra-organizational interactions (Scott & Myers, 2010).

To provide a comprehensive understanding of work team socialization, this study involved a multi-level analysis of role negotiations during socialization into work teams in the Information Technology (IT) division of a large organization. Through interviews of new and established IT members, it explored the impact of multi-level communication interactions to provide a comprehensive understanding of work team socialization.

Review of Literature

Socialization and Assimilation

Studies of socialization or assimilation examine the process by which individuals join and participate in social systems (Kramer, 2010). Group socialization research, typically guided by Moreland and Levine’s (2001) five-phase model, and organizational assimilation research, often guided by Jablin’s (2001) four phase model, provide similar insights into work team socialization. Despite different terminology, both approaches include an investigation or anticipatory phase when individuals are recruited and consider joining groups or organizations, an entry or encounter period where they begin participating as newcomers, and a maintenance or metamorphosis phase when they become full or established members. These phases often overlap and not everyone experiences them in a linear manner (Kramer & Miller, 2014). Group scholars view socialization as a social exchange process in which established and new group members interact to negotiate roles based on meeting their needs and goals (Anderson et al., 1999). Organizational scholars view assimilation as a membership or role negotiation process involving mutual influence between an individual and other workgroup members (Scott & Myers, 2010). Successful socialization is associated with various positive outcomes, including reduced role ambiguity and turnover, as well as increased identification, job satisfaction, commitment, and performance (Kramer & Miller, 2014).

As a multidimensional process, socialization involves learning and negotiating roles along several dimensions: (1) Familiarity involves meeting and forming relationships with coworkers and supervisors; (2) Involvement encompasses finding ways to contribute; (3) Job competency includes learning and performing roles effectively; (4) Recognition occurs when contributions are appreciated; and (5) Acculturation consists of learning organizational culture and structure (Gailliard et al., 2010). Conceptualized this way, socialization is ongoing and never complete as members continually negotiate their roles as their needs and settings change. For example, promoted individuals re-negotiate relationships with former peers who become subordinates (Kramer & Noland, 1999). Incumbents re-negotiate their duties and relationships when newcomers join their workgroup (Gallagher & Sias, 2009).

Individuals need information to understand and negotiate their roles. Miller and Jablin (1991) identified common information-seeking strategies including overt questions, indirect or disguised inquiries, third party inquiries, and observation or surveillance, along with testing norms. They also identified important internal sources of information such as peers, supervisors, other organization members, and written materials. Work team members also benefit from seeking information from other organization teams, as well as external sources such as customers, clients, and suppliers (Harvey et al., 2014). External contacts such as friends and family members can provide valuable information (ter Hoeven et al., 2017). Technology, such as organizations’ intranets (Chu & Chu, 2011) and other advanced technologies (e.g., Waldeck et al., 2004) provide access to additional information, These studies providing valuable insights into work team socialization, but no single study provides a comprehensive analysis of work team socialization. Many organizational studies focusing on interactions with coworkers or supervisors while failing to explicitly acknowledge the influence of collective units, such as teams (Moreland & Levine, 2006). Group socialization research typically ignores the influence of the broader organizational context, such as the organization’s socialization strategies (Ashforth & Saks, 1996). One multi-level analysis, which included examination of individual and within group influences, concluded that socialization is a group level phenomenon (Myers & McPhee, 2006). None of these approaches consider the influence of individuals or groups beyond the primary group or team context. By conducting a multi-level analysis, which combined these areas and examined influence of the individual, unit, organization, and broader context, this study provided a comprehensive understanding of work team socialization (Kramer & Miller, 2014).

Bona Fide Group Perspective

Applying a BFGP facilitates a more comprehensive multi-level examination of work team socialization. A BFGP recognizes naturally occurring groups are embedded in larger contexts and includes communication beyond the internal group interactions (Beck et al., 2016). Because individuals are simultaneously members of multiple groups in which group membership and boundaries are ambiguous and flexible (Putnam & Stohl, 1996), a BFGP indicates socialization is influenced by communication within the group, by group members’ participation in other groups, and by overlapping memberships in external groups (Kramer, 2011). Thus, socialization occurs at multiple levels in multiple groups due to the connectivity created through communication (Lammers & Krikorian, 1997). A BFGP focuses attention on how communication at all structural levels, including individual, workgroup, organizational, and extra-organizational levels, each contribute to role negotiation during socialization (Scott & Myers, 2010). Thus, a BFGP emphasizes the multiple levels of analysis needed for a comprehensive understanding of work team socialization.

Work Teams

Work teams are interacting, interdependent groups with shared purposes, embedded in organizations whose members are diverse in knowledge and skills (Yukl, 2018). Work teams come in various forms. For instance, cross-functional teams include members from different departments within one organization; collaborative groups involve members from different organizations (Yukl, 2018). Work teams provide benefits including fostering innovation and reducing turnover (Chen et al., 2011).

Communication is central to work team socialization. Through communication with work team members, newcomers learn their roles (Korte, 2009), group norms, and organizational vision (Barker, 1993). Work teams pressure members, especially newcomers, to adopt the team’s work ethic and norms (Gibson & Papa, 2000). Work teams reinforce group culture, such as differentiating new firefighters’ subordinate roles from experienced firefighters’ privileged roles (Myers, 2005). However, work team socialization is not one-way with established members only influencing newcomers; it includes newcomers influencing group norms and culture (Levine et al., 2001). Newcomers introduce innovations into work team to change its norms and rituals, although established members may reject innovations (Minei & Bisel, 2013). Through work team communication, individuals learn that group norms and culture vary across groups within an organization (DiSanza, 1995).

In addition, work teams interact with their environment and coordinate action with other groups (Marks et al., 2001). Information flows to and from other groups when leaders act as scouts who seek information or as ambassadors who provide information to others (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). Meetings with other groups help create organizational identity, provide opportunities for collaboration, or allow individuals to make sense of their groups’ environment (Scott et al., 2015), and affect overall work satisfaction (Rogelberg et al., 2010). A work team’s independence and interdependence with other groups and the environment are negotiated through external communication (Stohl & Putnam, 2003) and influence work team socialization.

Research Questions

Work team socialization involves mutual influence as newcomers and established team members negotiate roles (Levine et al., 2001; Scott & Myers, 2010). During role negotiations, established members individually and collectively communicate to teach newcomers group norms and culture (Korte, 2009), but they must also adjust to changes created by newcomers (Gallagher & Sias, 2009). Within group interactions occur on multiple levels, such as at the individual level and collectively as a team (Ellingson, 2003). For example, one team member may provide advice on group norms in a dyad, but team members may reinforce alternative norms at meetings. To explore these multi-level influences within work teams, the first research question was:

RQ1: In what ways do individual and within group communication shape work team socialization?

The BFGP emphasizes examining not just internal group communication but also external communication to gain a multi-level understanding of work team socialization. Because work teams are embedded in a context, team members communicate with other organizational teams (Harvey et al., 2014), as well as others outside their organization (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). Contacts within the organization (e.g., Gibson & Papa, 2000) or professional and educational experiences apart from the organization (e.g., Minei & Bisel, 2013) influence socialization by providing career information to assist in developing work roles. As a result, the second research question was:

RQ2: In what ways do intra-organizational and extra-organizational communication shape work team socialization?

In addition to learning work team level task and relational norms, newcomers learn about larger organization issues such as its culture and power structure (Kramer, 2010). Organizational members on other teams or at other hierarchical levels and individuals outside the organization provide alternative perspectives on these factors. Thus, the final question is:

RQ3: How does work team communication shape employees’ understanding of their organizational role over time during socialization?

Methods

To answer these RQs, we conducted a case study of work teams in one organization. Using interviews for this case study allowed for a thorough examination of multiple work teams within one organization to develop a multi-level analysis of socialization.

Organizational Setting

We studied the Information Technology division (IT) of a large multidivisional organization (LMO) in the Midwest. LMO employs approximately 3000 individuals. IT provides services such as network maintenance, security, and user assistance to all LMO divisions. Led by a director, IT divides 250 full and part-time employees into five departments: infrastructure and service management, security and networking, human resources, data and development, and community engagement. Each department consists of 4–5 work teams with a designated supervisor. IT is housed primarily in two buildings, but some teams are located in more isolated locations. The LMO human resource team handles general orientation but work teams manage their specific newcomer training; thus, newcomer experiences varied.

Participants

Participants (N = 27) were all full-time IT employees and included more men (18) than women (9) with an average age of 42.48. Participants’ tenure varied from 1 month to 15 years which allowed exploration of initial and ongoing socialization. Participants held various positions on different IT teams; some held leadership positions.

Procedure

With IT human resources team and IRB approval, recruitment proceeded using several techniques. At a team leader meeting, team leaders were asked to provide contact information to their work teams. The HR team sent multiple mass emails to full-time employees encouraging their participation. Finally, additional participants were recruited through snowball sampling when those who participated suggested other potential participants.

The first author interviewed interested individuals in private locations such as offices or conference rooms. Participants signed consent forms. Semi-structured interviews (questionnaire available by request) allowed the researcher to adapt questions and ask follow-up questions to probe responses. Questions asked participants to describe learning their roles in IT and included queries into how individual interactions, such as with supervisors and peers, team interactions, such as team meetings, and external interactions, such as informal or formal meetings with non-team members, influenced their learning. Recordings were transcribed by a professional transcriptionist and double checked for accuracy resulting in 369 single-space transcript pages.

Analysis

Transcripts were analyzed through a five step process: data reduction, unitizing, open coding, focused coding, and axial coding (Charmaz, 2006). The coding process was iterative, moving back and forth between steps as the process gradually refined emerging categories (Tracy, 2013). During data reduction, we removed segments unrelated to work team socialization, such as discussions of home life. During unitizing, we divided data into segments representing complete thoughts or themes. A unit could be a few words or entire paragraph if it expressed a unified idea. During open coding, units were given codes to summarize and reflect the data, such as team meetings or after work (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011). Using a modified constant comparison method, we compared new units to previous units. When units seemed similar, we combined them into one category or code, such as combining “organizational structure” and “organizational policies” into “organizational information.” If units were distinct, a new category was created. During focused coding, we combined codes from open coding into larger categories. For example, we combined shadowing team members and informal observation into the broader category of observation. We also divided categories into internal and external group communication. During axial coding, we examined relationships between focused codes. For example, “cross-functional meetings” and “workshops and conferences” represented overlap with other groups and as a result, represented nexus. Four primary categories emerged through this process: within group communication, intergroup communication within the organization, intergroup communication outside the organization, and the role of communication in shaping employees’ understanding of over time.

Verification

Creswell (2007) recommends qualitative scholars use at least two validation strategies. To achieve this, we provide thick-rich description by including direct quotes from participants to allow readers to determine the appropriateness of our interpretations and the transferability of the results. We conducted member checks where two respondents read the results to verify that they represented their experiences appropriately. No substantive changes were suggested.

Findings

RQ1: Within Work Team Communication and Socialization

In explaining how within team communication shaped their socialization, participants described two important levels of communication: (1) individual interactions with work team members including supervisors; and (2) group interactions at team meetings. They further described their information-seeking strategies and the types of information they received.

Individual Interactions

Conversations with work team members were a primary information source. Typical of others, Carl explained, “Any time I had a question like that, um, my peers were right there for me to answer any questions I had and, you know, take the extra time to help me learn.” If they worked in the same office, it was easy to ask questions face-to-face or observe team members. Sometimes, newcomers entered teams already knowing one or more team member. Phillip (20s; 2 years in IT) explained, “I already knew one person coming into [IT]…I think without him it may be a little bit harder just because we didn’t know anybody, but I think he definitely helped a lot.” Newcomers with previous experience with team members felt particularly comfortable approaching them, using their own agency to aid their socialization.

Work team supervisors were another major information source. These formal and informal supervisor interactions could be face-to-face or through mediated channels such as email. Mitchell, a team leader, was conscious of his need to provide newcomers information:

With just about everybody that comes on board, [we] kind of give them that “here’s where you are…” It’s, you know, institutionally, here’s where you are. Technically, here’s where you are. For the mission of the LMO, here’s where you are.

Like this example, supervisors arranged one-on-one meetings with new team members to discuss their place in the team and IT. Supervisors sometimes incorporated visual elements, such as white boards, to show the team’s or IT’s structure.

Some teams relied on work team mentors to assist newcomers. Bryan (30s; 9 years in IT), a team supervisor, explained, “We pair [new] people with people that are either currently doing the job or have done the job in the past to coach them. To show them the ropes.” When assigned, mentors answered newcomers’ questions and shared information, but in other cases, mentorships evolved informally.

Similarly, work team predecessors, people who previously held the position but now worked elsewhere in IT, sometimes served as mentors. Stephanie (30s; 6 years in IT) described her communication with her predecessor:

I would describe the situation that‘d come up, or maybe something I’d seen previously, and I would sit down and say, ‘okay, if this situation comes up, how do you usually handle it?’ And then he would kind of walk me through the steps.”

Like similar examples, she contacted her predecessor to ask about task information regarding handling possible scenarios that she might encounter.

Team Interactions

Team meetings were another information source for employees. As Stephanie also explained:

When [new team members] were first coming on board…our senior strategist for our group made sure that we were meeting pretty regularly as a team. That way…if they had any questions, they can bring them to us. There’s a team of six of us, so, if anything came up, we’d kind of know what was going on or be able to answer their questions.

Team meetings in this case were specifically held to help newcomers gain information to understand their roles and complete their jobs, but they also served as information sources for established members when they needed to coordinate activities.

Information-Seeking Strategies

Newcomers gained information through various communication strategies. Asking questions frequently resulted in gaining role-related information. For instance, Scott (50s; 3 years in IT) explained, “My manager is very open-door…he has a personality that is very, I’d say warm and understanding of people, so I think it’s–you know, it just made it easy to come in and just be part of the group.” Individuals’ openness made it easier for employees to ask their team supervisors, peers, or mentors questions. Often, the information went beyond task information. Brendon explained, “I wouldn’t call them ‘non-technical’ questions, but they’re more political questions of ‘who is this person? How does this person fit into this requirement here?’” Thus, newcomers and experienced employees asked questions to gain information concerning the work team, organization, or external constituents during ongoing socialization.

Observation was a less obtrusive way employees learned about their roles and the organization. Observations could include job shadowing during formal training or informal observations. For instance, Brendon (40s; 2 years in IT) explained, he pays “attention to how they [team members] answer questions….I can kind of tell, based on how they answer…what circle that they tend to gravitate from.” Like others, through careful observation, Brendon learned about team and department relationships.

Individuals gained information through experience either prior to joining IT or from “learning as you go.” As Chloe explained, “There’s no training manual…you never know what they’re going to ask for or what they’re going to need. So it’s more of just I think learning by experience.” This “trial and error” learning was based on previous or current experience.

Occasionally, individuals gained experience by actively researching documents, such as internal training manuals, an archive of relevant articles the team maintained, or external sources. Many admitted using search engines, such as Google, to gain information they needed.

Frequently, team members, supervisors, or mentors simply shared unsolicited information. Brendon explained:

Any time I was asked to do something or any time I was involved in a situation, there was always a “Okay, hold up. Let’s sit back – let me educate you on this situation and tell you how things are set up. Let me give you some information about the customer before you go too far into it and you run into these potholes or these “gotchas.”

Like this example, individuals recognized newcomers’ information needs and shared without a newcomer query. Receiving unsolicited information saved newcomers the social cost of requesting information. Thus, a combination of proactive information-seeking strategies (asking questions. observation, researching documents) and passive information-gaining methods (unsolicited information, experience) aided their socialization.

Types of Information

Task information provided details on carrying out particular work roles. For example, Carl (40s; 9 years in IT) asked questions regarding, “How do I do this task, or, who do I go to ask this, or, this email’s come in; what are they talking about?” In examples like this, team members provided employees information on how to do their jobs, including using particular software or processing tickets correctly. Team members provided personnel information that explained relationships to specific people in IT. For instance, Chloe (50s; 2 years in IT) reported asking more experienced team members “Okay, who is that?…How do they relate to what we’re doing?” Team members provided team information concerning team practices or norms. For example, Elaine (40s; 9 years in IT) asked questions about, “Why we do things and…what is the, I guess official, you know, way of doing things. Whatever the team standards were, that kind of thing.” Examples could apply to an employee’s own team or another one. Team members also provided organizational information that addressed broad IT or LMO topics. Mitchell (40s; 9 years in IT), in a leadership position, explained, he tells new team members:

Starting from you, as a person, here you are in the team structure and then just kind of white board that out….You’re part of the security camera team that’s part of the bigger network team that’s part of a data and telecommunications team, that falls under this director, who’s also over systems and applications, and then that director has all these peer directors that do all of these things. And then, they fall under the CIO, who’s a vice president, who’s a peer to all these other vice presidents, who work for the president.

Organizational information could explain the structure, culture, or future of the organization.

Team members also made newcomers aware of development opportunities (i.e., workshops, conferences) where they could learn additional job-related information. Bryan, a leader, explained, “we try to get [team members] relevant training. We try to send people to relevant conferences.” Team members made others aware of outside developmental opportunities where they could learn additional valuable job-related information.

RQ2 Intergroup Communication

Most socialization research has not distinguished between within group and between group communication by using categories that include both, such as peers or coworkers. Our results emphasized the importance of communication outside of the work team during socialization. Specifically, individuals discussed three methods of creating communication links to external sources. Those linkages resulted in three levels of communication that affected their socialization. They also described information-seeking strategies they used with these external linkages.

Creating External Communication Links

Participants described three primary methods of creating communication links with individuals outside their team. Participants often were proactive using personal initiative to create extra-team contacts to improve their job performance. For example, Jessica reported:

Different [LMO] departments have contracts with IT for service and some of them don’t…and so I’ve been trying to connect with them, just to get to know them because…the way…our service system works is, you know, we get a ticket…And then I have to figure out which partnership area it goes to. So I’ve tried to reach out to them just so I can meet them.

In this typical example, Jessica took the initiative to reach out to LMO clients. Through initial emails followed by face-to-face meetings, she was proactive in improving her ability to serve clients, demonstrating her own agency in her socialization.

Work team members often facilitated extra-group contacts for newcomers. Mitchell describes answering newcomers’ questions about making contacts.

Can you give me a list of people [in LMO] whose names I should know? So, if it’s a technology person at the [LMO department], who do I need to call…? Who are these key…individuals that I need to know…?” Because again, it’s your first day here, and….“hey, let me get you a point of contact.”

In response to their requests, Mitchell provided newcomers with contacts throughout IT and LMO. These actions helped work team members develop their communication networks to assist with their socialization.

Unlike deliberate efforts to create official external connections, backstage communication included unplanned, informal meetings or interactions that occurred in breakrooms, hallways, and during other activities. Greg described the importance of these interactions:

If I see someone around the water cooler, whatever, I’d go, hey, you know…what’s up with the one card system today, you know, those types of things….I see a lot of the issues that come through and so to learn how people deal with those and also to see what solutions they have.

Despite being a high-tech organization, Greg initiated “water-cooler” conversations with members of other teams to create relationships and discover useful job information. These backstage sites were primarily relevant for employees working in one of the primary IT buildings and were not available to those in remote sites.

Levels of Communication

Participants described creating three distinct levels of communication linkages to external groups. Those included: (1) individual contacts with other teams within their organization (intra-organizational); (2) individual contacts with groups outside their organizations (extra-organizational) or (3) nexus or overlapping activities with other groups.

Individual Contacts with Intra-Organizational Groups

Many participants mentioned developing personal networks with various IT members beyond their work teams. Members of other teams frequently provided information during socialization. In a typical example, Amy, (40s; 6 years in IT) in a leadership position explained, “I’ve been going around and talking to other leaders of other groups, you know, saying ‘what are some strategies that you guys have used and have tried?’.” In this example, she gained suggestions from leaders of other groups to solve a problem she was experiencing.

The IT Human Resources department was singled out as a particularly important information source for socialization. One team leader, Mitchell, reported asking HR for information concerning career paths for employees he supervised. As he explained:

So, money is not something I control, and I immediately had to go and try to answer that question. “Wow, what is it that people have to do to get a raise? I really don’t know.” So, again, go to that [human resources team] and say, “I’ve got folks that come to me and they say, ‘what does it take to get a raise?’” So, we worked collaboratively together to figure out the answer.

In situations like this, the HR department provided information that helped team leaders better understand their situations and they were able to convey that information to their work teams.

Management was an important information source outside work teams. For example, when Bryan wanted a promotion to an available team leader position, he explained, “I immediately approached the assistant vice president and the director and said, ‘I want this job. I’m the man for this job. Tell me how I can prove that…I need to be in this position.’” Here he approached management with a specific need and the assistant vice president provided him with advice on becoming a manager.

Individual Contacts with Extra-Organizational Groups

Participants also created important personal contacts with groups outside of IT. Clients of LMO sometimes provided valuable information for learning or improving job processes. For example, Jessica explained:

There were some problems and I called her [a client]…. I guess she had three or four tickets open within our system…So she was getting all these notifications…And so I called her to check on something and she’s like, “you guys are driving me crazy with all these emails.” And I was just like, “why are we sending her all these emails?”

In this example, the client described a problem which allowed the team member to work on implementing a solution. Without client interaction, she never would have understood the problem or been able to devise a solution for it.

Vendors, employees of other companies, provided IT software or equipment. Employees asked them system or software questions. Chloe described this example:

Just a specific tool that we wanted to learn how to use, and just had to find out the contact for that tool and gather information from the vendor, you know, user guides and those kind of things, and once I realized that’s what I needed to do, it was okay.

By contacting vendors, participants learned how to make adjustments to new systems and software and stay current with technology.

Nexus or Overlapping Activities with External Groups

Nexus is a site of overlap between an individual’s work team and another group, either within IT, LMO, or with external organizations. Participants identified two critical nexus for developing extra-group communication that assisted the socialization process.

Cross-functional meetings (CFMs) were part of the formal organizational structure that facilitated socialization. CFMs involved employees from different functional groups or departments within IT or LMO working on joint projects or solving problems that crossed group boundaries. For instance, Robert described one such experience:

In a meeting...I mentioned, you know, that it would be nice to get this data from here to here, and he says, well, “why not use this product?” And, I’m like, “so you know about that product?” And he goes, “yeah, we use it a lot in the security team.” “Since when?” “Oh, well, a couple months.” Didn’t know….I’m happy to know the guy and happy to find out we have the resource and he’s working on it for me.

In this example, during a cross-functional meeting, Robert learned from a member of another team about a particular product he was interested in using. Through communication at the meeting, he found an important resource he needed for his job. In addition, by attending CFMs, employees learned about IT and how different teams in IT worked. In other cases, the meetings led to personal relationships. For example, Rachel explained, “We have lots of meetings and lots of conference calls, and we’ve gotten to be friends over the years from all the different events that we’ve planned together, the collaboration we do.” Here she developed a mentor relationship with an individual during cross-functional meetings.

Workshops or conferences were another important nexus for team members. By hosting or attending conferences with other team members, they developed connections with industry peers. For instance, Carl described making contacts at conferences:

[A] guy…came to one of our conferences and he was from The Netherlands, and so, he did a lot of backup software, so I asked him, you know, “how’d you do this?” Or, “what was your–do you have any scripts that you’ve written to help me so I don’t have to, you know, reinvent the wheel?” And, “oh, yeah, here.” You know–give that to you, you know…. So, usually it would start – I would have a contact at some meeting, conference, and then continue that relationship on–you know, helping each other out.

As this example illustrates, Carl developed working relationships with industry peers at conferences. Once working relationships developed, team members continued using these industry peers as information sources. Nexus like workshops and conferences were important opportunities for employees to communicate with individuals from external groups and build relationships that provided access to more sources of information during ongoing socialization that they could pass on to their work team.

Nexus occurred in cross-functional meetings and external workshops/conferences. Nexus served as sites where employees developed relationships that provided current information sources that they could use in their roles in IT.

Information-Seeking Strategies

The information-gaining strategies for external sources during socialization were similar to those used within teams. For example, participants reported receiving unsolicited information, asking questions, and observation from various intra- and extra-organizational groups. One specific form of unsolicited information mentioned was introductions which helped initiate networks of contacts. As Chloe explained when asked about a tour HR provided newcomers, “I met different people. Of course, I remembered half of them. But, you know…different areas of IT. Where they were located. And we went around and met different people.” By being introduced to individuals on other work teams through formal orientation or later through formal and informal meetings between teams, individuals gained contacts that could be tapped for additional information. Similarly, participants developed their networks through interactions with clients, vendors, and conference attendees.

RQ3: Organizational Understanding

Participants discussed how their understanding of IT and its culture changed during their tenure. As newcomers, their initial understanding of IT was limited primarily to their tasks and work team relationships, but during ongoing socialization, they developed a broader understanding of its culture.

Limited Initial Understanding

Newcomers generally had a limited understanding of IT and its culture. Bryan explained this:

The first two or three years that I worked here….I only cared about my job and when it got beyond the scope of my job, I really could care less….I didn’t really have the capacity to think about much more than my tasks….I didn’t really know much more than what I had to do in front of me.

Typical of newcomers, Bryan only understood his immediate job and work team relationships. His understanding of IT beyond his team was extremely limited. This focus prevented him from understanding its culture.

Changes in Understanding Culture

Indicative of the importance of multi-level analysis for understanding work team socialization, communication at cross-functional meetings (CFM), a form of nexus, was a primary source for developing participants’ understanding of IT and its culture beyond their team as they progressed during ongoing socialization. During CFMs, they reported members of other teams encouraged them to develop their understanding of IT’s culture, and specifically how IT teams relate to each other, how IT relates to LMO, and how IT relates to the larger industry.

Deanna reported learning about how IT teams relate to each other at a CFM: “We actually had to meet about this particular resource [a team member] and schedule out his priorities for the next 6 months because he’s so booked with and needed so much for different projects…” At this CFM, she learned about work team interdependence and problems creating priorities as teams collaborated when one employee served multiple duties.

At CFMs, employees learned about how IT relates to LMO. For instance, at a CFM Bryan explained that a director encouraged team leaders to think about how their work benefitted LMO:

He [the director] would sometimes help drive the conversation by…forcing us to think kind of outside of our operational box...and so our conversations almost immediately evolved to be talking about [LMO’s industry]; talking about the different business units at [LMO]…and how the things that we did…translated to value for [LMO]….

In this example, the CFM increased team members’ understanding of IT by encouraging them to think beyond their immediate work teams to how IT’s work impacted LMO as a whole.

In another CFM, a member of upper-level management answered a question in a way that shifted the conversation to how IT relates to businesses and industry. As Mitchell explained:

I was in a meeting with her [the manager] where she stated…that we’re not just looking for relationships and partnerships where we go and buy things….So we may be handing money across the table and for goods and services. But, what we would also like…those relationships.

In this CFM, the manager introduced a new idea of relationship building as an IT goal, broadening the understanding of its culture for those present.

Employees also developed a deeper understanding of IT’s culture by changing positions, a common occurrence during ongoing socialization. Since new positions often included leadership responsibilities, they gave employees more visibility to other IT teams and more access to CFMs. After taking a leadership position, Bryan stated, “That’s when I started looking at the bigger picture of the holistic thinking of IT as an organization, and both seeing how much we’d grown since I started in the organization and how much was still possible to achieve.” Here he attributed part of his changed understanding of IT to taking a leadership position which encouraged him to think more holistically about IT.

A Developed Understanding of IT Culture

Participants reported a more complete understanding of IT’s structure and culture from focusing beyond their work team over time. One important characteristic they reported was viewing IT as an interdependent system. A long-term IT member, Robert, observed:

I’ve been here long enough. Decades go by and it does this thing where it shrinks and it expands, and it shrinks. So we shrink, and we become very tightly organized, and we have only these products. And then…times would be good and we’ll say, “hey, we could really be more efficient…or we’d be more customer oriented if we spread out a little if we took more of a personal approach to people,” so we end up growing.

Robert began viewing IT as a system that goes through cycles of expansion and shrinkage based on its environment rather than a culture of constant growth. Recognizing this characteristic enabled him to better appreciate and respond to changes.

Understanding the organization’s interdependence was important in understanding ITs culture and operations. Deanna stated that over time she learned:

Sometimes…your priority is not always somebody else’s priority…because when you work on a team…what you’re working on is important to you, whereas somebody, say, in infrastructure who supports your application is also supporting multiple applications and when you don’t know their agenda as to what their priorities are and sometimes you’re not as sympathetic when they weren’t looking at your issue immediately.

Here, she explains she initially did not understand the interdependence of priorities among teams. Then she learned that IT teams do not always have the same priorities; she thought more about what other teams experienced and how that influenced inter-team collaboration.

A more developed understanding focused on IT as a collaborator with LMO and the technology industry rather than just as a service provider. Deanna further elaborated:

So what I’m finding is that [IT] is less of a service provider and more of a collaborator. They’re really stepping in there and proving that not just through the ability to buy and drop technology on desks….They want to come to us as direct business partners and build relationships and be collaborators….So that’s…probably been the biggest mindset change that I’ve had to work with since I’ve started here.

Another employee, Darren put it this way, “If the [employees in LMO] aren’t successful, then we don’t have a successful [IT].” Like other more established employees, these two looked at the culture beyond their work team boundaries to see IT’s culture as valuing collaboration that creates success for the clients.

Discussion

This study explored the role of communication in employees’ initial and ongoing socialization as they learned to manage work team roles. Answering the call for multi-level analyses of socialization that considers individual, group, and organizational levels of communication (Kramer & Miller, 2014), the findings examined multi-level socialization influences including individual communication, internal group communication, and external group communication both within and beyond organizational boundaries. Multiple levels of communication each contributed to newcomers’ initial understanding of their specific jobs, and then as their tenure increased, they led to a deeper understanding of the organization’s culture that valued team interdependence. The study extends previous socialization research to a new context and confirms many important findings specifically in work teams, such as verifying common information-seeking strategies and sources of information in the teamwork setting. More importantly, the study contributed to new understanding of socialization across multiple levels of communication and of the BFGP.

Socialization/Assimilation Research

First, at the individual level, the findings contribute to understanding a specific strategy for providing newcomers important information during socialization that has largely been overlooked. Previous research identifies receiving unsolicited information from peers and supervisors as critical to newcomer socialization (Kramer, 2010). Our findings contribute the idea that introducing newcomers to others beyond the team and organizational boundaries is a specific strategy of providing access to additional unsolicited information that assists newcomers in learning. Introductions helped newcomers develop relationships that led to networking opportunities and additional learning.

Second, at the intragroup level, our findings identified the importance of group meetings during socialization. Previous socialization research has focused on individual interactions between newcomers and their peers or supervisors (Miller & Jablin, 1991) without considering collective group interactions. Although meetings are often maligned as bureaucratic, inefficient wastes of time (Rogelberg et al., 2012), our participants identified team meetings as important communication opportunities during socialization. Meetings provided them an efficient way to interact with multiple team members simultaneously and gain multiple perspectives on problems and issues to increase their understanding of the jobs and roles.

Third, at the intergroup level, our findings contribute to understanding the importance of nexus, or overlapping activities with other organizational groups (See Figure 1). Nexus included formal meetings, such as cross-functional meetings where multiple teams addressed issues simultaneously. In addition to these formal interactions, nexus included watercooler or backstage conversations where newcomers informally interacted with individuals from other teams after inadvertently meeting. Our respondents pointed to these formal and informal nexus, which occurred individually or at group levels, as providing pivotal information during team members’ socialization as they learned and developed their organizational roles.

Figure 1.

Model of source of information exchanges during work team socialization.

Fourth, at the organizational level, our findings identified the importance of communication with external sources during socialization. With few exceptions, previous research has focused almost exclusively on internal communication, such as with peers, supervisor, and mentors, as sources during socialization (Kramer & Miller, 2014) without considering the impact of external sources. When external communication is examined, it primarily focuses attention on group leaders’ roles as boundary spanners to other groups (e. g., Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). Not just leaders, but multiple new and experienced team members benefitted from communication to other groups within the division (IT) and within the broader organization (LMO), and from communication to external groups, such as vendors and industry leaders. Our multi-level analysis led to recognizing that communication with clients and vendors and attendance at conferences also affected newcomer socialization. These examples of nexus (See Figure 1) sometimes occurred as individual communication between a newcomer and a client, but at other times were examples of group level interaction, such as when team members attended a conference together. Our findings suggest that socialization should be examined at the system level, as well as at the individual, group, and internal organizational levels.

Fifth, our findings contribute to understanding how different types of information are primarily gained from different sources. As illustrated in Table 1, our participants primarily learned about their tasks and roles as team members and their function in the organization in their individual or collective interactions with team members. By contrast, they gained understanding of the organizational culture, values, and structure primarily from their nexus with other teams and the large organization (LMO). For instance, one participant initially thought IT’s relationships with clients were simply transactional interactions between clients and his work team. Only through communication with members of other groups did he learn to view client relationships as collaborative opportunities involving multiple teams. Through nexus, he enhanced his understanding of IT’s culture to include valuing interdependent cooperation. In addition, new and experienced team members often learned industry trends from external sources by attending or hosting conferences. The table’s dotted lines indicate that learning is fluid and overlapping since a team member may have an update on technology or a client may help clarify the individual’s task. However, the multiple level analysis made these general trends apparent.

Table 1.

Multi-Level Analysis Results.

Sixth, our findings reiterated the importance of viewing socialization as an ongoing negotiation process that is more fluid than linear and is never completed (Kramer & Miller, 2014). Ongoing role management and negotiation was evident in the way long-term IT employees, some employed for over a decade, were still learning about their roles and organization through nexus or overlapping group interactions. Socialization’s ongoing nature was particularly evident when individuals moved into leadership positions. For example, new leaders faced new communication challenges as they adjusted and changed relationships and learned to manage additional information (Kramer & Noland, 1999). Like newcomers, they actively sought information to understand their new roles and the communication challenges involved. Other changes, such as hiring new personnel, provided similar opportunities for changing roles (Gallagher & Sias, 2009). Our findings emphasize the need for additional research exploring how individuals exercise agency in negotiating their roles during ongoing socialization in response to personnel or structural changes and not just as newcomers (Scott & Myers, 2010).

Bona Fide Group Perspective

The study reiterates the fluidity and permeability of group boundaries as conceptualized by the BFGP. First, it expands the understanding of nexus, introduced by Stohl and Putnam (2003), by specifically identifying cross-functional meetings and extra-organizational activities such as conferences as nexus. Nexus created temporary groups in which individuals from multiple groups worked and learned together. During these fluid intersections, individuals began to understand work team interdependence within their organization. Second, the study extends the BFGP to include Ellingson’s (2003) concept of embedded teamwork. Teams become embedded with each other during formal meetings, as well as through informal, backstage interactions. Intergroup communication during cross-functional meetings provided opportunities for collaboration and sensemaking (Rogelberg et al., 2012). Gaining this more holistic perspective increased their understanding of their organization’s culture and influenced how they learned their roles, such as learning about new software, and negotiating their roles, such as developing collaborative projects.

Limitations

Contextual factors such as the nature of IT and LMO prevent this case study from being broadly generalized to work teams. However, our findings may transfer to IT divisions embedded in larger organizations or work teams in similar structures. Since not all IT work teams participated in the study, those omitted may have had alternative experiences. However, sufficient interviews were conducted to reach saturation, the point at which additional interviews would likely not yield additional insight (Creswell, 2007).

Conclusion

This study provided a multi-level analysis of work team socialization. While reaffirming some previous research, findings provided a more complex understanding of communication during socialization including identifying the importance of nexus with other groups. Nexus included cross-functional meetings, as well as workshops and conferences involving industry peers. Communication with members of other internal and external groups helped employees learn their roles and changed their understanding of their organization. Through nexus, they developed information resources that enabled them to understand and negotiate their roles during initial and ongoing socialization. As such, the study answered the call for multi-level analyses of socialization by providing a comprehensive understanding of how the intersection of individual, group, intergroup, organizational, and external communication contributes to the socialization process for work team members.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

The authors would like to thank Carla Kramer for proofreading this manuscript during the development and submission process.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Michael W. Kramer

Note

Author Biographics

Michael J. Tornes (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is a Human Resources Generalist at Southern University at Shreveport. He has conducted research on volunteers at popular culture conventions and organizational teams.

Michael W. Kramer (PhD, University of Texas) is Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. His research primarily focuses on employee and volunteer experiences as part of the socialization/assimilation process. He also has examined leadership and decision making in various contexts including interorganizational collaborations.

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