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Towards a Theory of Socialization
Impact: Selection as Pre-Entry
Socialization
Neil Anderson*
A theory and model of the `socialization impact' of selection methods is proposed. Developing
and extending an earlier model proposed by Anderson and Ostroff (1997), this article
proposes an empirically testable theory comprising four fundamental postulates and six
corollary hypotheses. The fundamental postulates of socialization impact, varying degree of
impact, individual differences between candidates, and sub-group differences between gender
and racial/ethnic origin are put forward as essential cornerstones of this theoretical approach.
Socialization impact is articulated across five constituent domains: information provision (IP),
preference impact (PI), expectational impact (EI), attitudinal impact (AI), and behavioural
impact (BI). Contrasting this theory against the predictivist paradigm which has dominated
selection theory, research and practice over the last fifty years, this article sets out an
alternative but complementary perspective capable of being tested through subsequent
empirical research. The implications of conceiving of selection methods not as `neutral
predictors' but as `interventive affectors' are discussed in conclusion.
Selection Methods as Neutral Predictors
*Address for correspondence:
Neil Anderson, Department of
Psychology,
Goldsmiths
College, University of London,
New Cross, London, SE14
6NW. E-mail: N.Anderson
@gold.ac.uk
Selection methods have traditionally been
conceived of, and researched as, neutral predictors of applicant suitability and subsequent
job role performance (e.g. Schmitt, Ones and
Hunter 1992; Guion 1998; Schmidt, current
issue, Borman, current issue). In this view,
methods are quintessentially held to be nonimpactful measures and predictors of job performance; the recruiter an impassive observer
and evaluator of candidate behavioural acts;
and the efficacy of the assessment method itself
dependent upon two premises. First, that `true
variance' in candidate behaviour can be
identified by the selection method and that
this is predictive of future job behaviour;
second, that `true variance' can be isolated
from `error variance' in the method caused by
the processual dynamics of particular
techniques, errors of evaluation by recruiters,
sampling of behaviour restrictions, inappropriate intrusions by the recruiter, and so forth
(for a comprehensive and authoritative review
of this perspective see Guion 1998). This
paradigm and the science of methods as neutral
predictors have been pursued with considerable
vigour and rigour over the past fifty years and
have resulted in a mature science of selection
research findings which implicitly treat
selection methods as neutral predictors. Even
a cursory review of the present Special Issue of
Volume 9 Numbers 1/2
March/June 2001
IJSA shows the extent and depth of research
adopting this perspective.
Yet there remain troublesome empirical
findings, disjunctive but notionally appealing
theoretical models, and an unabated groundswell
of pragmatic demands from selection practitioners for a more generally applied
perspective, all of which have continued to
suggest that a more ecologically comprehensive
view of selection methods is called for (e.g.
Rynes 1993; Murphy 1996; Herriot and
Anderson 1997). While it is nonsensical to claim
that selection techniques do not act as predictors,
it is equally nonsensical to claim that this is all
that they do. But the impressively robust edifice
of scientific selection research can nevertheless
be criticized on the grounds of a somewhat
myopic preoccupation with predictive validity to
the detriment of other effects and outcomes
(Herriot 1989; Iles and Robertson 1997;
Anderson, Born and Cunningham-Snell, in press).
Candidates experience selection methods in a
whole variety of ways, form impressions of the
organization directly from these experiences,
glean information crucial to their job choice
decisions, and may well be influenced by these
experiences in a number of longer-term ways
(Rynes 1993; Wanous 1992). Yet relatively little
is known about these effects due to the
concentration of research into questions of
predictive validity.
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350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
TOWARDS A THEORY OF SOCIALIZATION IMPACT: SELECTION AS PRE-ENTRY SOCIALIZATION
Selection Methods as Interventive
Affectors
To assert that selection methods only have the
single property of predicting future job
performance is to dismiss a number of other
functions, either actual or potential, that methods
also fulfil. Among these are a public relations
function (applicant experiences of an
organization's selection procedure will influence
their views of the organization in general), a
function of establishing a viable psychological
contract between the employer and potential
employee, (e.g. Herriot 1989) and a function of
exposing applicants to the culture and
management style of the organization (e.g.
Wanous, Poland, Premack and Davis 1992). It
is the latter of these functions, selection methods
acting as pre-entry socialization techniques,
which concerns this chapter. Anderson and
Ostroff (1997) put forward a general model of
how different selection methods initiate the preentry socialization process, a concept they
termed `socialization impact' (ibid., p. 427). In
this chapter, Anderson and Ostroff's original
theoretical stance is developed further and four
fundamental postulates and six corollary
hypotheses are proposed as a testable theory
and model of socialization impact.
Fundamental Postulates
First Fundamental Postulate: The Postulate of
Socialization Impact
That all selection methods have socialization
impact upon applicants across five constituent
domains: information provision (IP), preference
impact (PI), expectational impact (EI), attitudinal
impact (AI), and behavioural impact (BI).
Anderson and Ostroff (1997) proposed five
`domains' of socialization impact, as noted
above. In essence, the First Fundamental
Postulate states that all selection methods will
have some degree of socialization impact upon
applicants, whether intentional or otherwise on
the part of the organization. Selection techniques
commence the pre-entry socialization process
(Feldman 1976; Wanous 1992) and do not
merely act as neutral predictors of subsequent
job performance. Rather, they unavoidably
influence candidates' reactions, expectations,
attitudes, and even subsequent job behaviour.
The precise degree and type of socialization
impact will depend on a number of factors (see
the Second Fundamental Postulate below), but
importantly, the First Postulate holds that
socialization impact will occur regardless of
whether an organization intends this impact on
candidates, or is even knowledgeable of its
ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
85
effects. For example, at the one extreme even the
briefest of job advertisements conveys some
information to the candidate, and will thus begin
to generate certain expectations (of the
organization, job contents, status, and so forth).
At the other extreme, a multi-day assessment
centre will expose the candidate to considerable
contact with members of the organization who
are acting as assessors, the exercises used are
likely to be perceived by candidates as indicative
of likely work role demands, and interview
discussions will undoubtedly influence candidate
expectations and attitudes. Such experiences can
exert a longer-term impact upon candidates'
subsequent on-the-job behaviour, who may
extend and extrapolate their experiences at an
assessment centre to begin to `frame' their
behaviour once employed by the organization
(Anderson and Ostroff 1997).
Second Fundamental Postulate: The Postulate of
Varying Degrees of Impact
That selection methods vary in their degree of
socialization impact across the five constituent
domains
Table 1 sets out the degrees of socialization
impact of a range of pre-screening and candidate
assessment methods against the five domains of
impact. Table 1 simplifies the degree of
socialization impact as low, medium, or high,
although it is of course acknowledged that the
precise degree will vary according to method
design (e.g. extended application blanks will
provide more information to candidates than
summary biographical-type designs) and how
the method is conducted by different
organizations and recruiters (e.g. unstructured
interviews will vary widely in expectational
impact for instance due to interviewer styles and
amount of information provided during the
interview).
This stated, Table 1 suggests first of all that
certain methods have greater impact across all
five domains than others (e.g. realistic job
previews are likely to have greater impact in
general than biodata inventories; work samples
are likely to have greater impact than patterned
behaviour description interviews). This is an
uncontroversial assertion. It is surely reasonable
to argue that job-relevant work samples will
have a greater impact upon candidates than, say,
a standardized test of cognitive ability. The
factors contributing to socialization impact will
include the length of time taken to complete the
method, the degree of preparation required by
candidates, the extent to which the method is
perceived as job-relevant by candidates, and the
sheer volume of job-relevant information
conveyed by the method to candidates. Second,
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Table 1: Five domains of socialization impact of selection and assessment methods
Selection method
Pre-screening methods
Application form
Biodata inventory
Recruitment brochure
Realistic job previews (RJPs)
Assessment methods
Unstructured interviews
PBD interviews
Situational interviews
Cognitive ability tests
Personality tests
Integrity/honesty tests
Drug/alcohol tests
Work samples
Leaderless group
discussions (LGDs)
Presentation exercises
Domain 1:
Domain 2:
Information
Preference
Provision (IP) Impact (PI)
Domain 3
Domain 4:
Expectational Attitudinal
Impact (EI)
Impact (AI)
Domain 5:
Behavioural
Impact (BI)
Low
Low
Medium
High
Low
Medium
High
High
Low
Low
Medium/High
High
Low
Low
Medium
High
Low
Low
Medium
Medium
Low/Medium
Low
High
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Low/Medium
Medium
High
High
Medium
Medium
Low
Medium
Low
Low
Medium
Medium
High
Medium
Medium
Low
Medium
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Low
Medium
Medium
Medium
Low
Low
Source: Anderson and Ostroff (1997)
Table 1 suggests that a single method will vary
in impact across the five constituent domains.
For instance, situational interviews convey a
high degree of information to candidates, but
whether this ultimately impacts upon subsequent
behaviour once employed by the organization is
more debatable. Clearly, research is called for to
explore the inter-relationships between the five
domains, to demonstrate how candidates glean
information from different methods, and to show
precisely how such information affects candidate
expectations, attitudes to the organization, and
most crucially, their subsequent on-the-job
behaviour.
Third Fundamental Postulate: The Postulate of
Individual Differences
That significant individual differences exist
between applicants' perceptions of the socialization
impact of selection methods.
The Third Fundamental Postulate proposes significant differences between individual applicants
in their perceptions of the impact of selection
methods, even where candidates are assessed
through standardized methods administered to
several applicants simultaneously (e.g. groupadministered cognitive ability, tests). Support for
this proposition can be found in the descriptive
statistics reported by several studies into the
reactions of candidates to different selection
methods (e.g. Macan, Avedon, Paese and Smith
1994; Ployhart and Ryan 1998), and studies into
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March 2001
the impact of methods upon candidate selfesteem (Fletcher 1991; Robertson, Iles, Gratton
and Shapley 1991). Although neither of these
lines of enquiry concerned socialization impact
per se, considerable rating differences between
candidates were reported, suggesting that
candidates experienced even standardized
methods quite differently to one another. Initial
research to validate or refute this postulate could
usefully be conducted into the context of groupadministered testing sessions (see also the series
of studies by Chan into applicant reactions to
ability testing: e.g. Chan 1997; Chan, Schmitt,
Sacco and De Shon 1998). Here, candidates
experience simultaneously and in real time a
precisely identical process of method administration, thus holding constant some of the
variables present in assessment methods
administered on a one-to-one basis or in series
over time. How different candidates experience
and perceive different methods is moreover not
merely an esoteric or academic question. The
practical ramifications of this for organizational
selection practices are considerable; if research
can uncover multiple patterns of differences
classified by other variables such as personality,
cognitive ability or style, or demographic
factors, socialization impact could be `designed
in' to selection procedures by organizations in a
beneficial manner (Anderson and Ostroff 1997).
Future research could usefully address this very
question: Does socialization impact vary
between applicants in a random manner, or are
such individual differences a function of
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TOWARDS A THEORY OF SOCIALIZATION IMPACT: SELECTION AS PRE-ENTRY SOCIALIZATION
demographic variables, applicant personality, or
applicant cognitive ability or style?
Fourth Fundamental Postulate: The Postulate of SubGroup Differences
That gender and racial/ethnic sub-group
differences exist in the socialization impact of
selection methods.
Potentially the most controversial proposal, the
Fourth Fundamental Postulate suggests
statistically and pragmatically significant subgroup differences based upon applicant gender
(male versus female) and racial/ethnic origin
(white versus minority sub-groups). At this stage
in the development of the theory this is clearly a
more projective but cautious postulate. The
rationale for putting this forward is two-fold.
First, significant and meaningful differences have
repeatedly been found for applicant performance
on several selection procedures (e.g. cognitive
ability tests, personality inventories) both in
relation to gender differences and to ethnic
minority group differences. These findings, of
course, relate to performance differences rather
than to differences in candidate perceptions of
socialization impact, but if sub-groups are
performing significantly differently, it is likely
also that their reactions will differ. Second, it is
preferable for any subsequent empirical research
driven by this theory to commence from a
position of caution, the burden of proof being to
demonstrate a lack of sub-group differences
rather than vice versa. This raises a challenging
prospect for future research: exploring the
possibility that organizational selection procedures may have adverse socialization impact.
That is, do different groups experience selection
87
procedures in fundamentally different ways
leading to significantly different information
acquisition, expectations, attitude formation,
and in turn, on-the-job behaviour? Certainly,
the series of experiments conducted by Chan
reveals different sub-group reactions to ability
tests; the challenge of this fourth and final
Fundamental Postulate is for future research to
add to our limited current understanding of
possible socialization impact differences across
gender and racial/ethnic groups. Again, the most
important question concerns differential impact
in relation to subsequent job behaviours and
therefore to job performance.
Having proposed these four fundamental
postulates as the central tenets of the theory,
these postulates are intended to lay the
foundations for the development of a more
specific hypothesis. The Fundamental Postulates
underlie and encompass the five domains of
impact, whereas the corollary hypotheses are put
forward within each of the domains as a specific
point of reference for each hypothesis. As
Anderson and Ostroff (1997) discuss in some
detail the ways in which selection procedures
commence the socialization process, here six
corollary hypotheses are put forward in order to
make more specific predictions capable of being
tested by follow-up empirical studies.
Corollary Hypotheses
Information Provision (IP)
Hypothesis 1: That information conveyed by
selection methods, intentionally or unintentionally
by the recruiting organization, is interpreted by
applicants as unconditional and contractually
binding.
Figure 1: Information provision in selection procedures. Source: Anderson and Ostroff (1997).
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Hypothesis 1 states that selection methods convey information to candidates, whether intended
to or not by the recruiting organization. Indeed,
in the vast majority of recruitment settings it is
probable that the organization concerned is
sending both accurate and inaccurate information
to applicants, who in turn may interpret this with
greater or lesser degrees of accuracy. Anderson
and Ostroff (1997) hence put forward a 2 2
matrix shown in Figure 1 to illustrate the four
possible quadrants of outcomes.
Returning to the point of intentionality on the
part of the organization, it is perhaps only in the
case of realistic job previews (RJPs) that an
organization will have intentionally considered
the range of information conveyed to applicants
in any detail (e.g. Wanous 1992). This leaves
open the prospect that for the most part
selection methods convey information very
much unintentionally to applicants, some of
which may be accurate and some totally
inaccurate. Improvements in our understanding
of this factorial matrix in selection processes will
most likely result from research which examines
these three dimensions in detail: (i) intentionality
of information transmission; (ii) accuracy of sent
information; and (iii) accuracy of applicant
perceptions of received information.
In addition to these dimensions, Hypothesis 1
states that such information is interpreted by
applicants as `contractually binding'. Research
into perceived violations of the psychological
contract by Rousseau and colleagues forms the
basis for this part of the hypothesis. Robinson and
Rousseau (1994) conducted a longitudinal survey
of MBA graduates in the USA, contacting
respondents initially before beginning work and
then two years into employment. Violations of
the applicants' psychological contract were
extremely common: 65% reported training was
not provided as promised; 61% reported
discrepancies between promised and actual
compensation; 59% did not achieve promotion
or career advancement as promised, and so forth.
Either the employer organizations of these
graduates were acting in a remarkably slipshod
manner, or the graduates themselves were
regarding any information provided to them, no
matter how casually, as absolutely unconditional
and binding. It is also likely that these graduates
may have been reading promises and obligations
into the contextual information provided during
selection (see Hypothesis 4 below) making it
almost inevitable that the future reality failed to
live up to their expectations generated early on.
Preference Impact (PI)
Hypothesis 2: That applicant decision-making on
offers of employment is influenced by their
perceptions of preference impact.
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Hypothesis 3: That preference impact exerts an
influence upon applicant decision-making only
within the wider context of prevailing labour
market conditions, attractiveness of the
organization, and attractiveness of the specific
job vacancy.
Compared to the volume of research into
recruiter decision-making in selection, applicant
decision-making processes have received only
scant attention and only in more recent years
(Rynes 1993; Anderson et al., in press). Some
attention has been devoted by I/O
psychologists to establishing the factors which
contribute towards applicant reactions to
selection procedures, and why candidates prefer
some methods more than others (for a recent
review, see Gilliland 1995). The findings suggest
that applicants prefer methods which are jobrelevant (e.g. Rynes, Hereman and Schwab
1980), less intrusive into areas of a personal
nature (e.g. Connerley, Mael and Morath 1999),
which do not contravene expectations of
procedural and distributive justice (e.g. Gilliland
1995), and which, very simply, allow the
candidate to meet face-to-face with a member
or members of the recruiting organization (cf.
Anderson et al., in press). It is logical, therefore,
to hypothesize that preference impact reactions
will have some bearing upon their eventual
outcome decisions. The extent and longevity of
this impact, however, are likely to be influenced
by a host of other factors. These include the
prevailing labour market conditions, selection
ratios from the applicant's perspective (i.e.
number and attractiveness of alternative offers
of employment), their regard in general terms
for the recruiting organization, attractiveness of
the job both intrinsically and extrinsically, and
their perceptions of the behaviour of recruiters
particularly where the recruiter is a future line
manager of the applicant. Of course, even where
labour market conditions temporally favour the
organization, top-rated applicants are likely to
be also rated as such by competitor employers
so that preference impact reactions still remain
an important concern (Murphy 1986; Rynes
1993).
Expectational Impact (EI)
Hypothesis 4: That applicants are actively
predisposed toward forming multiple, varied,
and enduring expectations of the future work
relationship.
Candidates are actively predisposed to extend
and extrapolate information obtained during
selection into a wide-ranging and enduring
psychological contract of the employment
relationship (e.g. Herriot 1989; Rousseau 1989,
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1995). Hypothesis 4 intentionally highlights the
propensity of applicants to generate expectations on the basis of even very limited
information during selection, hence the term
`actively predisposed'. Moreover, since information provided by recruiting organizations can
often be incomplete or even inaccurate (see
Hypothesis 1), applicants need to read into what
is available in order to infer expectations and
obligations on the part of the organization
(Rousseau 1989). It is likely, then, that applicants
will extend, embellish and extrapolate from the
limited information available to infer several,
varied, and enduring expectations and
obligations of the organization (e.g. Robinson
and Rousseau 1994). Clearly, there is an overlap
between Hypothesis 1 (information provision)
and Hypothesis 4 (expectation impact), but it is
this propensity to add to and embellish the
available information which is crucial to the
latter. Research into these two hypotheses could
usefully be perused in parallel, therefore, as little
has appeared in the I/O literature to illuminate
our understanding of how applicants generate
different and varied expectations of the future
employment relationship as a result of their
experiences during selection procedures.
Attitudinal Impact (AI)
Hypothesis 5: That applicant attitudes towards
the prospective employer organization, work team,
and job role are influenced by information
provision, preference impact, and expectational
impact.
Hypothesis 5 suggests that attitudinal impact is a
function of information provided to the
applicant, their preference impact reactions, and
89
the series of expectations they have generated.
However, this is not proposed as a simple, linear
model.
Information ) preference ) expectational ) attitudinal
provision
impact
impact
impact
Rather, while information provision (IP) will
primarily influence expectation impact (EI) and
attitudinal impact (AI), this process will be a
complex, interactive and dynamic one which
unfolds over time as the applicant has more
contact with the organization and its recruiting
staff. Nevertheless, Figure 2 summarizes the
principal relations envisaged and is intended as a
general schema to facilitate future research in this
area. Feedback loops (for instance, between BI )
AI, and between AI ) EI) are incorporated
where it is logical to anticipate bi-directional
relations between domains, as are direct path
relations (between PI ) EI, PI ) AI, and EI )
BI) to illustrate direct, non-moderated relations
between particular domains of socialization
impact.
Behavioural Impact
Hypothesis 6: That the subsequent on-the-job
behaviour of hired applicants is influenced by
information provision, preference impact,
expectational impact, and attitudinal impact.
Figure 2 again models the principal relations
encapsulated in this hypothesis. This sixth and
final corollary hypothesis is in many respects the
most crucial. That hired applicants' behaviour is
influenced by their experiences in the selection
process strikes at the heart of the premise that
selection methods act as completely neutral
Figure 2: Principal relations between the five domains of socialization impact
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT
predictors of job performance. It is also the most
problematic to prove in real-life recruitment
scenarios. Wanous (1992) presents a persuasive
and compelling rationale as to why selection and
socialization procedures and subsequent job
performance are inextricably linked, a theme
developed further by Anderson and Ostroff
(1997). Proving this relation beyond any
remaining vestige of doubt and with unmitigated
causal inference would be a gargantuan task and
one fraught with methodological and practical
pitfalls; it is also probably unnecessary. It is
surely axiomatic that some relation exists
between applicant experiences during selection
and their subsequent behaviour at work, the
question is what type of relation and what is the
strength of this relation? Perhaps, the most easily
envisaged example is where the applicant has
attended an assessment centre over several days,
has been exposed to a number of job-relevant
exercises, and met with several organizational
members acting in the capacity of assessors.
Here the applicant has considerable contact with
the organization and will usually have the
opportunity to ask questions and get feedback
on aspects of their performance. It is surely
likely, therefore, that these experiences will
influence to some degree their expectations,
attitudes, and future work behaviour? Other
selection scenarios will result in less contact
between the applicant and the organization,
admittedly. But it is far less justifiable to purport
a total lack of impact whatsoever of applicant
experiences upon their subsequent expectations,
attitudes, and work behaviour than to suggest
that some type of relation exists.
A final point concerns whether earlier
contacts between the applicant and organization carry greater weight than later contacts
(i.e. primacy versus recency effects). Early
encounters and experiences may be formative
(in terms of both attitude and expectation
generation) but later contacts provide a chance
for the candidate to verify, update and modify
their earlier views. Whether a primacy or
recency effect occurs in this regard is a question
for further research, but it will usually be the
case that the applicant experiences several
stages of contact with the organization (job
advertisement details, initial interview, psychometric testing, assessment centre, for example).
Attitudes will be formed at each stage in relation
to the organization as a potential employer, to
the specific job vacancy being applied for and to
the recruiting staff who may be viewed as
representative of organizational employees in
general. Again, candidate impression formation
has been considerably less extensively
researched than recruiter impression formation
over the years, leaving real gaps in our
understanding of these processes and of the
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March 2001
bilateral nature of selection procedures in
practice (Anderson et al., in press).
Implications for Selection Theory,
Research and Practice
What implications does this theory and model of
socialization impact have for the classical perspective of selection research and practice?
Intuitively, the reader trained in classical selection
theory might react with some understandable
unease to the (necessarily speculative) propositions put forward in this paper. Certainly, the
theory as yet lacks empirical support in several
critical areas, the Fundamental Postulates are
stated in quite general terms, the corollary hypotheses are succinctly stated but may be difficult to
test empirically, and this theory emphasizes a
somewhat different stance and remit of concerns
to the classical predictivist model. But it is not in
any way fundamentally incompatible with the
predictivist paradigm; indeed, it is complementary
to it. The most central departure from the
predictivist stance is my conceptualization of
selection methods as `interventive affectors' of
candidate expectations, attitudes and on-the-job
behaviour as opposed to `neutral predictors'.
In a field which has been criticized for a lack of
theoretical developments (e.g. Hesketh and
Robertson 1993; Cascio 1995; Borman, Hanson
and Hedge 1997) this theory and model of
socialization impact are proposed as an alternative, but wholly complementary, perspective
and framework to stimulate and facilitate future
empirical research in employee selection.
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Volume 9 Numbers 1/2
March/June 2001