The mediational role of organizational socialization in the relation between quality of relationships with colleagues and global self-esteem: A three-wave study in a sample of military cadets

Purpose: Individuals' ability to learn rules, acquire specific role behaviors, and ultimately to socialize into the new organizational environment has important consequences. However, few studies addressed the impact that socialization may exert on one’s individual differences. Consistent with the principles of sociometer theory (which emphasizes the interpersonal roots of people’s self-worth), in this contribution we investigated whether organizational socialization (OS) mediates the relationship between satisfaction with colleagues (SWC) and workers’ levels of global self-esteem (GSE). Methodology: A complete cohort of Military cadets (Mage=23.02, SDage=2.23) attending a prestigious Italian academy filled a battery of self-report questionnaires once a year for three consecutive years (NT1 = 320, nT2 = 287, nT3 = 236). A series of cross-lagged panel models with latent variables were ran, in order to test the hypothesized mediation through a full-longitudinal design. Socio-demographic covariates were included, to further confirm the strength of our hypothesis. Results: In the best fitting model, SWC at T1 significantly affected OS at T2, and the latter significantly affected GSE at T3. The significant size of the mediation effect was confirmed by the Monte Carlo procedure. Limitations: The lack of objective data and the use of only one setting (military) are limits that should be addressed in future studies. Practical implications: This contribution would encourage practitioners to pay more attention to workers’ perceived organizational interpersonal environment, given that it may exert a significant impact on personal self-worth, and thus it may be considered an important antecedent of one’s personal well being at work.