When onboarding becomes risky: Extending social learning theory to explain newcomers’ adoption of heavy drinking with clients
基于社会学习理论，研究新员工在入职过程中如何通过模仿资深同事而采纳与客户大量饮酒等有风险的工作行为，并发现这种行为虽提升短期绩效，却导致工作家庭冲突和离职风险增加。
What drives newcomers to adopt behaviors that, while perhaps helping them meet short-term role demands and organizational objectives, may also place themselves and/or their organization at risk in the long term? Based on social learning theory, research on onboarding and newcomer socialization suggests that such behavior may be explained by peer modeling. But is this always the case? Using heavy drinking with clients as an empirical referent and incorporating factors from research on learning in risky choice into a model grounded on social learning theory, we examine how contextual variables moderate the effect of veteran peer modeling on newcomer adoption or intensification of work-related risky behaviors over time, and demonstrate the impact of adoption/intensification on newcomer outcomes. Data from a longitudinal study of newcomers, their veteran peers, and supervisors in sales and client-service indicate that the extent to which veteran modeling influences the adoption/intensification of newcomer heavy drinking with clients depends on newcomers’ prior experiences and veteran peer (but not supervisor) guidance. Moreover, they indicate that steeper increases in heavy drinking with clients over time, while associated with improved job performance, also link to higher work-to-family conflict and turnover risk. Implications for research on onboarding and newcomer socialization are discussed.