Justifying new employees’ trials by fire: workplace hazing
| Published date | 04 March 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-01-2018-0025 |
| Pages | 381-399 |
| Date | 04 March 2019 |
| Author | Benjamin J. Thomas,Patricia Meglich |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Justifying new employees’trials
by fire: workplace hazing
Benjamin J. Thomas
Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha,
Omaha, Nebraska, USA, and
Patricia Meglich
Department of Management, University of Nebraska at Omaha,
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to test the explanatory effects of the system justification theory on
reactions to new employee hazing.
Design/methodology/approach –Threestudies (N¼107, 121 and 128), all usingexperimental assignment,
vignettesof workplace hazing and two-levelrepeated measures ANCOVAdesigns, with dispositionalvariables
includedas covariates and justification of workplacehazing processes as dependentvariables, were conducted.
Findings –Onlookers are more likely to justify long-standing (cf. recently adopted) hazing systems and
hazing systems used by highly cohesive (cf. loosely cohesive) teams, supporting the application of the system
justification theory to workplace hazing reactions.
Research limitations/implications –The use of vignette research and onlookers (cf. hazed employees)
may limit inferences drawn about employee reactions in workplaces that use hazing.
Practical implications –Despiteits negative associations,hazing at work persists, with 25 percentof current
sample reported being hazed at work. The system justification theory, which the authors applied to hazing,
offers an explanation forstakeholders’willingness to sustain and perpetuate hazing, and onlookers’seeming
blind-spot regarding outrage over workplace hazing. This theory holds promise for combatting passive
responses to workplacehazing.
Originality/value –This is the first paper to empirically test explanations for workplace hazing’s
perpetuation, by applying the system justification theory to the social system of workplace hazing. Moreover,
it is the first paper to offer empirical evidence of hazing’s prevalence across at least 25 percent of sampled
industries and organizational rank.
Keywords Quantitative, Workplace hazing, System justification theory, Authoritarianism,
Newcomer socializations
Paper type Research paper
Organizational newcomer experiences and turnover
Newcomer onboarding is as a crucial event in the employee lifecycle. Typically, organizational
onboarding initiatives focus on transforming newcomers into employees via socialization
tactics to help the newcomer establish social connections and competence on job tasks and
functions (Lapointe et al., 2014). Organizational onboarding and socialization processes affect
important factors of employee retention (e.g. intentions to remain, commitment; Allen and
Shanock, 2013) and performance (Bauer et al., 2007). Positive, sensible onboarding processes
predict higher employee commitment and performance (Bauer et al., 2007), and poor
socialization efforts can result in newcomer turnover (Nifadkar and Bauer, 2016). Whether
described as onboarding, socialization or orientation, organizations have a vested interest in
understanding and maximizing the effective systems by which non-members(i.e. new hires or
outside group members) are transformed into fully functioning, integrated members of the
group in which they are working. To that end, onboarding and socialization may include
planned, unplanned, formal and informal experiences and activities that new members pass
through in order to take on the attributes necessary for organizational success (Wanberg, 2012).
Given evidence that employee turnover is highest in the first few months of employment
(Yang, 2008; Smith et al., 2012), organizational researchers and HR practitioners need a
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 2, 2019
pp. 381-399
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-01-2018-0025
Received 21 January 2018
Revised 11 July 2018
Accepted 23 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
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Workplace
hazing
deeper understanding of how the transformational process of organizational onboarding
may contribute to employee turnover. Early employee socialization experiences yield
meaningful effects on important variables like commitment, retention (Kammeyer-Mueller
and Wanberg, 2003) and engagement (Albrecht et al., 2015). An average American worker
will transition into a new job more than 11 times in her/his life (US Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2017) and socialization can buffer the stressful effects of this change for new
employees (Dunford et al., 2012). Thus, both organizations and employees must frequently
face the new employee period, while considering the possibility of its positive and aversive
outcomes. Whereas most onboarding research has focused on more positive, reasonable
onboarding processes (Bauer et al., 2007), little research has explored more aversive forms of
onboarding typified by new employee hazing ( Josefowitz and Gadon, 1989).
Onboarding in organizations
Joining an organization as a new employee can be a stressfulexperience because newcomers
must quicklydemonstrate competence intheir job role while also becomingintegrated into the
social network of the organization (Korte and Lin, 2013; Ellis et al., 2015). The stress may be
mitigated by positive encounters with coworkers and managers who can ease the transition
for the newcomerby facilitating socializationand competence-building.Onboarding is defined
as “formal and informal practices, programs, and policies enacted or engaged in by an
organization or its agents to facilitate newcomer adjustment”(Klein and Polin, 2012, p. 268).
Effective onboarding may reduce turnover intentions of newcomers (Gupta et al., 2018).
Bauer’s (2010) model, featuring four levels of onboarding –compliance, clarification,
culture and connection –delineates more sophisticated layers of newcomer integration.
Participants that experience multiple levels, particularly the connection level, report higher
levels of onboarding utility, organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Meyer and
Bartels, 2017). The Inform-Welcome-Guide framework (Klein and Heuser, 2008) identifies
three focuses for onboarding initiatives: informing the newcomer about what is needed for
success in the organization; welcoming the newcomer by fostering social integration within
the work unit; and guiding the newcomer by helping him or her to navigate the organization.
Scholars have observed a positive relationship between newcomers’quantity of onboarding
experiences and their reported levels of socialization (Bauer, 2010; Klein et al., 2015).
In particular, assigning the newcomer to either observe a colleague for a period of time or
providing a formal buddy or mentor has the greatest impact on onboarding success. Despite
the potential benefits of a positive onboarding process to organizations and newcomers, not
all new employees are welcomed in such a manner. We next turn our attention to an
alternative process for initiating newcomers into an organization –workplace hazing.
Hazing as socialization
The prescriptive methods for best practices in employee socialization serve an important
purpose to stakeholders because of the previously discussed effects on variables like
turnover, engagement, and commitment. These effects of socialization also dictate, however,
an examination on the aversive forms of socialization that exist in workplaces. If good
socialization practices yield meaningful, positive effects on these workplace variables, then
what effects may aversive socialization practices yield? If one tries to answer this question
with existing empirical research, however, very few resources exist on the effects of
workplace hazing. Although Van Maanen (1978) describes divestiture socialization tactics
similarly to workplace hazing, a review of hazing literature raises some differences between
divestiture socialization and workplace hazing. First, we briefly outline hazing literature
before addressing divestiture socialization.
Hazing is broadly defined as “any action taken to cause embarrassment, harassment, or
ridicule and risks emotional and/or physical harm to members of a group or team”
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