The effect of the organizational socialization on organizational commitment and turnover intention with regard to moderate effect of career aspirations intention

Article history: Received June 28, 2013 Received in revised format 19 October 2013 Accepted 20 December 2013 Available online December 24 2013 This paper discusses the influence of the Organizational socialization, on Organizational commitment and turnover intention with regard to moderate effect of career aspirations intention. Data were collected via a questionnaire from employees of east branches of social security organization of Tehran. Path analysis of data from 155 respondents was used to test 5 hypotheses. The results show organizational socialization has positive effect on organizational commitment, but negative effect on turnover intention moreover organizational commitment and career aspiration intention have positive effect on turnover intention. Further research should examine the different dimensions of macro-environmental condition on turnover intention.


Introduction
In human resource literature, turnover or employee turnover is associated with a behavior that an employee wants to stay or quit the workplace.This process of organizational socialization is a performance management concern with organizational commitment and job satisfaction, which are associated with turnover intention.It exerts a surprising effect on employees' performance and organizational stability.This action can be volunteer or involuntary and many reasons may lead to turnover intention or behavior such as multiple job opportunities, financial situation, job dissatisfaction, globalization, etc.The primary purpose of socialization is to provide staff with accurate data in terms of a realistic job preview when entering the organization.Effective socialization can have long lasting productive impacts on employees by increasing personorganization fit and person-job fit as well as organizational commitment.Socialization can also offer its advantages by reducing uncertainty.Organizations increasingly realized that employee was the key for their success and view employer-employee relationship as a mutually beneficial process.Organizational socialization can be described as how an organization addresses the interests of its employees and how that was reflected in its interest.Organization socialization helps both the organization and its employees to meet their requirements.Voluntary turnover cause significant direct expenses; replacement, recruitment and selection, temporary staff, management time and also indirect costs; morale, pressure on remaining staff, expenses of learning, product/service quality, organizational memory as well as the loss of social capital (Dess & Shaw, 2001).Due to the cost of the employee turnover for the most organizations, this paper evaluates the effect of some factor including organizational socialization, career aspiration intention and organizational commitment on turnover intention of the employee of social security organization of Iran.When employees joint an organization, they must learn to understand and cope with new environment, new job, roles and culture.The method in which this happens is known as organizational socialization.The organizational socialization of employees is important because it influences on the success of organization.Moreover, employee commitment is important because high levels of commitment may lead to various desirable organizational outcomes.For instance, there is a positive relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005), motivation (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990), job performance (Meyer et al., 1989).On the other hand, there is negative relationship between organizational commitment and turnover (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005), counterproductive behavior (Dalal, 2005;Riketta, 2002).The feeling of growth and personal development in large organization may also lead to choose career aspiration intention as a third predictor factor of turnover intention.Because of changes in economic, social, governmental policies and technological conditions, employees are increasingly facing with various problems in retaining in commonplace.This, coupled with employee's orientations and expectations to be treated as professionals, has caused considerable tensions and strains in the employee-management relationship followed turnover intention.This calls for changes in employee management styles to maintain motivation and productivity also implies that the organization should have a process for encouraging and planning the employee's professional development,

Organizational socialization
The socialization of individuals in organizations is the process through which individuals learn and identify organizational and unit values, expectations about job-related behaviors and the social knowledge necessary to assume roles as productive members (Bigliardi et al., 2005).Van Maanen and Schein (1979) developed the most popular typology of organizational socialization, their typology consists of six bipolar tactics.The tactic of collective (vs.individual) socialization is associated with whether newcomers go through common learning experiences, designed to produce uniform responses to situations, or idiosyncratic experiences that permit a variety of responses.Formal (vs.informal) socialization concerns whether newcomers are isolated from other organizational members while they learn their roles, or whether they become part of work groups immediately upon occupying their new positions and learn on-the-job.Sequential (vs.random) socialization refers to whether newcomers receive clear guidelines regarding the sequence of activities and experiences they will encounter or an ambiguous sequence.Fixed (vs.variable) socialization pertains to whether newcomers receive detailed knowledge of the timetables associated with completing each stage in the socialization process, or no such information about completion of a stage of learning.Serial (vs.disjunctive) socialization refers to whether veteran organizational members act as role models for newcomers, or whether newcomers are required to make sense of their experiences on their own.Finally, investiture (vs.divestiture) involves either confirming and reinforcing newcomers' self-identity and providing social support or stripping them away through negative communication and re-establishing them in the form the organization desires (Gruman et al., 2006).Chao et al. (1994) defined organizational socialization contents, which have been positively and significantly associated with job satisfaction.Role ambiguity and role conflicts can be of the outcomes of non-availability of organizational socialization.The main constructs of role stressors, including role ambiguity and role conflict have received a considerable attention, especially in the review literature.Role stressors are often conceptualized as consisting of two related but distinct constructs role ambiguity and role conflict.Individuals in organizations are subject to conflict, whether conscious or unconscious, and the effect of conflict is unavoidable, either positive or negative.For organizations, reduced productivity, high turnover, frequent tardiness and absenteeism are common consequences of workplace stressors.Based on the results, it is indicated that role ambiguity and role conflict influenced job performance.Taormina (1997), fits all these dimensions into four generalized constructs that are used by Bigliardi et al. (2005) and in the present study: (1) Training received; (2) The employees understand of their role and of the company; (3) Co-worker support; and (4) Future prospects within the employer.

Organizational commitment
In organizational behavior and organizational psychology, organizational commitment is the individual's psychological attachment to the organization.Organizational commitment predicts work variables such as turnover and job performance.Some of the factors such as role stress, empowerment, job insecurity and employability have been shown to be connected to a worker's sense of organizational commitment.Bateman and Strasser (1984) described that organizational commitment could be described as the loyalty of employees towards the organization, willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization and their desire to maintain as the member of the organization.Meyer and Allen (1991) identified three types of commitment; affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment.Affective commitment is described as the emotional attachment, identification, and involvement that an employee has with its organization and goals (Mowday et al, 1997, Meyer & Allen, 1993;O'Reily & Chatman 1986).
Continuance commitment is the willingness to remain in a firm because of the investment that the employee has with "nontransferable" investments.Nontransferable investments incorporate things such as retirement, relationships with other employees, or things that are special to the organization.Continuance commitment also incorporates factors such as years of employment or benefits that the employee may receive and they are unique to the organization (Reichers, 1985).
Normative commitment is the feeling of obligation that the employee has to the workplace (Bolon, 1997).Weiner discussed normative commitment as being a "generalized value of loyalty and duty" (Weiner, 1982).Meyer and Allen (1991) defined this kind of commitment as "a feeling of obligation".It is argued that normative commitment is only natural because of the way we have been raised in society.Normative commitment can be described by other commitments such as marriage, family, religion, etc.Therefore, when it comes to one's commitment to their own place of employment, they often feel like they have a moral obligation to the organization (Wiener, 1982).Meyer et al. (1993) specified that generally the research shows that those employees with a strong affective commitment most likely remain with an organization because they want to, those with a strong continuance commitment remain because they have to, and those with a normative commitment remain because they fell that they have to.

Career opportunities
Price and Mueller (1981) defined career opportunity as "the perceived availability of job alternatives in the labor market".Increased opportunities for alternative employment may reduce intent to stay and increases turnover (Tanwir & Adnan, 2011).Weimer (1985) asserted that the attractiveness of an outside offer was positively associated with voluntary faculty departure.Matier (1990) also noted that external "pull factors" was associated with faculty decisions to leave an institution.However, the external "pull factors" was less salient than the internal "push factors" (e.g., working conditions).In contrast, Zhou and Volkwein (2004) expected but did not find that labor market variables influencing faculty intent to leave (Tanwir & Adnan, 2011).In this research career opportunity is divided in two group, "internal career anchor" and "external career opportunities".
The concept of the "internal careers" is the psychological attractions that serve to guide, to stabilize and to integrate an individual's career.According to Schein (1996), most people form a strong selfconcept hold their internal career together even as they experience dramatic changes in their external career.This self-concept is called a "career anchor" and understanding of it helps to illuminate how people made career choices.A person's career anchor is his/her self-concept consisting of selfperceived talents and abilities, basic values, and, most important, the evolved sense of motives and needs as they pertain to the career.Career anchors only evolve as one gain occupational and life experience.The career anchor influences career choices, influences decisions to leave, determines an individual's view of the future, and shapes employee reactions to work experiences (Bigliardi et al., 2005).This study considers nine internal career orientations (Schein, 1975;Bigliardi et al., 2005): (1) Autonomy/independence: to do things in our own way, (2) Job security: to organize career in such a way that security is guaranteed, (3) Geographical stability: to keep the working geographical area unchanged, (4) Technical-functional competence: to be an expert in a specific field, (5) General managerial competence: to be a manager, (6) Entrepreneurial creativity: to create a new business by developing a new product or service, (7) Service or dedication to a cause: to help people, (8) Pure challenge: to overcome obstacles, (9) Life style: to develop a life-style that integrates family, personal and career concerns, with preoccupation for self-development.Bigligardi et al. (2005) believed that external career opportunities were associated with the extent in which an organization provides support to the above nine internal career anchors.Information on one's internal career anchors will allow an organization to restructure jobs to respond to individual needs (Schneer & Reitman, 1997).The perceived organizational career situations concern the objective categories, which describe job titles, promotions working environments and status.If an employee remains satisfied, there must be personal motivation (internal career anchors) as well as eligible external (organizational) career situations (Jiang et al., 2001).This idea of a fit between the employee and the work environment has been examined in the context of stress (Shin, 2004), and job design (Hackman & Oldham, 1975).The potential consequences of a lack of employee job fit include anxiety, strain, job dissatisfaction, and turnover, among others.Bilgiardi et al. (2005) examined the relationships between "external career opportunities and "internal" career desires.This study examines the relationship between career opportunities and turnover intention.

Turnover intention
A turnover intention is a mental decision overcoming between an employee approach with reference to a job to continue or quit the job (Hussain & Asif, 2012).Turnover intentions are the instant connection to turnover behavior (Boles et al., 2007).Indirect costs of turnover include diminution in morale among remaining staff, work overload, and loss of social capital.Employee turnover can be both voluntary and involuntary.This study focuses on voluntary turnover, in which the employee desires to leave the organization of his own preference, it could be taken to escape from the negative experiences in the work place, to find better opportunities that are more satisfying or to catch better financial situation.

Research hypothesis development
From the literature, our research hypotheses are derived as follows: Gundry (1993) reported that most of the time engineers complain about shortage of clarity in their work related expectations, this fact maybe problematic for the organization, which does not have any clarified role and engineers in this organization may search employment elsewhere.Bilgiardi et al. (2005) asserted that organizational socialization had a significant and positive effect on external career opportunities.
H 1 .The level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the career aspirations intentions.H 1a .The level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the external career opportunities provided by their organization.H 1b .The level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the internal career anchors.
Individuals have various kinds of needs, which must be satisfied.The employees with lower satisfaction levels on identity, job security, and technical advancement often have a lower level of career satisfaction and a higher rate of turnover (Herzberg et al., 1959).Bigliardi et al. (2005) believed that the extent of one's "internal career anchors" should be viewed as an individual's career motivations and they assert that external opportunities provided by an organization was negatively associated with turnover intentions.
H 2 .The career aspirations intention is negatively associated with the turnover intentions.H 2a. External career opportunities are negatively associated with the turnover intentions.H 2b .internal career anchors are negatively associated with the turnover intentions.Greenhaus et al. (1990) discovered that organizational socialization had a significant impact on engineers' career turnover.Bilgiardi et al. (2005) showed the negative impact of organizational socialization on turnover intention.
H 3 .The level of organizational socialization is negatively associated with the turnover intentions.Kleine et al. (2005) noted that realism of pre entry knowledge and agent helpfulness, the two indicators of early socialization experiences, were associated with greater role clarity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.On the other hand, Filstad (2011) reported that there was no significant relationship between organizational socialization tactics on the context and content dimensions and affective organizational commitment.That means that facilitating formal training and timetables for career development does not necessarily lead to organizational commitment.
H 4 .The level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the organizational commitment Hussain and Asif (2012) asserted that turnover intentions of employees were dependent on the organizational commitment and perceived organizational support; further organizational commitment and perceived organizational support had significant negative impact on the turnover intentions of the employees.
The other scholars find that Employees with low levels of commitment, but high levels of support from the organization, are less likely to leave the organization (Perryer et al., 2010).Moreover, organizational commitment is negatively associated with turnover intention (Joo & Park, 2009).
H 5 .The Organizational commitment is negatively associated with the turnover intentions.

Research method
This study is a descriptive-survey research and based on objective perspective, it is an applied research.The required data has been collected through questionnaires.The Questionnaire design in this paper includes four major parts, which are organizational socialization, career aspiration intention, organizational commitment and turnover intention.In order to measure organizational socialization the perspectives of (Taormina, 1997) are used.Career aspiration intention was divided in to two parts; external career opportunities and internal career anchors and measurements for this part are developed based on (Schein, 1975;Bilgiardi et al., 2005).For measuring organizational commitment, this paper takes reference from Cook and Wall (1980).In addition, turnover intention is measured via three items developed by Mobley et al. (1978).The study uses a five-point Likert scale, with scale from "1" (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree).Sample target of this research were employees of east branches of social security organization of Tehran.Selective organization in Tehran is compromised nineteen east branches where 260 employees worked there.According to Krejcie & Morgan's table, sample size was defined 155.Proportional stratified sampling and systematic random sampling were applied.In the first step, based on proportional stratified sampling, sharing and distribution of questionnaires were accomplished based on the numbers of branches.Afterwards, systematic random sampling was accomplished in front of the employee's entrance gate to choose the respondents.With regard to the size of sample, 170 questionnaires were distributed, 162 of which were efficient.Data collection lasted for 7 days in December, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. SPSS software were applied for analysis and comparison of data.Cronbach's α value was used to test the reliability of questionnaire and path analysis was done to test the hypothesis of the research.

Data analysis
To assess the reliability of questionnaire, Cronbach's α value was applied, the least significant reliability for research questionnaires is .88.Therefore, this questionnaire was recognized reliable.The content validity was used in this paper to examine the validity of the questionnaire.Content validity is performed based on the researcher's professional ability to judge subjectively if the selected scale can measure the researcher's intended-to-measure feature correctly.The dimensions and items explored in this study are based on relevant theory.This inventory or measuring item was used by scholars globally.To test the hypotheses of the research path analysis was used.(1) Testing of career aspiration intention The effect of organizational socialization on career aspiration intention: based on the testing result from Table 1, explanatory power is .248,p-value which defines good fitness is 0.000< 0.05, which indicates that it is statistically significant.It also means organizational socialization has a positive effect on career aspiration intention and t-value is 5.595.Since t value positively surpasses critical value's 2.58, it can be claimed that at 99% confidence level, the organizational socialization has a significantly positive effect on career aspiration intention.Therefore, H 1 is strongly supported.
(2) Testing of organizational commitment The effect of organizational socialization on organizational commitment: based on the testing result from Table 2, explanatory power is 0.322, p-value which defines good fitness is 0.000< 0.05, which indicates that it is statistically significant.It also means organizational socialization has a positive effect on organizational commitment and t-value is 6.724.Since t value positively surpasses critical value's 2.58, it can be claimed that at 99% confidence level, the organizational socialization has a significantly positive effect on organizational commitment.Therefore, H 4 is strongly supported.
(3) Testing of turnover intention The effect of career aspiration intention on turnover intention: based on the testing result from Table 3, explanatory power is .642,p-value which defines good fitness is 0.058> 0.05, which shows, it does not reach statistical significant.It also means career aspiration intention does not have negative effect on turnover intention and t-value is 1.919.Since t value could not positively surpass critical value's 1.96 or 2.58, the second hypothesis of research is not supported.
The effect of organizational socialization on turnover intention: based on the testing result from Table 3, explanatory power is .642,p-value, which defines good fitness is 0.000< 0.05, which shows, it reaches statistical significant.It also means organizational socialization has a negative effect on turnover intention and t value is 7.993.Since t value positively surpasses critical value's 2.58, it can be claimed that at 99% confidence level, the organizational socialization has a significantly negative effect on turnover intention.Therefore, H 3 is strongly supported.
The effect of organizational commitment on turnover intention: based on the testing result from Table 3, explanatory power is .642,p-value which defines good fitness is 0.138> 0.05, which shows, it does not reach statistical significant.It also means organizational commitment does not have negative effect on turnover intention and t-value is 1.494.Since t-value could not positively surpass critical value's 1.96 or 2.58, the last hypothesis of research; H 5 is not supported.

Conclusion and findings
The verification of the hypotheses in this paper leads to five conclusion: (1) the level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the career aspirations intentions; (2) the career aspirations intention is not negatively associated with the turnover intentions; (3) the level of organizational socialization is negatively associated with the turnover intentions; (4) the level of organizational socialization is positively associated with the organizational commitment: (5) organizational commitment is not negatively associated with the turnover intentions.
Due to the cost of the turnover for the organization in variety aspects; psychologically or financially in this research is tried to evaluate some factors which influence this phenomena in organization.As was mentioned, organizational socialization with having a an negative effect on turnover intention is a considerable factor for policymaker and manager in the workplace and it is suggested, manager with strengthening of employees organizational socialization dimensions prevents turnover, reemployment costs, training expenses and psychological pressure on employees.The two other evaluated variables on opposition of researchers' expectation have positive impacts on turnover intention.It means, despite the fact that employees have low level of organizational commitment or having low level of career aspiration intention finally do not want to leave the organization.
Researchers believe that it is because of macro-environmental condition of country and note that in recent years with regard to the international pressure, the sanctions, and some inefficiencies in managing economical projects that lead to loose job opportunities, closure of small and private business, increase unemployment rate and the ambiguity of finding suitable job, most of the employees prefer to keep their current job.On the other hand, the statistical population belongs to the largest insurance agencies of country that approximately one-third of countries' population is insured by that organization and assumes that this organization is stable.As a consequence, the employees with having low level of organizational commitment or low level of career aspiration intention finally do not want to leave the organization.

Table 1
Result of linear regression analysis of Organizational socialization and Career aspiration intention

Table 2
Result of linear regression analysis of Organizational socialization and organizational commitment

Table 3
Result of linear regression analysis of three independent variables and turnover intention