The moderating effect of job-embeddedness on the relationships between organizational socialization with employee's performance, and with well-being of salespersons in Thailand

Abstract

Organizational socialization and job-embeddedness are among the tools and interventions that have long been used by practitioners to help newcomers better adjust to corporate culture (Cooper-Thomas & Anderson, 2005) and increase employees’ retention (Mitchell, Holtom & Lee, 2001) respectively. This study examines the relationships between organizational socialization with employee’s performance and organizational socialization with well-being of salespersons in Bangkok, Thailand. It also aims at exploring the moderating effect of job-embeddedness on those relationships. Understanding the relationships and the moderating effect of the variables as mentioned above can provide corporates with deeper insights on how to enhance employees’ productivity and capability. Data were collected from 422 salespersons of consumer product, cosmetics, consumer real estates, and whole sale pharmaceutical companies in Thailand. Data analyses showed statistically significant and positive relationships between organizational socialization with employee’s performance and organizational socialization with well-being. The analysis also indicated the moderating effect of job-embeddedness on the relationship between organizational socialization with employee’s performance, but not on the relationship between organizational socialization and well-being. Further detailed analysis also showed that the link component of job-embeddedness had the strongest effect among the three with sacrifice being the second, and fit being the least. Future research can be performed to investigate whether occupation uniqueness in salespersons or Eastern culture of Thailand may play an important role in these findings.