The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Training, Development, and Performance Improvement

5Transfer of Socialization

Alan M. Saks

Introduction

In the past several decades, a great deal has been learned about the science and practice of training and development and organizational socialization. There have been numerous reviews and meta-analyses in the training (Arthur et al., 2003; Brown & Sitzmann, 2011; Salas, Weaver, & Shuffler, 2012; Tharenou, Saks, & Moore, 2007) and organizational socialization literatures (Chao, 2012; Cooper-Thomas & Anderson, 2006; Saks & Gruman, 2012). As a result, we know a great deal about how to design and deliver effective training programs and how to socialize new hires so that they become effective members of the organization. However, even though both of these important areas of human resources management involve learning as a primary objective, the research on organizational socialization has paid little attention to what has been learned from the training literature. This is unfortunate as research on organizational socialization can benefit a great deal from the training literature, especially in areas such as training design, training evaluation, and most importantly the transfer of training (Saks & Ashforth, 1997).

In this chapter, I focus on the implications of the transfer of training for organizational socialization. I will review the literature on organizational socialization and the transfer of training and then argue that research and practice on organizational socialization can be significantly improved and advanced by applying ...