Bridging Academic and Administrative Worlds: Organizational Socialization and Knowledge Management in Higher Education
Keywords:
Organizational Socialization, Onboarding, Knowledge Management, Higher EducationAbstract
This paper examines onboarding challenges for academic and administrative staff at universities, addressing the critical intersection of knowledge transfer and organizational socialization in higher education institutions. Drawing on socialization resources theory, we investigate how to provide organizational newcomers with resources and buffer stressors to enhance engagement and retention.
Our objective is to identify key challenges that academic and administrative newcomers and the respective organizations face and to develop solutions that foster newcomer adjustment and knowledge exchange between academic and administrative domains.
We conducted a case study at a German university of applied sciences with 23 semi-structured interviews with newcomers and other stakeholders to identify the biggest challenges and stressors during organizational socialization. The case study was supplemented by a focus group discussion with eight experts from diverse universities. This methodological triangulation allowed for both depth and breadth in understanding onboarding challenges across different contexts. The data were analyzed by applying thematic analysis.
Our analysis revealed critical challenges, including siloed knowledge domains, insufficient mechanisms for tacit knowledge transfer, the high teaching workload, and exaggerated self-expectations of new faculty. The focus group experts identified promising solutions, including an arrival phase for new faculty with reduced teaching obligations, digital knowledge repositories, and welcome events.
This paper contributes to organizational socialization theory by dismantling the barriers to knowledge transfer and successful adjustment in higher education settings. The findings suggest that effective onboarding in universities requires solutions that bridge the academic-administrative divide and provide specific onboarding tactics for each professional group.
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