Understanding newcomers’ attrition in the Belgian army through the lens of psychological contract and organizational socialization.

Conducted in the Belgian army, the current study aims at investigating three categories of variables likely to influence the organizational socialization process of newcomers, namely realistic job preview given to applicants before hiring, features of socialization tactics and training devices used after entry and quality of social exchanges developed with other newcomers and with hierarchical supervisors and trainers. Moreover, the effects of these variables on work satisfaction, organizational commitment and intent to stay are supposed to be mediated by the fulfilment of the psychological contract between newcomers and army and by three proximal outcomes of socialization: role ambiguity, group integration and organizational culture acceptance. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 144 recruits, surveyed by questionnaires at two times, at the entry and after 8 weeks at the end of an intensive military training. Results highlight the key role of psychological contract and social exchange variables in the socialization process.