Organizational socialization as kin-work: A psychoanalytic model of settling into a new job. (March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gilmore, Sarah; Harding, Nancy
• Is Part Of: Human relations. Volume 75:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 583
• Page End: 605
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Subjects: embeddedness -- kin-work -- memory work -- psychoanalysis -- socialization -- uncanny; Social sciences -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1177/0018726720964255
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0018-7267

Abstract

Socialization, the transition from newcomer to embedded organizational citizen, is an inevitable feature of organizational life. It is often a painful and traumatic experience, but why this is so, and how its difficulties can be ameliorated, is not well understood. This article addresses this issue by developing a new person-centred model of socialization. We introduce the concept of kin-work, i.e. the replication of one's first experiences of becoming part of a family, to explain how 'successful' socialization is achieved. Drawing on the methodology of memory work and psychoanalytical theories of object relations, we illustrate how entry into new jobs involves the unconscious re-enactment in adult life of the infant's initiation into the family. On entry as a stranger to a new organization, one's sense of self is fractured; processes of kin-work knit the pieces back together and one develops a sense of personhood and being at home. However, there is a sting in this tale: the homely contains its uncanny, unhomely opposite, so socialization is always ambivalent – one can never be at home in this place that feels like home.