A self-enhancement perspective on organizational socialization: Newcomer core self-evaluations, job crafting, and the role of leaders’ developmental coaching

Building on a self-enhancement perspective, we connect job crafting and organizational socialization research and propose that, based on their core self-evaluations (CSEs), newcomers use job crafting to create a resource-rich and stimulating work environment and construct a sense of organizational insider status during socialization. We hypothesize a positive reciprocal relationship between job crafting and insider status, and we also propose that leaders’ developmental coaching strengthens the positive effects of CSEs on job crafting and insider status. Survey data were collected from a four-wave sample of 125 newcomers at various organizations in China. The results showed that 1) positive CSEs were associated with more job crafting behaviours as well as higher perceptions of insider status, 2) job crafting and insider status were positively and reciprocally related to one another over time, and 3) leaders’ developmental coaching moderated the positive effect of CSEs on insider status, but not on job crafting, such that the association between CSEs and insider status was positive for higher levels of developmental coaching and non-significant for lower levels of leaders’ developmental coaching. These findings reveal a self-enhancement process during organizational socialization and the important role of leaders’ developmental coaching in such a process.