Change of organizational newcomers’ unmet expectations: does proactive coping matter?

Abstract

Unmet expectations are one of the major sources of strain for organizational newcomers. We explore the change of newcomers’ expectations over time and propose that proactive coping should restrict the amount of unmet expectations. We recruited participants among employees from newly opened retail stores (N = 172) and accompanied them for six months after organizational entry. The results revealed a change of unmet expectations over time. Though proactive coping was related to a lower amount of unmet expectations right after organizational entry, unmet expectations increased after six months, especially in case of high proactive coping.