Onboarding employees in a fast-growing and knowledge-intensive firm
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2022
Författare
Karlsson, Niklas
Ebers, Lucas
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Purpose: The purpose was to gain insights into a previously unexplored niche in
literature but, most importantly, facilitate and make practitioners aware of the challenges when introducing newcomers effectively during organizational growth.
RQ: What are the challenges to decrease time to productivity when formalizing
the onboarding process in a fast-growing and knowledge-intensive firm?
Design/methodology/approach: We applied an interactive research approach,
that led to the discovery of an increased time to productivity due to organizational
growth. Uncertainty of causes directed the study towards the perception of newcomers. A qualitative research strategy was applied to answer the research question
by collecting data from semi-structured interviews with participants who have experienced an onboarding process. The interactive approach allowed us to participate
as newcomers during the execution of the study.
Findings: Time to productivity was found to be two-sided, domain-specific and
company-specific. The combination of these two seems to be the total time to
productivity. Further results are presented in three factors affecting time to productivity. First, it was found that knowledge is becoming fragmented in domains,
thereby challenging to obtain. Second, connection and social bonds cross-teams are
weak leading to lower knowledge transfer between domains. Third, the difficulties
of acquiring information and knowledge due to the organizational informality, i.e.,
lack of documentation and insufficient access to key person’s.
Conclusion: When formalizing the onboarding process in a fast-growing and
knowledge-intensive firm, it is important to cultivate and nurture the social exchange
between employees and thereby maintain the organizational knowledge transfer.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Challenges , Communities of practice , Company-specific knowledge , Domain-specific knowledge , Formalization , Onboarding , Organizational growth , Organizational informality , Time to productivity