© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. 692 Journal of Public Administration Research And Theory, 2017, 692–709 doi:10.1093/jopart/mux007 Article Advance Access publication May 9, 2017 Article The Pathways That Make New Public Employees Committed: A Dual-Process Model Triggered by Newcomer Learning Filipe Sobral,* Liliane Furtado,* Gazi Islam † *Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration, FGV; † Grenoble Ecole de Management & Insper Address correspondence to the author at filipe.sobral@fgv.br . Abstract The current article proposes a dual-process model to explain how newcomer learning, an out- come of the early socialization experiences of new public employees, leads to organizational commitment in public organizations. Specifcally, we argue that newcomer learning triggers two distinct psychological mechanisms: an affective pathway, leading to job satisfaction and ultimately to affective commitment, and a cognitive pathway, leading to psychological contract fulfllment and normative commitment. We conducted a two-wave survey with 728 newcomers in the Brazilian Internal Revenue Service to test this dual-pathway model. Our fndings support the hypothesis that these affective and cognitive pathways constitute independent channels in mediating the impact of newcomer learning on public servants’ organizational commitment. Moreover, we observe that the affective component of commitment is triggered by job satisfac- tion, whereas the normative component is more closely linked with psychological contract fulfll- ment. Our fndings highlight the importance of providing newcomers with the knowledge about organizational values, formal procedures and informal norms and skills to perform their roles during the early socialization period to strengthen their commitment to public organizations and ultimately to the public interest. Introduction Public sector organizations confront challenges in generating employee commitment to public service as they endeavor to serve various constituencies and to address conficting expectations and goals (Pandey and Wright 2006; Rainey and Jung 2010; Sun, Peng and Pandey 2014). Such ambiguities can erode the sense of commitment to public service (Park and Rainey 2007; Stazyk, Pandey and Wright 2011), a key driver of pub- lic sector outcomes (Balfour and Wechsler 1996; Kim 2005; Perry and Wise 1990). Public administration scholarship has sought to identify the predictors of organizational commitment (e.g., Kim 2012; Lee and Kim 2011; Moynihan and Pandey 2007). Most studies have focused primarily on the institutional context of public organizations, includ- ing the goal and role ambiguity (e.g., Jung and Rainey 2011, Rainey and Bozeman 2000). These factors, often intrinsic to public organizations and diffcult to change (Chun and Rainey 2005; Jung 2013, 2014), have been found to decrease public employees’ commitment (Jong and Ford 2016; Jung and Rainey 2011). However, organizations may offset such losses to some extent by relying on organizational strategies to provide direction when organizational goals and roles lack suffcient clar- ity (Stazyk and Goerdel 2011). Organizational sociali- zation, involving learning and adjustment processes (Ashforth, Sluss and Saks 2007b), supports such clarity and thus potentially acts as an important driver of com- mitment to public organizations (Romzek 1990). Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article/27/4/692/3806894 by guest on 08 August 2022