Most onboarding programmes treat the entry period as a time for transferring information: role requirements, systems knowledge, process familiarisation. The socialisation research establishes that the entry period is primarily a time of cultural imprinting — the formation of lasting cognitive templates about what this place actually values, what behaviour actually produces good outcomes here, and what the gap between the stated and the actual culture is. Whatever is imprinted during this window will shape the entire subsequent employment relationship.

Van Maanen and Schein’s organisational socialisation: entry as a sensitive period

Van Maanen and Schein’s (1979) foundational research established that organisational socialisation — the learning of an organisation’s values, norms, and expected behaviours — follows a predictable trajectory with a critical early intensity. The transition from outsider to insider involves the progressive acquisition of the cultural understanding that allows competent membership, and this acquisition is most intensive and most malleable during the entry period.

The sensitivity of the entry window is not arbitrary. The new hire enters the organisation with high uncertainty — about role requirements, about relationships, about what is rewarded and what is punished — and uncertainty is the condition that makes all four sources of cultural information maximally relevant. The new hire reads the environment with heightened attention, processes every interaction for normative information, and updates their cultural model rapidly in response to what they observe. This heightened attentiveness is the mechanism that makes the entry period the most efficient window for cultural installation — and the most consequential if what is installed is inconsistent with the stated culture.

The Schein three-level model predicts what is being installed during this period. The artefacts and espoused values are explicitly communicated through formal onboarding; the basic underlying assumptions are learned through observation of what actually happens, how authority is actually exercised, and how difficult situations are actually handled. The new hire is constructing a working model of the assumption layer in real time — which is the actual culture they will carry.

The Marquis-Tilcsik imprinting mechanism: first exposures form lasting schemas

Marquis and Tilcsik’s (2013) imprinting theory predicts the specific cognitive mechanism through which the entry period’s experiences achieve their lasting effects. The first exposures to a new environment create cognitive schemas — templates for processing subsequent information — that persist because they form the interpretive frame through which all later information is evaluated. Later information that confirms the early schema is readily absorbed; information that contradicts it must overcome the schema’s organising weight.

The commercial consequence is the onboarding paradox: curated, positive onboarding that presents a selective version of the culture installs a positive early schema — which then collides with reality when the curated period ends. The new hire whose first three weeks showed them enthusiastic leadership, transparent communication, and a supportive team dynamic has formed an imprint of the culture as characterised by these features. When the fourth week reveals political decision-making, opaque communications, and competitive team dynamics, the experience is not merely disappointing — it is a schema violation with the emotional intensity that the psychological contract literature identifies as quasi-irreversible in its damage to engagement.

The new hire who observes in their first week that conflict avoidance is practised regardless of the stated commitment to candour has formed a different imprint — one that is consistent with the actual culture they will experience going forward. This imprint produces lower initial enthusiasm and higher long-term engagement, because the schema formed is accurate to the reality that will sustain it.

The psychological contract formation window: the 90 days that install the implicit agreement

Rousseau’s (1989) psychological contract research predicts that the entry period is the window in which the psychological contract is most actively and intensively formed. The new hire enters the organisation with latent expectations — about career development, about how contributions will be recognised, about the quality of the management relationship, about what the organisation implicitly promises in exchange for commitment. These expectations are not yet crystallised into a contract; they are forming in response to the organisational information the entry period provides.

What the new hire observes during entry is the primary input into the contract formation process: who gets recognised, for what, and in what ways; how the manager responds to early performance and early difficulty; what the gap is between the job description and the actual role; whether the founding vision the organisation presented in recruitment is visible in the daily operations they encounter. Each observation is a contract installation event — adding terms to the implicit agreement that will govern the employment relationship.

The entry period is the most consequential window for this formation because the contract formed earliest carries the greatest weight in subsequent contract evaluation. The new hire who forms a positive, accurate psychological contract in the first 90 days is the most likely to sustain engagement across a multi-year tenure. The one who forms either an inaccurate positive contract (curated onboarding) or an explicitly negative contract (adverse early experiences) is the most likely to disengage or exit within twelve months.

Bandura’s social learning applied to the new hire’s maximum uncertainty

Bandura’s (1977) social learning mechanism predicts the specific learning process the new hire uses during entry. The new hire is uncertain about the culture’s actual requirements — which makes them maximally dependent on observational learning from the highest-authority models available. They are not passively absorbing information; they are actively reading the senior figures in their environment for normative signals, with the heightened attention that maximum uncertainty produces.

The founder or senior leader’s behaviour during the entry period therefore has disproportionate installation weight: the new hire is attending to it more carefully than they will at any subsequent point in their tenure. The founder who models transparent communication, genuine curiosity about the new hire’s perspective, and honest engagement with the company’s difficulties during the entry period is installing these features through the most efficient cultural transmission window available. The founder who is disengaged from onboarding, delegates it entirely to HR, and assumes the formal materials will do the cultural work is missing the highest-leverage installation moment in the employment relationship.

The Asch conformity mechanism and new hire norm adoption

Asch’s (1956) conformity research predicts the social pressure dimension of entry period norm adoption. The new hire faces maximum social uncertainty — they do not know the established group’s norms and are therefore dependent on the group’s behaviour as a guide. This is precisely the uncertainty condition that Asch’s research identifies as most potent for norm adoption: when the group’s behaviour is the primary available reference for what is correct, the new hire will adopt observed group norms regardless of whether they align with the stated values.

The new hire who observes that meetings consistently run over time, that people frequently work through lunch, and that late evening messages are routinely sent and responded to will adopt these norms — not because they were required to but because the descriptive norm of the group is the most available guide to what is appropriate here. This is the mechanism through which cultural expectations are transmitted without explicit communication — and the mechanism through which dysfunctional norms self-replicate through successive cohorts of new hires.

Books worth reading on this

The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins is the most directly applicable available account of the entry period as a decisive window for establishing the mental models, relationships, and cultural understanding that determine long-term performance and engagement. Watkins’s account of what the new hire needs to learn, from whom, and in what sequence during the first 90 days maps directly onto the Van Maanen-Schein socialisation and Rousseau psychological contract formation mechanisms this article describes.

If the dynamics described here are significantly affecting your wellbeing, speaking with a psychologist is the right next step. UK: Samaritans (116 123, free, 24/7). Mind (0300 123 3393). BACP: bacp.co.uk/search/Therapists. Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741 (US, UK, Canada, Ireland). International: internationaltherapistdirectory.com.

This article is for educational and informational purposes only. Sources: Van Maanen, J. & Schein, E.H. (1979), Toward a Theory of Organizational Socialization, Research in Organizational Behavior, 1, 209–264. Schein, E.H. (1985/2017), Organizational Culture and Leadership, Jossey-Bass. Marquis, C. & Tilcsik, A. (2013), Imprinting: Toward a Multilevel Theory, Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 195–245. Rousseau, D.M. (1989), Psychological and Implied Contractual Obligations, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2(2), 121–139. Bandura, A. (1977), Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall. Asch, S.E. (1956), Studies of Independence and Conformity, Psychological Monographs, 70(9). Watkins, M. (2013), The First 90 Days, Harvard Business Review Press. Weber, D. (2021), Onboarding Matters, Donna Weber.