Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 108
Onboarding ends. Guesswork continues.
Onboarding quality depends on whether newcomers can obtain accurate role and norm information without paying avoidable social costs
Premise
A newcomer needs information precisely when revealing uncertainty may feel most costly. Formal onboarding can explain policies and tasks while leaving consequential questions unresolved: how a supervisor defines urgency, which rule is enforced strictly, where informal authority sits, or how performance is actually judged. Few questions do not mean little uncertainty; people may be learning intensively through less visible routes.
Vernon D. Miller and Fredric M. Jablin’s 1991 model reframes organizational entry as active communication under uncertainty. Newcomers choose how to acquire information while assessing its importance, the source who holds it, and the likely reaction to exposing a knowledge gap. For executives, the pattern of tactics reveals whether the organization has made authoritative clarification accessible and socially safe.
What the model is: Newcomer Information-Seeking Tactics in Knowledge →
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- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryAnalytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
- DomainOrganization & Structure
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Analytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
Organizes dimensions, distinctions, types or questions so that a situation can be examined systematically. A framework supplies structure, a typology distinguishes forms, and a heuristic offers a usable way to orient judgment.
- KnowledgeNewcomer Information-Seeking Tactics