An Empirical Research of Influencing Factors about Entering Adaptation of
University Graduates
Qian-bing Li1, Su-ning Huang2
School of Economics and Management, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huai’an, 223001, PRC
(liqianbing1996@163.com, huangsuning@sina.com)
Abstract - It has become a research focus about how to
enhance entering adaptation ability of university graduates
and how to help them change from “people inside school” to
“people inside organization”. However, the previous
researches have emphasized especially on practice
education, and ignored some influencing factors of the
university graduates themselves and of the employing
organizations. So, this paper does an empirical study of
influencing factors of the entering adaptation of the
university graduates themselves and the employing
organizations through a survey on some graduates of a local
university. The result shows that the gender, self-adjusting
and vocational recognition of university graduates have
negative correlation with their entering adaptation ability.
The organization related factors such as position promotion
and employee training have positive correlation with
entering adaptation ability, but colleagues’ guidance has
negative correlation with entering adaptation ability1.
Keywords - university graduates, entering adaptation,
influencing factors
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the question of the working ability
and the entering adaptation ability of university graduates
has gradually aroused the concern of the society.
According to the monthly follow-up survey conducted by
Michael, named "the fresh employee", 97 percent of 2009
university graduates suffered occupational problems, of
which a large extent was caused by their unsuitableness
when started their career. During their early career, the
graduates will usually experience an adaptation process
marked by excited - lost - confused – relieved [1]. When
entering the areas of work, the graduates have to face
things including the change of role and environment, the
complexity of human relationships and the differences
between expectations and the reality, which needs
graduates to have the ability to adapt it psychologically
and physiologically. But many graduates can not
1
This article is funded by the Humanities and Social
Sciences Planning Fund project of the Ministry of
Education, “Chinese family business employee’s
perception of organizational politics and the mechanism
for the performance” (10YJA630083), and is also funded
by the Education Department of Jiangsu Province’s “Blue
Project”.
effectively self-adapted, and fail to get the concern and
guidance from the colleagues, resulting in greater
psychological gap and pressure, and hence a high
resignation rate. This graduates’ unsuitableness when
starting career not only directly affect the quality of
employment and personal growth, but also put the
employers into the cycle of recruitment - loss - rerecruitment, which seriously affects the operational
efficiency of the organizations. The adaptation of new
employees is a common problem faced by the
organizations. The researches on the new employees’
adaptation are now mostly conducted in North America or
the English-speaking countries. China's research in this
area is still in its infancy, mainly conducted by colleges
and universities, which focuses on how to improve
students' practical ability through teaching. Due to the
political, economic and cultural differences, if the
conclusions reached by the Western countries were used
in the context of Chinese culture without any tests, it may
cause negative consequences. Therefore, based on the
local situation, the study aims at this special group’s
employment adaptation has important theoretical and
practical significance. This paper investigated part of the
graduates of a local university, and studied the factors
existing in the students themselves and the employing
organizations that might impact the graduates’ adaptation.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH
HYPOTHESIS
As an important aspect of the adaptation to the
society, the entering adaptation to employment means the
harmony formed and maintained between vocational
attitude, vocational ability, vocational relationship and the
occupational labor and the environment, guiding and
governing by positive and vocational values [2]. It is the
progressive realization of the employees and
organizations in the interactive process [3]. Due to the
differences of the ability of individual self-adaptation, the
individually held values, psychological tendencies and
experience, some of the individual characteristics become
important factors affecting university graduates’ entering
adaptation. In addition, according to the theory of
organizational socialization, organization environmental
factors like the effective guidance of the organization, the
concern of colleagues can effectively stimulate the
potential of college students to be actively engaged to
work and accelerate the pace of adaptation. As a result,
we built one model based on factors of the students
themselves and the organizational environment (Fig. 1).
Gender：
Men
Women
Graduates’
factors
Self
adjusting
Entering
adaptation
Vocational
Recognitio
n
Promotion
Organizational
factors
Colleagues’
guidance
Stuff
training
Fig. 1. The model of the impact of graduates’ factors and organizational
factors on the entering adaptation.
A. Graduates’ Factors and the Entering Adaptation
The graduates’ factors include demographic
characteristics
and
its
inherent
psychological
characteristics. Here we mainly consider three variables
of gender, self-adjusting and vocational recognition.
1) Gender: In the study of implicit stereotypes of
college students, Zhi-fang He, Jian-ping Liu, and Li-feng
Yang found that men tend to be more bold, self-reliance,
creative, and more likely to succeed, while women think
they are more patient, gentle, cautious [4]. Compared with
men, women are more able to bear the trials and
tribulations in daily life and work, have a lower
psychological satisfaction, and comply with discipline.
Relative research also shows that men are more
vulnerable to them, while women are more susceptible to
the positive impact of the organization. Therefore, women
are more able to follow the organization, and adjust
themselves to adapt to the organization as soon as
possible, while men are vulnerable to their own emotion,
and may have emotional reverse psychology even resign
the job. So we propose the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: the entering adaptation ability of the
women graduates is higher than that of men graduates
2) Self-adjusting: Self-adjusting is the graduates’
controlling and adjusting their behavior to improve
performance or learning after entering into the
organization, Ashforth and Saks pointed out that the selfadjusting of new employees includes self-observation,
self-goal setting, self-reward, self-punishment as well as a
preview. They explored the relationship of self-adjusting
of new employees and the anxiety, pressure and other
variables. The results showed that, within one month as
the graduates enter the organization, active employees in
self-adjusting had less anxiety and stress, and after six
months showed a more positive work [5]. After entering
the organizations, graduates will face the pressure of the
changing role and tasks. If they can’t adjust their mind
well and hence to adjust their behavior, they will fell
unfamiliar with work environment for a quite long time
and can’t suit the job, thus even affects their own life.
Accordingly, we propose the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Graduates’ self-adjusting ability is
positively related to the entering adaptability.
2) Vocational recognition: Vocational recognition is
the positive attitude and a strong sense of involvement of
the individual, which reflected by the individual’s
aspirations to maintain the career and the liking for the
career [6]. Vocational recognition is an important factor of
job satisfaction, affecting the individual’s resignation and
job performance [7]. Meyer, Allen, and Smith believed that
the vocational recognition included three factors:
emotional recognition, continuous recognition, and
regulation recognition. Emotional recognition is the
emotional attachment, recognition and psychological
input of the individual to the career, thus forming the
desire to maintain a career. If the vocational inputs can
enhance the individual's job satisfaction, the emotional
recognition will be formed. The continued recognition
means the individual realized the cost he has to bear if he
leaves his job, and will have to continue the job. The
regulation recognition indicates the individual’s loyalty
sense for occupation caused by the regulation of loyalty,
or the reciprocity principle of benefit form the
occupation[8]. Therefore, the vocational recognition of
graduates will directly affect the entering adaptation.
Accordingly, we propose the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: the vocational recognition of university
students and entering adaptability are positively related.
B. Graduates’ Factors and the Entering Adaptation
According to the theory of organizational
socialization, the organization can use a number of ways
to guide college students in their concept changing, and to
improve the employability of graduates, thus contributing
to the better adaptation. Here we mainly study three
factors: position promotion, colleagues’ guidance, and
staff-training.
1) Position promotion: Valsecchi stated that the
position promotion usually is the position change and
wage increase of the individual in the organization [9]. The
position promotion arrangement is an organization’s
source of power to keep the long-term incentive to
employees and the team stability. Through position
promotion, different types of people are configured to the
appropriate positions, and the adaptation process is speed
up. It will not only improve individual’s productivity, but
also can improve the employment relationship. Macleod
Bentley, Malcomson, and James proved that, in a repeated
game environment, position promotion is an effective
incentive mechanism for individuals to choose and work
hard [10]. Under the incentive mechanism of the
organization’s position promotion, the graduates will
coordinate with the organization as soon as possible, to
achieve greater development. So we propose the
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4: position promotion of organization and
graduates’ entering adaptation ability are positively
correlated.
2) Guidance of colleagues: Reciprocal Colleague
tutoring is a cooperative work proposed by Fantuzzo ,
Dimeff, and Fox from the University of Pennsylvania. It is
to let the colleagues’ help, discuss tasks, and share
experiences with each other so as to reduce work
pressure, increase enthusiasm for work, and gradually
form a sense of hard work [11]. Most researchers believed
that mentoring relationships between colleagues will
benefit the guidance giver, receiver, and the
organizations. When first entering the job, the graduates
will be able to adapt faster with the guiding of
predecessors or leaders in terms of career direction,
experience and knowledge, than those without the help.
Accordingly, we propose the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5: Organizational colleague’s guidance
and graduates’ entering adaptation ability are positively
correlated.
3) Staff-training: Training is the organized, planned,
and continuous learning behavior or process. It aims at
directional improvement in staff knowledge, skills,
attitudes and even behavior, ensuring that employees can
complete task as the expected standard or level. Just after
graduation, the training provided by the organization can
enable the graduates quickly grasp the knowledge and
skills needed for the work, and understand the corporate
culture, which will help to improve their sense of
belonging and sense of ownership of enterprises, so that
their attitude will change from “passive” to “active”, and
the students can merge into the organization as soon as
possible. Accordingly, we propose the hypothesis:
Hypothesis 6: The staff-training of organization and
the graduates’ entering adaptation ability are positively
correlated.
III. RESEARCH METHODS
A. Data Collection
We prepared a questionnaire based on the literature of
home and abroad. The questionnaire includes two aspects:
One is the measurement of the factors of the graduates’
entering adaptation. The other aspect is the measurement
of graduates’ entering adaptation ability level. The survey
aimed at graduates of a local university who had
graduated for 1-3 years. Among the total 260
questionnaires distributed, we got 200 copies of feedback.
After removing the invalid ones, we got 135 valid
questionnaires, which accounted for 67.5%.
After finishing the questionnaires, we need to
consider whether the questions can identify the degree of
response of different subjects, and whether it is necessary
to delete the question, which means we need a project
analysis. Project analysis is to calculate the “critical ratio”
(CR) of each items. The method is to calculate each
feedback’s score of the pre-test sheet, and list them in
descending order. Then we put those list among the first
27% into a group, named as “High score group”, those in
the last 27% in a group of “low score group”. After that,
we conducted the mean difference significance test on
each question score of those two groups. If the CR is
significant, it means that this item can identify the degree
of response of different subjects. Otherwise, the question
items should be deleted. After the item analysis, seven
items have been finally deleted.
B. Variable Measurement
1) Entering adaptation:
Based on the study of CORBELL and KRISTEN
ANNE about the new teachers’ entering adaptation, we
chose and tested three entering adaptation variables:
interpersonal adaptation, cultural adaptation, and ability
adaptation. Each of them has three or more measuring
indicators. The three variables was measured by using
Likert five-point scoring method, of which “1” means
“completely disagree” and “5” means “completely agree”.
The score of each variable is calculated by the average of
the indicators’ scores. The score of the entering adaptation
is the sum of the average of the three variables.
Through detecting KMO value and the x2 value of the
Bartlett's test of sphericity, it can be judged whether we
can conduct factor analysis on entering adaptation
variables. According to Kaiser [12], if the KMO value is
less than 0.5, it is not suitable for the factor analysis. The
KMO value we got was 0.558, which was suitable for
factor analysis. In addition, the x2 value of the Bartlett's
test of sphericity was 197.458 (DF 78), indicating the
existing of the common factor in the correlation matrix of
the parent groups, which also suited for factor analysis.
Using SPSS16.0, we conducted factor analysis on all
the entering adaptation measuring items, and finally
extracted three factors, which were interpersonal
adaptation, cultural adaptation and ability adaptation. The
Cronbach's Alpha coefficients of these three factors were
0.731, 0.790, and 0.796 respectively. According to
Nunnally, an Alpha coefficient, greater than 0.7, has
relatively high reliability of the measurements [13]. These
three factors explained 82.91% of the total variance;
therefore, they had a high reliability in measuring the
graduates’ entering adaptation.
2) Factors influencing the graduates’ entering
adaptation:
Demographic characteristics. As the object of our
study is just fresh university graduates, they have similar
age, educational background and marital status. So the
main factor of demographic characteristics, which may
affect their entering adaptation, is gender. To measure the
gender, we set a value of 1 and 0respectively to the men
and women.
Individual psychological factors. Based on the study
of Saks and Ashforth and Blau [5, 6], we have chosen two
individual psychological variables: self-adjusting and
vocational recognition. Likert five-point scoring method
was used to measure these two variables: “1” and “5”
means “completely disagree” and “completely agree”.
The score of each variable was got by calculating the
average of the measuring indicators.
Organizational factors. Based on the previous
organizational social studies, we choose position
promotion, colleague guidance, and staff-training
variables to analyze the organizational factors of entering
adaptation. These three variables were measured by using
Likert five-point scoring method, “1” and “5” means
“completely disagree” and “completely agree”. The score
of each variable was got by calculating the average of the
measuring indicators.
Through testing KMO value and the x2 value of the
Bartlett's test of sphericity, it can be judged whether we
can conduct factor analysis on entering adaptation
variables. The KMO value we got here was 0.648, which
was suitable for factor analysis. In addition, the x2 value
of the Bartlett's test of sphericity was 1187.740 (DF 231),
indicating the existing of the common factor in the
correlation matrix of the parent groups, which also suited
for factor analysis.
Using SPSS16.0, we conducted factor analysis on all
the measuring indicators of the individual psychological
factors and organizational factors influencing entering
adaptation, and finally extract five factors, which were
self-adjusting, vocational recognition, position promotion,
colleagues’ guidance, and staff-training. The Cronbach's
Alpha coefficients of these five factors were 0.781, 0.820,
0.792, 0.816, and 0.754 respectively. An Alpha
coefficient, greater than 0.7, has relatively high reliability
of the measurements (Nunnally) [13]. They explained
90.10% of the total variance. Therefore, these five factors
have a high reliability in measuring the graduates’
entering adaptation.
C. Analysis Method
Using SPSS16.0, we conducted exploratory factor
analysis on all the measuring indicators, and analyzed the
reliability by calculating the Cronbach alpha coefficient
of factors. We then made descriptive statistical analysis
on all variables in the model, and calculate the correlation
coefficient between the variables. Based on this, we
conducted a further regression analysis to study the
relationship between the factors of the students
themselves and the organizational environment.
IV. RESULTS
A. Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Coefficient
Analysis
Table 1 shows the result of descriptive statistics and
correlation coefficient analysis on the relationship of
graduates’ entering adaptation and Influencing Factors.
The standard deviations of self-adjusting and vocational
recognition are not big, indicating that graduates’ own
characteristics were not significant. The standard
deviations of position promotion, colleagues’ guidance,
and staff-training are not big, which means the systems
within the organization are similar. The correlation matrix
shows that the position promotion, staff-training and the
graduates’ entering adaptation are positively correlated.
The gender, self-adjusting, vocational recognition, the
guidance of colleagues within the organization are not
highly relevant to the entering adaptation.
TABLE I
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF GRADUATES’ ENTERING ADAPTATION AND INFLUENCING
FACTORS
Variable
Mean
standard
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
deviation
Gender
0.65
0.48
1
Self-adjusting
3.18
0.38
0.151
1
Vocational recognition
3.23
0.39
-0.025
0.001
1
Position promotion
2.94
0.44
-0.011
-0.021
0.024
1
Colleagues’ guidance
3.48
0.71
0.096
-0.039
-0.056
0.236
1
Staff-training
3.10
0.62
0.037
0.155
0.061
0.042
0.121
1
Entering Adaptation
10.19
0.32
0.133
-0.053
-0.101
-0.178*
0.087
0.204*
Note: * means “p” is correlation coefficient significant at 0.05 level; ** means “p” is correlation coefficient significant at 0.01 level
1
B. Regression Analysis
Table 2 shows the result of multiple regression
analysis of the relationship of graduates’ entering
adaptation and Influencing Factors. We divided the
affecting factors of graduates’ adaptation into two groups
of the graduates’ own characteristics and organizational
factors, so two models were used in the regression
analysis. From the regression results in Table 2 illustrates,
that in model 1 the gender and entering adaptation are not
highly correlated, so Hypothesis 1 was not supported.
That also occurred in the correlation between Selfadjusting and entering adaptation, so Hypothesis 2 was
not supported either. The low correlation between
vocational recognition and entering adaptation also
reflects that Hypothesis 3 was not supported. In Model 2,
the position promotion within the organization and the
entering adaptation were positively correlated (P <0.05),
which passed the test of significance, assuming that the
Hypothesis 4 was supported. That is, the more
opportunity of position promotion the graduates got
within the organization, the stronger ability of the
graduates’ adaptation. The colleagues’ guidance and
entering adaptation were not highly correlated, so
Hypothesis 5 was not supported. The staff-training within
the organization and the entering adaptation are positively
correlated (P <0.05) and passed the test of significance,
indicating that the Hypothesis 6 was supported. It means
the more opportunity of training the graduates got within
the organization, the stronger ability of the graduates’
adaptation.
TABLE II
The result of multiple regression analysis of the relationship of
graduates’ entering adaptation and Influencing Factors
Variable
entering
adaptation:
Model 1
0.085
0.073
0.093
entering
adaptation:
Model 2
Gender
0.079
Self-adjusting
0.064
Vocational recognition
0.080
Position promotion
0.323*
Colleagues’ guidance
0.011
Staff-training
0.413*
Adjusted-R2
0.246
0.358
F
1.452
3.738*
Note: * means “p” is correlation coefficient significant at 0.05 level; **
means “p” is correlation coefficient significant at 0.01 level
V. DISCUSSION
In summary, the position promotion within the
organization and the entering adaptation ability are
positively correlated, which is consistent with the
expected assumption. Position promotion within the
organization will generally enhance the employee's
position and increase their income, so the employees will
feel having got a safe work and stable occupation.
Meanwhile, the level of income can reflect a person's
work capacity. High-income people are more likely to
accept themselves and recognize themselves, which will
help them treat their work and life with a peace, actively
mind, and a virtuous circle will be formed. Therefore,
position promotion can increase employees' selfconfidence, and improve their psychological level of wellbeing, making them more adaptable and thus trust the
organization. The organization should therefore establish
a fair system of position promotion. As expected, stafftraining within the organization and the entering
adaptation ability are positively correlated. Training new
recruits can make employees more aware of the
organizational culture, corporate objectives, so that new
employees can quickly adapt to the corporate culture. In
addition, the training for staff can improve staff capacity,
and make them more efficient in fulfilling organization’s
tasks. Therefore, organization should strengthen the
training of new graduates to help them better meet the
needs of the work, and achieve win-win situation of
organization and graduates.
Contrary to the expectation, the guidance of
colleagues of organizational factors and the entering
adaptation are not highly relevant. Although the Guidance
of colleagues form the coordination, communication and
joint action between employees and hence complete the
assigned tasks, studies show that the current colleagues’
guidance in organization are offered by the predecessors
with a certain years of working experience, in which
problems are likely occur, such as the two parties are in
unequal status; the guidelines lack of experience and
ability; and the guidance tends to be formalized. Due to
these problems, the guide giver may not be
comprehensive, but be superficial, the guidance of
colleagues within the organization and the entering
adaptation are not absolutely positively correlated. This
tells us that the organizations need assessment methods to
ensure the guidance is really implemented.
In addition, not as expected, the correlation of
graduates’ own characteristic factors and entering
adaptation ability is not high. Although men and women
differ in character, and men may be more likely than
women to adapt to the strong pressure of the environment,
the women have more endurance and are not as impulsive
as men, which reflect the women are more likely to adapt
to the environment. Therefore it is difficult to determine
who is more adaptable only from gender. Graduates’ selfadjusting ability can be concluded as that they have
different self-awareness and self-expectations, thus
affecting the perception and analysis of their selfevaluation and external environment. Researches show
that external expectations (such as, work allocation by
leaders) are often not a clear indication of encourage and
support to staffs’ work, which is easier to make
employees to percept work as the pressure instead of
power [14]. So the graduates’ self-adjusting ability is not in
absolute favor of their adaptation. Psychology studies
have shown that, regardless of the occupational prestige
level, the adverse experience associated with low socioeconomic status will result in a low occupational
performance, and low occupational performance will not
only reduce the individual's vocational development
motivation, but also affect the employees' work attitudes
and work behavior [15]. Besides that the wages of new
graduates in recent years are generally not high, the object
of our research are basically working in small and
medium-sized private enterprises, most of whom linked
with a lower socio-economic conditions, resulting in a
low correlation of their vocational recognition and the
entering adaptation.
Finally, due to the samples of this study were
collected at a local college graduates, the research
findings can’t avoid some limitations.
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