Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship between Organizational Socialization and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Education Process

The aim of this study is to reveal the changes in organizational socialization and organizational citizenship behavior and the dynamics of the relationship between these two variables in the education process. For this purpose, longitudinal panel research method and single-group pretest-posttest model were used. The participants of the research were the inspector candidate who were trained at the Police Supervisors Training Center affiliated to the Turkish Police Academy. After successfully completing their theoretical and practical training in a year in this center, the students begin to practice their professions. The data was collected through a questionnaire prepared using the Organizational Socialization Scale developed by Chao et al. (1994) and the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale developed by Podsakoff et al. (1990). The analysis included 1660 piece of data from the surveys conducted at the beginning of the theoretical training, after that, and at the end of practical training. According to the results, although theoretical training has a positive effect on organizational socialization, it has no effect on organizational citizenship behavior; on the other hand, it has been determined that applied practical training has a positive effect on both organizational socialization and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, it was concluded that the relationship between organizational socialization and organizational citizenship behavior gradually strengthened throughout the education process.