New baccalaureate graduates' perceptions of organizational conflict

This study explores the process of professional socialization in a sample of newly graduated baccalaureate nurses whose first experience as practicing professionals was in a hospital organizational system. Professional socialization was defined in terms of concept of identity reassessment as proposed by Strauss and in terms of the new graduates' descriptions of their own behavior during conflictual situations in the work setting. These descriptions were identified as conflict-reporting behavior and analyzed from two aspects: the source of the conflict and the level reached by the behavior of the respondent, as defined by a model for organizational conflict proposed by Pondy. Although changes in conflict-reporting behavior with increasing experience in the hospital bureaucracy were noted, the study findings showed no significant relationships between this behavior and ideas about the nursing role and the value of organizational inducements. Some trends in conflict-reporting behavior were noted in relation to three other variables: the size of the unit on which the new graduate was working, the identity of the other persons in the conflict, and the new graduates' work experience in a hospital system while in school.