Australian supervisors and recruits: Closing the gap in understanding each others' viewpoints

This study attempts to depict the shared meanings or collective schemas about the training of new recruits in organizations. Supervisors understood little about the new recruits' maps of the world, whereas new recruits had a greater understanding of their supervisors' points of view. The researchers investigated strategies that would close this gap in understanding and increase training effectiveness. Results from a a-month pretest-posttest design demonstrated changes in the construings (ways of thinking about the world) in the groups regarding the 12 training activities. After the intervention, both groups perceived the training activities as being more conducive to understanding the others' points of view, with the supervisors making a moderate shift and the new recruits a smaller shift.