Van Maanen, J. and Schein, E.H. Toward a theory of organizational socialization. JAI Press., Greenwich, CT, 1979. (Nutshell: Proposes a taxonomy of individual and institutional socialization tactics.)
Jones, G.R. Socialization tactics, self-efficacy, and newcomers' adjustments to organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 29 (1986), 262-279. (Nutshell: Builds upon Van Maanan & Shein's framework.)
Levine, J.M. and Moreland, R.L. Group socialization: Theory and research. in Stroebe W. and Hewstone M. eds. The European Review of Social Psychology, John Wiley. (Nutshell: Proposes temporal model in which group and individual mutually evaluate each other and subsequently adjust their commitment and the individual's role.)
Bauer, T.N. Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: a meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of applied psychology, 92, 3 (2007), 707 -721. (Nutshell: Proposes a theoretical framework that predicts outcomes of socialization tactics, mediated by three aspects of "adjustment" - role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance. Tests framework via meta-analysis of 70 studies.)
Saks, A. M., Uggerslev, K. L., & Fassina, N. E. (2007). Socialization tactics and newcomer adjustment: A meta-analytic review and test of a model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 70(3), 413–446. (Nutshell: Tests effectiveness of socialization tactics via meta-analysis.)
Ahuja, M.K. and Galvin, J.E. Socialization in Virtual Groups. Journal of Management, 29, 2 (2003), 161-185. (Nutshell: Examines three types of information seeking - normative, regulative and cognitive - in a virtual community)
Bryant, S.L., Forte, A., and Bruckman, A. Becoming Wikipedian: transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia. In Proc. GROUP 2005, ACM (2005). (Nutshell: Proposes three dimensions of transformation from newcomers to "Wikipedians": Goals & Identity; Tools used; Perception of the community)
Ducheneaut, N. Socialization in an open source software community: A socio-technical analysis. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 14, 4 (2005), 323-368. (Nutshell: looks at socialization in open source software (OSS) communities and, via ethnography and network analysis, proposes that socialization occurs through identity creation, rights of passage and the creation of social networks.)
Boreum Choi, Kira Alexander, Robert E. Kraut, and John M. Levine. 2010. Socialization Tactics in Wikipedia and Their Effects. In Proceedings ofthe 2010 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ’10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 107–116. (Summary) (Nutshell: Compares 7 socialization tactics used by Wikipedia groups in observational study: invitations to join, welcome messages, requests to work on projects, offers of assistance, positive feedback, constructive criticism, personal-related comments. Finds welcome messages, offers of assistance and constructive feedback are associated with newcomer retention.)
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Dario Taraborelli. 2015. MoodBar: Increasing New User Retention in Wikipedia Through Lightweight Socialization. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 734–742. (Nutshell: In experimental design shows that a "mood-bar," which allows newcomers to express how they feel about their experience, leads to greater retention.)
Katherine Panciera, Aaron Halfaker, and Loren Terveen. 2009. Wikipedians Are Born, Not Made: A Study of Power Editors on Wikipedia. In Proceedings ofthe ACM2009 International Conference on Supporting GroupWork (GROUP ’09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 51–60. (Nutshell: Examines editing patterns of Wikipedians (i.e. those who contribute most), in part testing claims made in Bryant et al, 2005. Finds that Wikipedian patterns can be detected from first day, suggesting they are "born not made.")
Von Krogh, G., S. Spaeth and K. Lakhani (2003): Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: A Case Study. Research Policy, vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 1217– 1241. (Nutshell: Examine newcomer socialization on Freenet, offering new constructs “joining script”, “specialization”, “contribution barriers”, and “feature gifts.”)