Recruitment communication presents a dilemma for organisations. When organisations hire, they often engage in branding themselves as employers (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004) and rely on positive framing to present vacant positions in order to attract candidates. This leads to the ensuing challenge of living up to these promises for the candidates who are ultimately hired. Overpromising and underdelivering leads to a breach of the initial psychological contract. This balancing dilemma is especially pertinent for new and unknown companies, where concerns about the company’s legitimacy as an employer may cause potential candidates not to apply (Williamson, Cable, & Aldrich, 2002). On the one hand, start-ups need and want to attract the best, and on the other hand, they need to be wary of the impression they are creating of the job and the organisation as a place of work, as they would also like the candidates to stay once they are hired. I draw on interviews with managers and newcomers in Danish start-ups to give empirical examples of this challenge and its results, using the literature on psychological contracts (Rousseau, 1995) as an explanatory framework. I discuss what organisations might do to accomplish this balancing feat from theoretical and practical perspectives.

Our essay challenges an understanding of organizational socialization as a process whereby newcomers adapt to objectified organizational entities. To this end, we explore potential theoretical contributions of organizational institutionalism and related discourses on institutional logics, organizational hybridity, and organizational imprints. All of these perspectives support a concept of organizations as ‘moving targets’ in their relationship to dynamic environments. Accordingly, individuals such as newcomers can be positioned as active agents who engage in complex sense-making processes. However, institutionalism also has its shortcomings, as a deeper analysis of a seminal paper on organizational socialization in hybrid organizations reveals. We observe an ongoing commitment to an evolutionary adaptation paradigm, a paternalistic managerial attitude, and the denial of hegemonial market logics in organizations. In conclusion, we propose additional perspectives beyond institutionalism, which can further expand the theoretical landscape of organizational socialization research through independent and critical studies.

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Start-ups operating under conditions of uncertainty and limited resources face several challenges for strategic internal communication. Meanwhile, their efforts in welcoming newcomers are of vital importance for the achievement of organisational success. This study investigates what the start-up context means for strategic organisational entry communication. Following a review of research at the intersection of HRM and entrepreneurship with implications for strategic entry communication, entrepreneurs and newcomers in six start-ups were interviewed. A thematic analysis resulted in the identification of three themes of challenges for strategic communication connected to welcoming newcomers in start-ups, namely: Aspects related to the overall organisational context and situation, aspects related to newcomers' job content and design, and finally entrepreneurs' communication skills, knowledge, and time resources. The discussion shows implications of the start-up context for strategic organisational entry communication as regards opportunities for strategic communication, as well as the content and form of the strategic entry communication. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on strategic communication in start-ups by drawing on research from the intersection of HRM and entrepreneurship, as well as generating new empirical insights highlighting challenges to strategic internal communication in start-ups, especially for the purpose of welcoming newcomers. 4 study, this paper specifically focuses on challenges for strategic communication connected to welcoming newcomers in start-ups. Following Zerfass et al.'s (2018) definition of strategic communication as encompassing "[…] all communication that is substantial for the survival and sustained success of an entity." (p. 493), HR communication during the entry process can be characterised as strategic communication, since it e.g. entails introducing newcomers to organisational values and practices, and enabling them to fulfil duties connected to their organisational roles (e.g. Taormina, 1997), ultimately enabling them to contribute to reaching organisational objectives. Within the cross-disciplinary realm of HRM research in entrepreneurial organisations, and of special interest to strategic communication within these, Welbourne and Katz (2002) note that "When any organization is born, the founder does the relationship management [...]" (p. xii). This means that entrepreneurs' communication skills, including their skills in and resources for strategic communication, are of central importance. However, additional research has pointed out that in entrepreneurial firms "The adoption of HRM practices is rarely strategic […]" (Cassell & Nadin, 2008, p. 74), and Cardon and Stevens (2004) noted that HRM in new ventures can be characterised as "muddle through practices" (p. 302). Considering the importance of human resources for start-ups and the emergence of internal strategic communication practices and products in this type of organisation (as noted by Wiesenberg et...

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