When new talent scores: The impact of human capital and the team socialization context on newcomer performance in professional sports teams.

This study integrates research on newcomer socialization and work teams to examine how the team environment facilitates or hinders the translation of human capital into newcomer performance in professional sports teams. Using large, multiyear and multilevel data from the top five European professional football leagues, we examine how individual-level newcomer human capital and the team-level characteristics (prior team performance, number of newcomers) influence individual newcomer performance during two different socialization contexts (when more vs. less time for socialization is provided).