Organizational Fit

Key Issues and New Directions

Amy L. Kristof-Brown, Jon Billsberry

• Éditeur: Wiley-Blackwell
• Année: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118320907
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psicología
• Sous-sujet: Psicología industrial y organizacional

An ambitious survey of the field, by an international group of scholars, that looks toward the future of person-organization fit.

• Explores how people form their impressions of fit and the impact these have on their behavior, and how companies can maximize fit
• Includes multiple perspectives on the topic of how people fit into organizations, discussing issues across the field and incorporating insights from related disciplines
• Actively encourages scholars to take part in organizational fit research, drawing on workshops and symposia held specially for this book to explore some of the creative directions that the field is taking into the future

1

Fit for the Future

Amy L. Kristof-Brown

University of Iowa

Jon Billsberry

Deakin University

This is a time of change for scholars of organizational fit (Judge, 2007). Although organizational fit has been shown to influence employees' motivation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, tenure, and performance (Arthur et al., 2006; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer et al., 2003), it remains questionably defined and often misunderstood. Yet, it is one of the most widely used psychological constructs in industrial and work psychology. The great irony is that the breadth of fit definitions that entices a wide range of scholars to the topic is what also generates the most criticism (e.g., Edwards, 2008; Harrison, 2007; Judge, 2007). It has been suggested that there are as many ways to conceptualize and measure fit as there are scholars who study it. Yet, we believe that criticisms of conceptual ambiguity are a side-effect of rich methodological variety and distinctly different approaches to the compelling concept of compatibility of individuals and their organizations.

When we review the fit literature we see two dominant, and increasingly distinct, portrayals of organizational fit. This divide is between those researchers who focus on fit as an internal feeling of “fitting in” or of “feeling like a misfit” (usually referred to as “perceived fit”), and those who view fit as the interplay or interaction of internal and external factors. This may take the form of objective or actual fit, when the person and environment are measured from distinct sources, or subjective fit, in which a person reports separately about him or herself and the environment. In both cases, fit is assessed by the explicit comparison of person and environment characteristics to determine whether or not there is a match.

The debate has been vigorous over which type of fit is more meaningful, with strong arguments existing for both perceived fit and the more calculated forms of fit. However, we view them as distinctly different domains that should be treated as separate concepts, rather than a competition over which is a more accurate portrayal of the fit construct. It is our belief that the conflation of these two types of fit is a large factor underlying people's uneasiness with the term “organizational fit.” By recognizing that this field of study contains two distinctly different paradigms, and that both have valid interpretations and measurement approaches, forward progress can be made. We review each of these paradigms in turn, beginning with the more interactionist form of organizational fit.

Person–Environment (PE) Fit Paradigm

The bedrock of organizational fit research is person–environment (PE) fit theory (e.g., Caplan, 1983; French et al., 1974; Pervin, 1987). Researchers following this paradigm take a more interactionist approach to assessing fit than those who study perceived fit. They attempt to understand and predict employees' attitudes and behavior by comparing internal aspects of the person (e.g., values, personality, goals, abilities) to commensurate, or at least conceptually relevant, elements of the external environment (e.g., values, culture, climate, goals, demands). Based firmly in the tradition of interactional psychologys where behavior is a function of the interplay between person and situational factors (e.g., Cable and Judge, 1996, 1997; Chatman, 1989; Krahé, 1992; Pervin, 1968, 1987; Schneider, 1987), researchers capture these two distinct elements to calculate a measure of PE fit. The key difference from perceived fit, which we discuss shortly, is that individuals are never asked directly to report their feelings or cognitions about how well they fit. Instead, they report various sets of data about themselves and/or the environment, which researchers then use to calculate a measure or index of fit.

This calculated form of fit is subdivided into two main streams of research. The first, called subjective fit, is assessed when the individual whose fit is being measured is asked to report regarding internal and external elements. For example, respondents might be asked to report their own values and also their perceptions of their organizations' values. The distinguishing characteristic is that both assessments originate in the views of the respondent. The second, called objective or actual fit, uses different sources to report the characteristics of the person and the environment. Most typically, the internal dimensions (i.e., personal values or personality) are self-reported by the person whose fit is being calculated, and the external dimensions (i.e., organizational values or climate) come from another source. These external sources may still include perceptions – for example, senior managers' perceptions of the organizations' values – but the observation is considered more objective because it is reported by someone else. In other cases, the environment may be measured truly objectively, as when structural characteristics or reward system elements are used as the environment measure.

Researchers of both the subjective and objective approaches use the word “fit” as a noun: a tangible concept that can be calculated by the sum of its parts. The underlying assumption of these approaches is that the more precise the fit or closer the match between the two set of variables, the better the outcomes (Ostroff, 2012). What a match means, however, can be interpreted widely (Edwards et al., 2006; Edwards and Shipp, 2007). Typically, it is interpreted to mean that when person and environment are in perfect alignment (i.e., high P–high E fit, low P–low E fit), or when the differences between an individual's profile and the environmental profile are minimized, positive outcomes should result. Kristof-Brown and Guay (2011) term this condition of perfect alignment “exact correspondence.”

Results of early fit studies using profile similarity indices and other types of difference scores (e.g., Chatman, 1991; O'Reilly et al., 1991) appeared to support this prediction. However, as the field transitioned to using more precise methods of calculating congruence, such as polynomial regression and surface plot analysis (Edwards, 1993, 1994; Edwards and Parry, 1993), only a handful of studies supported exact correspondence as predictive of optimal outcomes (i.e., Jansen and Kristof-Brown, 2005; Kristof-Brown and Stevens, 2001; Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999). In most cases, the functional forms of fit relationships followed a pattern in which fit at high levels of the person and environment is more strongly associated with positive outcomes than fit at low levels of these entities. Moreover, various types of misfit (assessed as points of incongruence) are typically found to have asymmetrical effects, with the effects of the environment generally outweighing those of the person. For example, several studies have found that having inadequate environmental supplies is a more detrimental condition of misfit than is having excess supplies (e.g., Edwards, 1993, 1994; Edwards and Harrison, 1993; Edwards and Rothbard, 1999). Thus, as analytic methods evolved to allow closer investigation of the exact functional form of fit relationships, the simplistic assumption that congruence is always optimal, and that any kind of incongruence is equally suboptimal, has been mostly abandoned. This leaves scholars with the troublesome conclusion that fit may take any number of functional forms, depending on what variables are under consideration.

PE fit is recognized as an umbrella term that allows three major variations. First, scholars can choose which internal or personal factors are most relevant to their research questions. Second, they can then select which environmental variables are most relevant for assessing fit. In many cases they pursue commensurate variables, but sometimes other theoretically justifiable variables of anticipated compatibility suffice (e.g., pay-for-performance systems are considered a good fit for people with a high value for achievement; Cable and Judge, 1994). Such variations in the environment variables have produced different types or dimensions of fit: person–job (PJ) fit, person–organization (PO) fit, person–group (PG) fit, person–vocation (PV) fit, and person–supervisor (PS) fit. Within each of these types of fit, there is a further diversity of characteristics on which fit can be assessed (i.e., values, goals, abilities). Edwards and Shipp (2007, p. 218) present a multifaceted cube in which all of the varieties of possible fit types and characteristics are crossed, producing an almost infinite range of possible fit types.

The third variation in defining PE fit is the flexibility that researchers have for determining what underlies compatibility on the personal and environmental characteristics of choice. Those in the supplementary tradition focus on a compositional view of similarity and congruence; whereas, the complementary tradition emphasizes more of a compilational view, in which one entity completes the other (Muchinsky and Monahan, 1987; Ostroff and Schulte, 2007). Still others do not calculate fit at all, but instead interpret the statistical interaction of meaningfully related person and environment variables (e.g., Cable and Judge, 1994; Chatman et al., 2008). Even with this wide variety of fit conceptualizations, the underpinning idea of the PE fit paradigm is the notion that an appropriate alignment or interaction of internal and external factors (whatever that might be) will shape individuals' attitudes and behaviors.

Despite its richness, this is a rather troubled paradigm in the sense that there are many different conceptualizations of PE fit, but little integration in how the various findings knit together. As scholars in this area, we can conclude that some type of interaction between person and environment influences outcomes, typically in a positive direction. However, this gives us little insight into the actual experience of fit by individuals. For example, when Chatman (1991) reported that value congruence as measured by the Organizational Culture Profile (O'Reilly et al., 1991) led to increased job satisfaction, she informed us about the relationship of values to job satisfaction through an interactional lens. Arguably, however, we learned little about how people experience the state of fit or misfit. This is why the second paradigm, which focuses on perceived fit, is burgeoning.

Perceived Fit Paradigm

Some consider organizational fit as a psychological construct, similar to job satisfaction or organizational commitment: as something inside a person's mind that influences their thoughts and feelings towards their job or organization (e.g., Billsberry et al., 2005; Cooper-Thomas et al., 2004; Kristof-Brown, 2000; Ravlin and Ritchie, 2006; Wheeler et al., 2007). As mentioned above, in common parlance, this perspective portrays fit as an individual's sense of “fitting in” or, alternatively when it does not exist, “feeling like a misfit.” Kristof-Brown and Guay (2011) refer to this conceptualization of fit as “general compatibility,” and provide examples of how it is typically measured directly with questions that ask an individual to report the fit that he or she believes exists. Questions such as “How well do you think you fit in the organization?” and “How well do your skills match the requirements of your job?” are examples of these kinds of direct measures of perceived fit. This perspective of fit as a psychological experience of the individual has been described further in the following way:

Perceived fit allows the greatest level of cognitive manipulation because the assessment is all done in the head of the respondents, allowing them to apply their own weighting scheme to various aspects of the environment. This permits individual differences in importance or salience of various dimensions to be captured in their ratings. (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005, pp. 291–292)

Although perceived fit is arguably most proximal to individuals' decision making and has been shown to offer the strongest relationships to expected outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer et al., 2003), it has attracted comparatively little research and has been criticized for being “just another attitude” and heavily influenced by affect (e.g., Edwards et al., 2006; Harrison, 2007). The longstanding presumption has been that perceived fit is simply the cognitive representation of the person–environment interactions described previously. Therefore, perceived fit and PE calculated interactions should be closely related. Most evidence, however, suggests that there are only low to moderate correlations between these more calculated forms of fit and an individual's experience of perceived fit (Edwards et al., 2006). Very little is known, then, about how these perceptions form, or why they influence attitudes and behaviors as strongly as they do. This is fertile ground for new organizational fit research, and not surprisingly many of the chapters in this book advocate studies in this area.

The Epistemology of Fit

Although these two paradigms reflect a methodological distinction of indirect (PE interaction) versus direct (perceived) measurement, their differences also suggest distinct epistemological underpinnings. Although few researchers have explicitly stated their epistemological leanings, it is clear to us that positivism, or perhaps more accurately post-positivism, underpins PE fit research, whereas interpretivism is the spirit underpinning the perceived fit paradigm.

These epistemologies differ in the way that researchers position themselves regarding what counts as knowledge. A positivist believes that knowledge is objective. It is an extrapolation from “pure science,” in which the researcher is thought of as a scientist in a white coat carrying a clipboard, who takes measurements to capture the nature of the “real world” to produce universal truths and laws (Blaikie, 2007). It is what many regard as “true” scientific knowledge. A post-positivist relaxes the strict conditions of measurement and accepts that people's reports of their psychological states constitute objective knowledge, even though such phenomena cannot be seen and objectively measured (Johnson et al., 2007). Alternatively, an interpretivist believes that knowledge is constructed in people's minds and influenced by their social interactions with others. Discovering what is “real” to the individual is most important, because it is those perceptions that influence their behavior. Interpretivists may also look for general patterns, but their attention is on people's perceptions and they recognize that these will differ. The goal of interpretive research is not to discover universal rules, but to understand the phenomena under scrutiny more fully. Although there are certainly exceptions, positivists in general look for similarity and interpretivists look for differences to illuminate understanding of a subject.

Relating these approaches to organizational fit, we see that many of the principles of positivism and post-positivism underpin the PE fit paradigm. This approach involves the researcher looking in on the subjects, taking measurements, calculating fit, and drawing general lessons. In these studies, the researchers make predictions about what they expect to see (in the tradition of positively phrased hypotheses), develop studies that gather relevant data to test the hypotheses, and then draw conclusions in the form of universal propositions. For example, in the classic PO fit study by Chatman (1991), hypotheses were set out predicting relationships between PO fit and psychological outcomes, data on newcomers' values were captured from them, and data on their employing organizations were gathered from senior executives, allowing the researcher to calculate a measure of PO fit for every newcomer to test the hypotheses. Chatman (1991) was able to conclude with a general rule saying that newcomers' PO fit is positively related to their levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and negatively related to their intent to quit. This is a finding that has been replicated in many subsequent studies (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer et al., 2003).

In the perceived fit paradigm, researchers seek to understand how people make sense of their organizational lives and, in particular, how their sense of fit or misfit is formed and changes over time. They seek an understanding of people's perceptions and the impact these thoughts have on their behavior. This is a direct correlate of the interpretivist approach, in which researchers want to understand the complexity of people's thoughts, feelings, and desires, and the impact these have on their work and life experiences. They want to understand the world from the subject's perspective, allowing people to describe fit in their own ways that are meaningful to them. The perceived fit researcher may then look for similarities or di...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Fit for the Future
• Part 1: New Directions within the Fit Paradigms
• Part 2: New Directions for the Fit Paradigms
• Index