The effects of motivational fit on employee job performance, work attitudes and intent to leave

Person-environment (P-E) fit is undoubtedly one of the most widely studied constructs in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Surprisingly, there are relatively few studies that have examined the effects of P-E fit on job performance. Typically, the criterion of choice among fit researchers is job satisfaction or work withdrawal. Therefore, the primary objective of the current dissertation was to show that P-E fit would be related to task and contextual performance. Borman and Motowidlo (1993) have suggested that abilities should be related to task performance while softer attributes such as personality should be related to contextual performance. However, because there is also a motivational component that drives performance, the current dissertation proposed defining P-E fit in terms of the match between an individual's top motivators and his/her work environment's ability to fuel those motivators. Defined from a motivation perspective, P-E Fit was shown to be related to both self-rated task performance and self-rated contextual performance, as well as to job satisfaction, work environment satisfaction and intent to leave. Moreover, the current dissertation obtained a global measure of person-job (P-J) fit and a global measure of P-E fit and compared the two. Global P-E fit and Global P-J fit were both found to be related to self-rated task performance and self-rated contextual performance. The prediction that Global P-E fit would explain variance in self-rated task performance above and beyond Global P-J fit was not supported. However, Global P-E fit and Global P-J fit were both found to be related to job satisfaction, work environment satisfaction and intent to leave. As expected, Global P-E fit did explain variance in job satisfaction above and beyond the variance accounted for by Global P-J fit. In contrast, the prediction that Global P-E fit would be more strongly related to intent to leave than P-J fit was not supported.; The contributions as well as the limitations of the current dissertation are presented. The dissertation closes with a discussion around the practical uses of P-E fit and suggestions for future research.