Person or Job? Change in Person‐Job Fit and Its Impact on Employee Work Attitudes over Time

• Author: Yahua Cai,Sebastian C. Schuh,Tae‐Yeol Kim
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12433
• Published date: 01 March 2020

© 2018 The Authors Journa l of Management Stud ies published by Societ y for the Advancement of Mana gment

Studies and Joh n Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Person or Job? Change in Person-Job Fit and Its

Impact on Employee Work Attitudes over Time

Tae-Yeol Kima, Sebastian C. Schuha and Yahua Caib

aOrganizatio nal Behavi or and Human Re source Manageme nt, China E urope International Bus iness

School (CEIBS), Shanghai, China; b Shanghai Uni versity of Fin ance & Economics

ABST RACT Fit is generally concept ualized as a dynamic const ruct, but most research on

person-environ ment fit has foc used on fit in the current moment. We addressed thi s oversight

by examini ng the dynamic relationships a mong person-job (PJ) fit, dema nd-abilit y (DA) fit,

need-supply (NS) f it, and employee work attitudes over time using a th ree-wave survey design

over a 12-month period. Results from 168 employees revealed that c hange in PJ fit was

signif icantly related to changes in job sat isfaction and affective orga nizational commitment. In

addition, DA and NS f it changes were sig nificantly and ind irectly associated with job sat isfac-

tion and commitment cha nges through PJ fit change. We also found that i ncreases in job

demands and employee abilit ies significantly dec reased DA fit, and increases in employee

needs signi ficantly decreased NS f it whereas increa ses in job supplies signific antly increased

NS fit. Fin ally, we examined age as an importa nt moderator for employees’ reactions to PJ f it

changes, and found th at younger employees reacted more strong ly to increases/decreases in P J

fit than d id older employees.

Keywo rds: change i n fit, job satisfaction, organ izational commitment, person-env ironment

fit, p erson-job fit

INTRODUCTION

Organizational scholars have long recognized person– environment (PE) f it (i.e., the de-

gree of compatibility between t he characteristics of employees and those of the work

environment) as a dynamic process of adjustment between employees and their work

environment (Caplan, 1983). Nevertheless, extant studies have largely t reated PE fit

as a ‘static’ phenomenon by assessing PE fit at only one point in time and li nking it to

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:2 March 2020

doi:10. 1111/j om s .124 33

Address for re print s: Yahua Cai, Depar tment of Human Resour ce Management, Sh anghai Univer sity of

Finance & Econom ics, 777 Guoding Rd., Shanghai , 200433, PRC (cai.yahua@shufe.edu.cn).

This is an op en access article under the t erms of the Creative Commons At tribution-NonCommercia l

License, which p ermits use, distr ibution and reproduction in any mediu m, provided the origin al work is

properly cited and is not us ed for commercial purposes.

288 T.-Y. Kim et al.

© 2018 The Authors Journa l of Management Stud ies published by Societ y for the Advancement of Mana gment

Studies and Joh n Wiley & Sons Ltd.

employee outcomes (Ostroff et al., 2002). As Kristof-Brown and Jansen (2007) noted,

‘treating either the person or the environment as static is problematic for organizational

fit research, yet th is is inherently what we do’ (p. 143).

The static approach to fit has several limitations. First, many elements within the job

or the person change over time – e.g., job tasks and employee skills. Hence, a static ap-

proach is not only somewhat detached from organizational reality, it also cannot predict

or examine how individuals or environments will react to these changes – e.g., whether

and when changes in job demands will influence subsequent employee abilities (Dawis

and Lofquist, 1984). Second, a static approach contains people’s experiences of fit within

a ‘temporal vacuum’ and ignores their previous experiences. This is problematic because

it can result in inaccurate predictions of the fit phenomena (Jansen and Shipp, 2013).

For example, two employees with the same capabilities and in the same job may perceive

their situation differently – depending on their previous experiences of fit. T hus, changes

in job and employee characteristics should be modelled to better understand the reality

of individual reactions to fit over time.

In line with this temporal view of fit, several scholars (e.g., Cable and Parsons, 2001;

Kammeyer-Mueller, 2007) have proposed and examined how PE fit changes over time

and how these fit changes influence changes in employee outcomes. Recently, Jansen

and Shipp (2013) proposed a temporal theory of fit and provided an interesting agenda

for incorporating time in fit research. Specifically, they discussed how PE fit evolves over

time and how the perception of past and future fit interacts with current fit to affect

employee outcomes.

To extend this line of research, we theorize and test how person-job (PJ) fit develops

over time, and how these changes are related to employee work attitudes. PJ fit describes

the extent to which the characteristics of employees and those of a specific job are com-

patible (Edwards, 1991). Fit scholars identified two facets of PJ fit: demand-ability (DA)

fit (i.e., the match between the capabilities of an employee and the requirements of a

job) and need–supply (NS) fit (i.e., the match between the needs of an employee and the

resources that are provided by a job (Caplan, 1983; Edwards, 1991). We focus on PJ fit

because it is more likely to change over time than other types of PE fit, such as person-or-

ganization fit, due to training and accumulated job experience that produce learning and

consequently alter employee capabilities and needs (DeRue and Morgeson, 2007).

Building on recent temporal theories of fit (Jansen and Shipp, 2013; Shipp and Jansen,

2011), we develop and test a model that specifies the dynamic mechanisms that link

perceived changes in the person (employee abilities and needs) and/or in the job (job

demands and supplies) to changes in perceived DA fit and perceived NS fit as well as per-

ceived PJ fit. Although PJ fit involves the interplay of several components (i.e., employee

abilities and needs as well as job demands and supplies, Caplan, 1987), extant research

has frequently taken a broad perspective on PJ fit that relies on compounded measures of

perceived DA and NS fit as well as PJ fit (i.e., a ‘molar approach’, Edwards et al., 2006).

Yet, without understanding specific components of perceived PJ fit, ‘the meaning and

implications of PE fit will remain elusive’ (Edwards, 2008, p. 221), thwarting further

theoretical development. This issue is particularly important in examining changes in

perceived PJ fit because changes in PJ fit can result from a variety of factors including

perceived changes in DA and/or NS fit or, at a deeper level, from changes in perceived