Selecting people based on person‐organisation fit: Implications for intrateam trust and team performance

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12299
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Zhi‐Xue Zhang,Jingjing Yao,Qiongjing Hu

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Selecting people based on person-organisation fit:

Implications for intrateam trust and team

performance

Qiongjing Hu

1

| Jingjing Yao

2

| Zhi-Xue Zhang

3

1

School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

2

Organizations and Negotiation Department, IESEG School of Management, Lille, France

3

Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Zhi-Xue Zhang, Guanghua School of

Management, Peking University, 5 Summer

Palace Road, Beijing 100871, China.

Email: zxzhang@gsm.pku.edu.cn

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China,

Grant/Award Number: 71632002

Abstract

Teamwork is widely adopted in organisations. Although

much evidence indicates that using person-organisation

(P-O) fit as a selection criterion benefits individual

employees, little is known about how this practice influ-

ences team functioning. Drawing on the input-mediator-

outcome model and the research on value congruence, this

study built and tested a model that links P-O fit in recruit-

ment to work teams' performance. Based on data collected

from team members, team leaders, human resources man-

agers, and chief executive officers in 96 firms, we found that

P-O fit in recruitment had a positive relationship with team

performance and that intrateam trust mediated the relation-

ship between P-O fit in recruitment and team performance.

Further, this mediated relationship existed only when the

organisation had a weak, rather than strong, respect-for-

people culture. This study contributes to the P-O fit and

team literature and has practical implications for human

resources practices and team management.

KEYWORDS

intrateam trust, person-organisation fit, recruitment, respect for

people, team performance

Received: 13 May 2018 Revised: 11 April 2020 Accepted: 11 May 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12299

Hum Resour Manag J. 2021;31:293–310. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 293

Practitioner Notes

What is currently known about the subject matter

•Person-organisation (P-O) fit generates various positive employee individual outcomes

•A variety of team and organisational factors can contribute to team performance

What the paper adds to this

•P-O fit in recruitment can facilitate team performance through intrateam trust

•Intrateam trust mediates the relationship between P-O fit and team performance

•Respect-for-people culture moderates the relationship between P-O fit and intrateam trust

The implications of study findings for practitioners

•P-O fit in recruitment used by HR practitioners can facilitate professional work teams' performance

•Building intrateam trust through the use of P-O fit in recruitment is only effective when respect-for-

people culture is weak

“If there's someone really good who has excellent industry experience, we like working with them, [they

have] common sense and fit our values, we just hire them, because the biggest thing is having smart people

who work well together.”James Spenceley, Founder of Vocus Communications

1|INTRODUCTION

“She/he is the one!”is what all employers looking for a like-minded employee hope to say. The extent to which

employees fit with their organisations is broadly conceptualised as person-organisation (P-O) fit (Kristof, 1996),

which is commonly defined by scholars as the value congruence between an organisation and its members (Boon,

Hartog, Boselie, & Paauwe, 2011; Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2016). Practitioners, especially human resources

(HR) specialists, have often treated P-O fit as an important criterion in the recruitment process (Bowen, Ledford, &

Nathan, 1991).

Using P-O fit as a selection criterion has proven to be an effective HR practice leading to a variety of positive

individual outcomes. For example, when hired employees share congruent values with their organisation, they are

more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organisation, demonstrate greater organisational citizen-

ship behaviour, and achieve better task performance (Hoffman & Woehr, 2006; Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, &

Johnson, 2005; Verquer, Beehr, & Wagner, 2003). Nevertheless, we know very little about whether and how such a

practice influences the functioning and outcomes of work teams. A team is a functioning unit in which people work

with other members to achieve a shared goal, and this form of work is overwhelmingly dominant in contemporary

organisations. Therefore, to better understand the role of P-O fit in the context of teamwork, it is vital to shift the

attention from individual to team outcomes.

Recent studies have paid attention to teams by examining the effect of collective group fit on team effective-

ness (De Cooman, Vantilborgh, Bal, & Lub, 2016; Kristof-Brown, Seong, Degeest, Park, & Hong, 2014; Seong,

294 HU ET AL.