A Cross-Cultural Examination of Person-Organization Fit: Is P-O Fit Congruent with or Contingent on Societal Values?

Abstract

Many single-country studies have examined compatibility between the individual values of the employee and organizational cultural values, typically referred to as person-organization (P-O) fit. However, little progress has been made in understanding whether P-O fit relationships generalize across countries and, if so, whether and how societal values impact this relationship. Because of this void, it is important to extend the P-O fit literature cross-culturally to explain not only how individual values relate to organizational values but also how societal values influence P-O fit relationships. Our study of 1,307 business professionals across six diverse countries focused on individualism/collectivism values at societal, organizational, and individual levels. We found that individual values are consistently congruent with organizational cultural values in individualistic societies, but found mixed results for P-O values fit in collectivistic societies. Our results provide more support for the contingency perspective (rather than the nested theory of culture) on how societal values influence P-O values fit relationships. Implications for the cross-cultural generalizability of extant P-O fit theory as well as for organizations are discussed.