Person–Environment Congruence and Holland's Theory: A Review and Reconsideration

Abstract

A dozen literary reviews and two meta-analyses of congruence research, operationally defined using John Holland's (1959) theory, continue to reveal a mixture of significant and nonsignificant relations between congruence and a variety of work-related behaviors. Congruenceappears to be a sufficient, though not a necessary, condition for job satisfaction with correlations in the .25 range (5% of variance). Repeated and sometimes trenchant criticismof the design, methodology, and analyses employed in previous studies of congruencehas produced an improved array of research designs, including more longitudinal,moderator, and multidimensional designs, yet results using these designs have donelittle to clarify the central issues in the congruence model. The present review examines 66 published congruence studies from 1985 to 1999. Benchmark studies with improved methodologies are described. A paradigmatic shift in the next generation of congruenceresearch is recommended, with continued improvement and diversification of design and methodology drawing more heavily from person–environment psychology as well as a change in emphasis from correlational to experimental designs.