Person-environment Fit Framework Research Articles

The Role of Neighbourhood Social and Built Environments – Including Third Places – in Older Adults’ Social Interactions

ABSTRACT Neighbourhood environments shape older adults’ social interactions. This research conceptualises a comprehensive set of perceived and objective measures of neighbourhood social and built environments, including third places, with older adults’ social interactions. In Melbourne, based on the person-environment fit framework, mediation analyses showed that the perceived social environment measures of community spirit, participation in community groups and belonging to suburb, were the strongest predictors of social interactions, followed by a few types of perceived third places. Our findings suggest that policymakers should focus on how the objective environment characteristics are interpreted as levers when planning for changes.

Lecturers’ technostress at a South African university in the context of coronavirus (COVID-19)

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all universities to move fully online and adopt more technological resources for effective online learning (e-learning). Lecturers have become frustrated, anxious and rebellious because they are bombarded with different technological demands and contexts, ranging from learning management systems to social media sites, video communication technologies and others. Availability of various technological resources is the only solution to enhance e-learning during the COVID-19 lockdown period, but it can sometimes lead to throughput losses due to technostress. To bridge this gap, the current qualitative case study utilises the person-environment fit framework of stress to explore lecturers’ technostress during e-learning during the COVID-19 shutdown/lockdown. E-reflective journals and Zoom one-on-one semi-structured interviews were used to generate data from 13 lecturers who were conveniently and purposively selected because they were accessible and used various technological resources to offer online lectures during the COVID-19 shutdown/lockdown. Findings showed that information, communication, and technology features mainly caused technostress to lecturers, and they were unable to deal with it because of pressure to meet due dates stipulated by university management. This study concludes by recommending lecturers to teach from the inner-self/self-identity in dealing with levels of technostress (institutional, social and technological resources) and for universities to provide possible control measures to deal with lecturers’ technostress.

Complementary or supplementary? Understanding users’ unfollowing behavior from the perspective of person-environment fit

The loss of followers poses a severe threat to the development of microblogging platforms and bloggers. However, the reasons behind users’ unfollowing behavior remain unclear. Drawing on the person-environment fit framework, we examined how different types of person-environment misfits affect users’ unfollowing intention and the relationship between these misfits. We collected the data to test the research model from 305 Weibo users via an online survey. The results suggest that from the perspective of complementary misfit, information overload increases social media fatigue, and information irrelevance increases followers’ expectation disconfirmation. From the perspective of supplementary misfit, perceived value dissimilarity positively affects followers’ fatigue and disconfirmation. These negative psychological states consequently lead to followers’ unfollowing intention. Furthermore, our results revealed the positive effects of perceived value dissimilarity on information overload and information irrelevance. We also discuss the theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study.

The M. Powell Lawton Award Lecture: The Person-Environment Fit Framework, Older Adults and Technology Interactions

M. Powell Lawton made significant contributions throughout his illustrious career to improve the quality of life of older adults. His landmark theory of person-environment fit (P-E Fit) recognized the importance of understanding the dynamic interactions between older adults and their physical and social environments and the subsequent impact of these interactions on independent living. In today’s living environments, technology is ubiquitous and can serve as both a barrier and facilitator to the ability of older people to live independently. This presentation will discuss how the P-F Fit Model can be used to clarify potential mismatches between technology systems and the characteristics, abilities, and preferences of older adult and how it can be used to guide design and training interventions to maximize the ability of aging adults to interact successfully with technology systems. Examples will be drawn from the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) in the domains of social engagement, work, and health from technology design and intervention perspectives. The CREATE conceptual framework, consistent with the P-E Fit Model posits that users have varying needs, abilities, and attitudes; technology systems and tasks vary in demands; social, physical, and policy environments influence a person’s access to and support for technology transactions; and human-technology interactions are dynamic. A focus of the presentation will be on how a user-centered design approach is compatible with the P-E Fit model and can optimize the fit between older adults and technology systems.

What does schedule fit add to work–family research? The incremental effect of schedule fit on work–family conflict, schedule satisfaction, and turnover intentions

In recent years, the person–environment fit framework has become increasingly popular as a lens for understanding the work–family interface. However, the mechanisms that link objective work–family person–environment fit to individual outcomes are poorly understood, and little person–environment fit research has focused on work schedules despite their importance for employee management of work and family roles. Moreover, it is unclear whether schedule fit contributes to individual outcomes over and beyond schedule characteristics such as flexibility and control. The present study explains how employee objective schedule fit relates to individual turnover intentions through work‐to‐family conflict and schedule satisfaction in a study of 608 retail employees. Results show that objective work–family schedule fit has statistically significant relationships with employee outcomes independent of the effects of schedule control and flexibility, but that these relationships are relatively weak. These results establish that schedule fit is a facet of work–family person–environment fit beyond more generally desirable schedule characteristics, but that it may be useful to examine only in limited contexts. The results also contribute to the understanding of the cognitive mechanisms linking objective environmental characteristics to employee outcomes.Practitioner points The ability to work a schedule that meets preferences for days and shifts (hours) is related to better worker outcomes. This effect holds even when considering employees’ control over their schedule and its flexibility. Employees’ schedules are a starting point for forming their attitudes and behaviours related to the work–family interface, which may shape future turnover cognitions.

The Influences of High-Involvement Work Practices on Older Workers’ Retirement Intention

Research on retirement decisions has invited studies to examine how personal, work-related, and environmental factors interplay to affect older workers’ retirement decisions. Drawing upon the person-environment fit framework, we proposed a negative relationship between high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) and older workers’ retirement intention. We further developed hypotheses regarding the moderating effects of gender, age, educational level, managerial status, and external economic environment on the relationship between HIWPs and retirement intention. We tested the hypotheses using a sample of 754,856 employees age 50 and over from 360 U.S. government agencies participating in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey from 2006 to 2015. The results, based on mixed effect logit regressions and cross-classified modeling, indicated that older workers’ experience of HIWPs had a negative relationship with their retirement intention, and the negative relationship was stronger for older men workers, workers aged 50-59 years, older workers without a bachelor’s degree, and non-managerial older workers than for older women workers, those aged 60 years or over, those with a bachelor’s degree, and those with managerial responsibilities, respectively. Moreover, the results showed that the negative HIWPs-retirement intention relationship has become stronger since the Great Recession of 2008. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of older workers’ retirement decisions by considering the interactions between human resource management practices and personal and environmental factors.

TheIandWeof Team Identification: A Multilevel Study of Exhaustion and (In)congruence Among Individuals and Teams in Team Identification

The social identity approach to stress proposes that the beneficial effects of social identification develop through individual and group processes, but few studies have addressed both levels simultaneously. Using a multilevel person–environment fit framework, we investigate the group-level relationship between team identification (TI) and exhaustion, the individual-level relationship for people within a group, and the cross-level moderation effect to test whether individual-level exhaustion depends on the level of (in)congruence in TI between individuals and their group as a whole. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 525 employees from 82 teams. Multilevel polynomial regression analysis revealed a negative linear relationship between individual-level identification and exhaustion. Surprisingly, the relation between group-level identification and exhaustion was curvilinear, indicating that group-level identification was more beneficial at low and high levels compared with medium levels. As predicted, the cross-level moderation of the individual-level relationship by group-level identification was also significant, showing that as individuals became more incongruent in a positive direction (i.e., they identified more strongly than the average team member), they reported less exhaustion, but only if the group-level identification was average or high. These results emphasize the benefits of analyzing TI in a multilevel framework, with both theoretical and practical implications.

Do We Have a Match? Assessing the Role of Community in Coworking Spaces Based on a Person-Environment Fit Framework.

As working arrangements become more flexible and many people work remotely, the risk of social isolation rises. Coworking spaces try to prevent this by offering not only a workplace, but also a community. Adopting a person-environment fit perspective, we examined how the congruence between workers' needs and supplies by coworking spaces relate to job satisfaction and intent to leave. We identified five needs (i.e., community, collaboration, amenities, location, and cost), of which community was expected to be the central need. An online questionnaire was distributed among coworkers in Germany and Austria, resulting in a sample of 181 coworkers. Results showed that needs-supplies fit regarding community was related to job satisfaction and intent to leave in coworking spaces. Findings for the other needs, however, did not show that congruence is associated with outcomes. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of community fit in coworking and offer insights for workers and entrepreneurs in this area.

Can Holland’s Person-Environment Fit Theory Produce Troubling Outcomes for Racial/Ethnic Underrepresented Students in STEM? An Analysis of Social Agency

Increasing the success of Underrepresented Students of Color (USC) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a central concern to many researchers, policymakers, and educators. To help understand STEM college student success, many studies have utilized Holland’s (1966, 1973, 1985, 1997) person-environment fit framework applying it uncritically to all students. Using Quantitative Criticalism, this study engages the racial realities of USC while investigating several assumptions of Holland’s theory and their implications for USC pursuing STEM fields. Utilizing a national, longitudinal dataset of 5,564 STEM bachelor’s degree recipients drawn from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s 2004 Freshman Survey and 2011 Post-Baccalaureate Survey, this study specifically examines students’ interest in making a positive impact on society through socio-political action, or social agency, which Holland’s typology suggests is incongruent with STEM environments. Findings show that USC may be more likely to be described as “incongruent” with Holland’s classification of STEM environments, that the congruence assumption may not be fully applicable for understanding the long-term success of USC in STEM, and that the social agency of USC did not significantly change over the seven years while white students’ significantly decreased. Implications for broadening participation and promoting equity in STEM fields are discussed.

Expatriate Consumers’ Adaptations and Food Brand Choices: A Compensatory Control Perspective

The number of expatriates has been steadily growing during the last two decades. For these reasons, academia has exhibited a growing research interest in expatriates’ food consumption choices. Although interest is there, the extant literature is inconclusive about conditions under which expatriate consumers make trade-offs between host-country (local) and global food products and brands. The present study presents mechanisms that explain expatriate consumers’ compensatory coping behaviors and choices between local versus global food brands. By drawing on compensatory control theory and the person–environment fit framework, the authors test the influence of adaptation efforts and retail system properties on expatriate consumers’ food brand choices. Survey findings from 232 expatriates who currently live in five Middle Eastern countries reveal that a higher engagement in adaptation efforts (acculturation and general adjustment) leads to a dominant preference for local (vs. global) food brands. Moreover, this study illuminates the importance of retail system properties by showing that a host country’s retail system development positively moderates the relationship between adaptation efforts and local food brand choices, whereas retail similarity has a negative impact.

The Facade of Fit in Faculty Search Processes

ABSTRACT Various concerns regarding the vitality and racial/ethnic composition of the academic profession have prompted new study of faculty search committees and hiring paradigms, most notably examining the term “fit” in candidate appraisals. Yet no study utilizes a candidate evaluation framework to investigate whether or not faculty members truly assess for fit, or if these assessments stifle diversification processes, especially in light of pervasive institutional efforts to reform faculty hiring. This study uses a critical person-environment fit framework and multiple case study methods to investigate how faculty search committee members individually evaluate and collectively select prospective early-career faculty. Results indicate that fit, as system of assumptions, practices, and tactics designed to evaluate and select candidates based on organizational needs, was minimal in faculty searches. Instead, faculty relied heavily on idiosyncratic preferences to evaluate research, teaching, and service credentials, which also contained criterion that directly and indirectly averted diversity. Findings reveal how the review and selection of candidates is as much, if not more, about individual committee preferences than organizational demands or congruence.

HR policy attribution: Implications for work-family person-environment fit

The person-environment fit framework has been increasingly used as a theoretical foundation for work-family research. As this use has grown, several gaps and opportunities regarding its application to this literature have emerged. The present paper draws on attribution theory to build a conceptual model that explains the cognitive processes through which work-family human resource practices are linked to person-environment work-family fit perceptions. We distinguish between employee attributions of work-family practices to an environmental source and attributions about that source's intent in adopting the practice. We argue that these attributions play a critical part in determining the supplies available to an employee to segment or integrate work and family domains. We further link these attributions to attitudes and behaviors targeted at specific environmental levels (i.e., the organization and supervisor) through work-family fit mechanisms. Finally, we explain how our model helps to explain inconsistent research findings and can inform future research drawing on work-family fit frameworks.

Person-Environment Fit and Positive Youth Development in the Context of High School Gay-Straight Alliances.

Drawing from a person-environment fit framework, we identified profiles of youth in gay-straight alliances (GSAs) based on the extent to which they received information/resources, socializing/support, and advocacy opportunities in their GSAs and the extent to which this matched what they desired from their GSA along these three functions. Further, we examined profile differences in positive developmental competencies while accounting for community-contextual factors. In a sample of 290 youth from 42 Massachusetts GSAs, latent profile analyses identified five subgroups. Overall, youth receiving less from their GSAs than they desired, particularly regarding opportunities for advocacy, reported lower levels of self-reflection, bravery, civic engagement, and agency than youth who received information, socializing/support, and advocacy that matched or exceeded what they desired.

Neighborhood Context, Family Cultural Values, and Latinx Youth Externalizing Problems.

Latinx youth living in the United States reside in a myriad of cultural and neighborhood contexts, yet little is known regarding how cultural values influence behavior problems across neighborhood contexts. Using a person-environment fit framework, the present study explored the degree to which youth cultural values were associated with their externalizing problems, and the degree to which this association was shaped by their neighborhood's socioeconomic status (SES), and Latinx and immigrant concentration. The sample comprised of 998 Latinx youth (Female = 54.2%), ages 10 to 14 years old (Mage = 11.8), from three large United States metropolitan areas. Multilevel modeling methods indicated that increased fit between youth cultural values and neighborhood Latinx and immigrant concentration was associated with fewer externalizing problems, but only in higher SES neighborhoods. The results support the importance of studying social determinants of Latinx youth behavioral health, and provide implications for both neighborhood-level and individual-level prevention and intervention programming.

From Job Passion to Work Engagement: The Mediating Role of Fit and the Moderating Role of Trust

We examine how employees’ job passion, either harmonious (HJP) or obsessive (OJP), can determine the extent of their job and organizational engagement. Using a person-environment fit framework, we ...

Work-Family Person-Environment Fit: A Roadmap to Conceptual Clarity

Work-family literature has benefited from the use of the person-environment fit framework. This framework holds potential for linking individuals to their broader context and helping researchers and practitioners understand the effects of work-family human resource management policies and practices on organizations and their employees. However, conceptual issues have limited the framework’s utility within the work-family literature. We review the use of the person-environment fit framework in work-family studies and find substantial conceptual confusion in its application, particularly within the concept of work- family supplies. We offer a multifaceted conceptualization of supplies that includes four components: entity, opportunity, intent, and attribution. We argue that this conceptualization will increase the usability of the person-environment framework in the work-family literature, allowing for a better understanding of the relationships between organizational work-family practices and individual outcomes.

English

Although person-environment fit (PEF) has been extensively studied in organizational psychology and business literature, its application to educational context has been limited. The current study used PEF framework in terms of creativity within the context of higher education. The nature of relationship between person-environment fit, college culture, creative and academic self-efficacy has been investigated. Analyses based on two different formulations of PEF indicated that college culture, creative and academic self-efficacy are the highest when both person and environment components are high. Specific analyses with misfit scores indicated that college culture generates a pro-environment discrepancy. Creative self-efficacy is more related to person component whereas college culture and academic self-efficacy were related to environment component. Results are discussed in relation to the literature and theories of creativity. Key words: Person-environment fit, creativity, college culture, creative self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy.

About Ethnicity, Fitting In, and Acting Out: Applying the Person–Environment Fit Framework to School Misconduct

Starting from a person–environment fit framework, this study investigates whether ethnic congruence—the percentage of co-ethnics in a school—relates to school misconduct and whether congruence effects differ between ethnic minority and majority students. Moreover, we investigate whether eventual associations are mediated by friendship attachment, perceived teacher support, and general school belonging. Multilevel analyses of data from 11,759 students across 83 Flemish secondary schools show that higher ethnic congruence is associated with lower levels of school misconduct but only for ethnic minority students. This effect was not mediated by friendship attachment, nor by teacher support, but it was mediated by general school belonging. We conclude that ethnic minority students in schools with a higher percentage of peers of co-ethnic descent are less likely to break the school rules because they feel more contented in the school context, which is congruent with the person–environment fit framework.

Employee Reviews on Company Independent Sites and its Impact on Organizational Attractiveness: Role of Information Realism, Person – Environment Fit and Source Credibility Framework

Extant literature on recruitment has focused on the traditional sources of recruitment like company brochures, career fairs, and impact of such sources on intent to join the organization, productivity and turnover intention. The influence of recruitment related information on pre hire outcomes is still scarce and inconclusive. With the advent of technology and access to Internet, company websites have become an important source of recruitment. Apart from company websites, job seekers are now using company independent websites, forums or online communities to gather a more truthful picture and information about the job and organizational attributes. Social media too has become increasingly important medium where the current employees’ share how it is to work with the organization However research on web based recruitment is limited to company websites. Despite the widespread growth and practical use of these new and innovative media very little is known about how these independent sites influence recruitment pre hire outcomes. In this direction the proposed study presents a conceptual framework about how job seekers perceive company independent websites as a tool for providing recruitment communication and their impact on organizational attractiveness using Information Realism, Person-Environment fit framework, Source Credibility framework.

A future-oriented Retirement Transition Adjustment Framework

This theoretical paper presents a person–environment fit framework that extends the Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment to retirement transition and adjustment. The proposed Retirement Transition and Adjustment Framework (RTAF) also accommodates dynamic intra-individual and environment change over time, configural combinations of variables, and an ecological perspective to psychological-level decisions. The RTAF permits the collection of frequently sampled longitudinal person and environment data, allows for a detailed analysis of change and responsiveness, and can accommodate external influences from the family team, and social, economic and political policies. The paper concludes by using the RTAF to illustrate the types of psychological measurement and analysis opportunities likely to emerge in light of developments in the web, virtual reality, personal informatics and computing and information technology generally.