Fit Perspective Research Articles

Fostering the Protégé Career Success through Traditional and Relational Mentoring Functions: A Complementary Fit Perspective

In today's dynamic and continuously changing environment, achieving a successful career can be challenging for a protégé. A range of stakeholders, including mentors, influence the protégé's career success in their professional network. Mentors play a crucial role in a protégé's professional network. They are strong predictors of the resources that a protégé can acquire, such as career self-efficacy, which is essential for making informed career decisions and achieving success in professional life. Following this, the current study explores the connection between traditional and relational mentoring functions and career success via the intervening construct of career self-efficacy. Data were gathered from 384 staff employed in Pakistan's private, public, and Islamic banks. PLS-SEM was utilized to analyze the data. The findings show that mentoring functions are significantly related to the career success of protégés, with relational mentoring emerging as a more potent predictor of career success and career self-efficacy than traditional mentoring. Additionally, the findings suggest that protégé career self-efficacy mediates the direct association between mentoring and career success. This study adds to the literature by studying traditional and relational mentoring roles as predictors of protégé career self-efficacy and success. By highlighting the importance of relational mentoring, this study emphasizes the need for employers to develop effective mentoring programs that prioritize establishing supportive and collaborative mentor-protégé relationships.

I am therefore, I do: a fit perspective of decision-making styles and business intelligence usage

ABSTRACT Individual differences affect how Business Intelligence (BI) systems are used and utilised. Decision-making styles which were regarded as learned habits of how individuals make a decision were believed to be described by two main important aspects including information use and focus are chosen as individual differences in this research. Two view of fit were drawn from the theory to explain how individual differences predict BI usage; Fit as Matching and Fit as Moderation. A total of 122 valid responses were collected. The results of empirical data analyses show that only the rational decision-making style and BI usage is found to be fit as matching. When taking a fit perspective as moderating, the analyses show interesting results. Computer self-efficacy was found to positively moderate the relationship between the avoidant decision-making style and BI usage. Task equivocality was also found to positively moderate the relationship between the spontaneous decision-making style and BI usage. The findings imply different alternative actions for organisation to motivate the use of BI system for individuals with different decision-making styles.

Exploring and understanding perceived relationships between doctoral students and their supervisors in China

Fit in supervisory relationships is crucial for doctoral students’ outcomes, where supervisory relationships are influenced by cultural and disciplinary contexts. This article qualitatively explores fit or misfit between students’ perceptions and those of their supervisors on supervisory relationships in STEM in the cultural context of Chinese Confucianism. Considered through the lens of person-supervisor fit, two dimensions, consisting of four distinctions of supervisor-doctoral student fit or misfit in supervisory relationships, are identified: (1) a conceptual dimension consisting of supplementary fit or misfit; and (2) a practical dimension consisting of complementary fit or misfit. Supplementary fit is illustrated through three conceptual congruences regarding the nature of doctoral learning, students’ dispositions and the modelling and nurturing roles of supervisors. The term supplementary misfit refers to a conceptual incongruence regarding supervisors’ familial roles, which demonstrates contradictions between sustained cultural influences and the present-day academic profession. Complementary fit includes needs–supplies fit and demands–abilities fit, which bear disciplinary characteristics in modern STEM doctoral education. Complementary misfit refers to supervisors’ strict practices as against students’ demands for autonomy. This article advances the application of the person-supervisor fit perspective in STEM doctoral supervision and contributes to the understanding of disciplinary and cultural influences on the present-day academic supervisory relationships in China.

Links between life-course SES and frailty trajectory moderated by community environment resources: Person-environment Fit perspective

IntroductionDrawing from the life course and person-environment fit perspectives, this study examined whether life-course SES disadvantages during childhood, adulthood and old- age influence frailty development in late- life and how community environment resources moderated the association between life-course SES disadvantages and frailty trajectories over a seven-year follow-up period. MethodsData from 11,675 participants aged ≥ 50 years at baseline who participated in the four waves (2011-2018) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) were used. Life-course SES disadvantages were self-reported, and community environment resources (basic infrastructure and voluntary organizations) were ascertained from informed officials in the community. Frailty development was measured at each wave by the Frailty Index (FI) based on 39 potential deficits. Multilevel growth modeling was used to examine the interactive effect of life-course SES disadvantages and community environment resources on frailty development. ResultsLife-course SES disadvantage exerted cumulatively negative effects on frailty trajectory, and individuals with SES disadvantages in two or three life stages reported higher initial levels of and faster increases in frailty scores. Community environmental resources (basic infrastructure and voluntary organizations) had a protective effect on frailty development and buffered the negative effects of SES vulnerability experiences accumulated over the life course. Community basic infrastructure resources played an important role in slowing the progression of frailty for individuals with cumulative SES disadvantage and downward mobility. DiscussionOur findings provided new evidence of person-environmental docility among older adults, documenting the role of community resources in buffering SES disparities in health during later-life.

Understanding employees' responses to information security management practices: a person-environment fit perspective

ABSTRACT This study tests the person–environment fit theory in information security (ISec), which describes situations in which the extent of ISec management is linked to positive or negative employee outcomes. We hypothesise that employees appraise their organisational ISec depending on the mismatch or match perception between their needs and organisational supplies. We define a mismatch as ISec misfit and a match as ISec fit and develop hypotheses framing the relationship between ISec fit (vs. misfit), employees’ emotional reactions (anxiety and attentiveness), and, subsequently, ISec behaviours (ISec in-role, extra-role, and violation behaviours). We conduct quadratic polynomial regressions and apply response surface methodology to test our hypotheses and obtain two findings. First, ISec management are proactively needed by employees instead of prior enforcement perspective. The results show that ISec management practices are appraised negatively when they either exceed or fail to meet employees’ preferences. Second, in expounding on a theoretical construction and empirical test of ISec fit and misfit and their relationships with employee outcomes, we find that attentiveness is greater with ISec fit, whereas anxiety is higher and attentiveness is lesser with ISec misfit. We also find that emotion mediates employees’ ISec behaviours, while only anxiety does not mediate extra-role behaviour.

Legal and Cultural Contingencies in the Foreign Portfolio Versus Foreign Direct Investment Decisions Across Countries: An Institutional Fit Perspective

Legal and Cultural Contingencies in the Foreign Portfolio Versus Foreign Direct Investment Decisions Across Countries: An Institutional Fit Perspective

Exploring the Flow Experience and Re-Experience Intention of Students Participating in Water Sports from the Perspective of Regional Tourism and Leisure Environment Suitability

Previous research on rowing has mostly focused on sports physiology and sports psychology, while the preparation of the competition environment and the participatory behavior of rowers have been less frequently discussed. Therefore, this study intended to discuss the flow experience and revisit the intention of students participating in water-based sports from the perspective of recreational environment fit. Taking the students participating in the Sun Moon Lake Rowing Championships as research subjects, this study conducted a questionnaire survey. A total of 380 questionnaires were sent out and 350 were collected, with a return rate of 92.1%. After excluding 38 invalid questionnaires, 312 valid questionnaires were obtained, and the effective recovery rate was 89.1%. Based on the SPSS and AMOS statistical analyses, the following results were obtained: (1) The needs–supplies fit had a significant impact on flow experience. The path value was 0.60, with a p-value of <0.05; (2) the needs–supplies fit had a significant impact on revisit intention. The path value was 0.38, with a p-value of <0.05; (3) flow experience had no significant impact on revisit intention. The path value was 0.40, with a p-value of >0.05; (4) flow experience had a significant impact on the sense of happiness. The path value was 0.93, with a p-value of <0.05; (5) the demands–abilities fit had a significant impact on flow experience. The path value was 0.56, with a p-value of <0.05; (6) the demands–abilities fit had a significant impact on revisit intention. The path value was 0.29, with a p-value of <0.05; and (7) sense of happiness had no significant impact on revisit intention. The path value was −0.01, with a p-value of >0.05. It is suggested that future related studies could focus on the total amount of recreational activities in the water area of Sun Moon Lake. Finally, relevant practical suggestions were made according to the results of this study.

Leveraging horizon height in a panoramic advertisement to promote tourism advertising effectiveness: a construal fit perspective

ABSTRACT A variety of visual information has received attention in the field of destination sensory marketing. However, the horizon height in a panoramic advertising image – one visual message often used in advertising – has yet to be researched. This research causes several noteworthy findings through three scenario-based experiments. Results reveal that the horizon height in a tourism panoramic advertisement should be tailored to the tourism activity type to enhance advertising effectiveness (i.e. increased travel intention): for a relaxing activity, customers should be exposed to a panoramic advertisement featuring a high horizon; for a challenging activity, a panorama with a low horizon is more persuasive. Findings also unearth the mediating (i.e. engagement) and moderating (i.e. narrative perspective) effects behind the interaction between the horizon height in a panoramic advertising view and tourism activity type on travel intention. These discoveries enrich the literature on tourism destination sensory marketing and provide destination marketers with a novel means of attracting visitors.

Employees' in-role and extra-role information security behaviors from the P-E fit perspective

Organizations are increasingly seeking ways to encourage employee in-role and extra-role information security (InfoSec) behaviors for enhancing organizational InfoSec. One important consideration is the InfoSec congruence between the person and the organizational environment. Accordingly, drawing on person–environment (P–E) fit theory, we conducted an empirical investigation that examined (1) the effect of key components in organizational InfoSec management practice on InfoSec value P–E fit, and (2) the role of InfoSec value P–E fit on employees’ InfoSec in-role and extra-role behaviors in the organization. The results suggest that three practices—InfoSec policies; security education, training, and awareness programs; and computer monitoring—cultivate InfoSec value P–E fit, leading to an increase in employees’ InfoSec in-role and extra-role behaviors.

A multilevel model of expatriate staffing and subsidiary financial performance: An expanded fit perspective

A multilevel model of expatriate staffing and subsidiary financial performance: An expanded fit perspective

Will aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism fit enhance service quality? The moderating effect of organizational aesthetics

At present, the dominant aesthetic of consumer culture has become a universal standard for design. In the hotel industry, frontline service providers play a key role in incorporating and conveying aesthetic values when providing service. Based on aesthetic theories and the perspective of supplementary fit, the current study investigates the role of the fit between aesthetic sensitivity and the healthy perfectionism of frontline service providers in the enhancement of service quality. We employ organizational aesthetics as our moderator. A total of 296 valid questionnaire sets were collected, representing a valid return ratio of 70%. The results of the hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the path from aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism to service quality indicated a positive relationship (β = 0.23, p < .01); and the interaction between organizational aesthetics and aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism fit exhibited a positive correlation with service quality (β = 0.17, p < .01). (1) the aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism fit is positively related to service quality; (2) high levels of organizational aesthetics among frontline service providers strengthen the positive correlation between aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism fit and service quality; and (3) low levels of organizational aesthetics among frontline service providers weaken the positive correlation between aesthetic sensitivity and healthy perfectionism fit and service quality. This study contributes to theory and practice with respect to the hotel industry.

Understanding variation in subunit adoption of electronic health records: facilitating and constraining configurations of critical dependencies

ABSTRACT This interpretative case study demonstrates how the work system properties and roles of clinical departments are perceived to shape their adoption of an organisation-wide electronic health record. In hospitals, with their heterogeneous and powerful clinical departments, partial or non-adoption by some departments may jeopardise effective overall use. Viewing a hospital’s EHR adoption from a sociotechnical fit perspective, we unravel how clinical departments’ adoption of this organisation-wide system was primarily shaped by their critical work system dependencies rather than their role during its implementation. From the interviewees’ accounts, three orientations emerge: (1) organisation-oriented resulting in unconditional adoption; (2) department-oriented resulting in problematic or delayed adoption with high compromise costs; (3) environment-oriented resulting in at least partial non-adoption or extra design costs. Our subsequent analysis leads to the identification of four types of subunit-level characteristics influencing adoption. Their interplay informs departments in balancing between accepting compromise costs and negotiating design costs. We develop a diagnostic system model of subunit-level adoption that takes the embeddedness of the subunit into account and thereby complements individual- and organisation-level adoption theories. An accompanying heuristic may enable hospital managers to better anticipate the heterogeneity in departments’ adoption.

Complementarity in the CEO-CFO interface: The joint influence of CEO and CFO personality and structural power on firm financial leverage

We integrate a person-role fit perspective with recent research on executive personality to explain how and when personality traits reflecting CEOs’ and CFOs’ potential complementary roles as the firm’s visionary leader (extraversion) and corporate conscience (conscientiousness) interact to influence financial leverage. Using a sample of more than 3000 CEO-CFO dyads of S&P 1500 firms from 1997 to 2017, we show that firms with more (less) extraverted CEOs tend to have higher (lower) levels of financial leverage, but that greater CFO conscientiousness buffers this relationship by encouraging more moderate levels of financial leverage at either level of CEO extraversion. We also find that this interaction is less pronounced when the CEO has greater structural power, but more pronounced when the CFO has greater structural power. Our theory and findings extend leadership research by enhancing our understanding of the roles of personality and power in collective leadership settings, and particularly, in encouraging outcomes that better reflect complementarity in the CEO-CFO interface.

An internal fit perspective on the relationship between strategic human resource (HR) practices and knowledge-oriented HR practices

Purpose This study aims to examine the direct link between strategic human resource practices (SHRPs) and knowledge-oriented human resource practices (KHRPs) to determine their complementarity for promoting knowledge management (KM) activities. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data from 387 employees working in top 20 IT and consulting firms in India through a questionnaire survey. Data is analysed using exploratory factor analysis and regression technique. Findings SHRPs have a significant and positive relationship with KHRPs, suggesting SHRPs have a positive predictive capacity for influencing KHRPs. It suggests there needs to be internal alignment between the core human resource (HR) practices and knowledge-based HR activities to promote KM. It shows that core HR practices of hiring, training, job design, performance and compensation management facilitate knowledge sharing and creation through HR practices. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional design limits its ability to reflect cause–effect relationship, and further studies can adopt a longitudinal design. Further research can explore other different HR configurations on KHRP. Originality/value The study explored the suitability of core HR practices with knowledge-based HR practices theoretically contributing to the HR configurational internal fit perspective, and KM literature. Practically, it suggests firms to consider core HR practices while designing organizations’ KM strategies. In the context of knowledge-intensive organizations, the study applies the HR configurational fit perspective that purports synergistic relationship among the various HR sub-systems for achieving organizational goals.

Where are the workers? Leadership‐follower fit and behavioral work withdrawal in the logistics supply chain

AbstractWith supply chains targeting increased efficiency, leadership behaviors are critical in influencing the employee experience, and thus the success of employees in organizations. Yet, behavioral work withdrawal, e.g., lateness and absenteeism, among frontline logistics employees is an acute challenge, estimated to contribute millions annually in related costs such as overtime or temporary workers. Our work seeks to capture potential causes for these withdrawal behaviors in the logistics supply chain. Extending prior work on regulatory focus theory, we propose that behavioral work withdrawal depends on fit or misfit between leadership behavior and the follower's regulatory focus. Leadership behaviors appealing to opportunities and growth (i.e., inspirational styles) are likely effective at reducing withdrawal for employees high in promotion focus, while behaviors appealing to accuracy and avoiding errors or failure (i.e., management‐by‐exception styles) are likely effective at reducing withdrawal for employees high in prevention focus. We combine survey and archival data to test our moderation hypotheses. Support is found for the fit perspective, confirming that no single leadership behavior is consistently better at reducing withdrawal, yet attentiveness to this perspective is critical as misfit increases withdrawal. These findings can help reduce overtime, employee burnout, and service delays and allow managers to reduce associated costs.

A fit perspective to family supportive supervisor behaviors: Exploring the role of protean career orientation on employee outcomes

In a context where employees find it increasingly difficult to juggle work and family demands, increasing attention has been paid to family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Drawing on key tenets of the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, we hypothesize that FSSB is positively related to needs-supplies fit, which in turn, predicts both work and nonwork outcomes i.e., proactive skill development and sleep quality. We also hypothesize that for employees high on protean career orientation (PCO), the consequences of FSSB are more significant and positive on both a) employees' perceived needs-supplies fits and b) proactive skill development. We conducted a three-wave study with a month time interval in Chile, Colombia, and Spain with matched data of subordinates and their managers (N = 454). Most of our hypotheses were supported. We expand and contribute to the literature by providing a fit perspective to research on FSSB, arguing that such behaviors improve employees’ perceptions of their jobs, with a consequential positive impact on their work and nonwork outcomes. The results demonstrate the key role of FSSB in enabling employees to perceive a better fit with their jobs. For HR managers and practitioners, results show that keeping protean-oriented employees is a promising strategy.

With a little help from my friends: adopting a P-E fit perspective in understanding the value of organizational learning climate for sustainable employability.

The objective of our study was to investigate how organizational learning climate (measured as developmental opportunities and team support for learning), career commitment, and age are related to employees' self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability (e.g., their sustainable employability). Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective building upon the notion that sustainable employability is a function of both the person (P) and the environment (E) and tests a three-way interaction between organizational learning climate, career commitment, and age. In total, 211 members of the support staff of a Dutch university completed a survey. Hierarchical stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data. Only one of the two dimensions of organizational learning climate that we measured, namely the developmental opportunities, appeared to be associated with all indicators of sustainable employability. Career commitment only had a direct positive relationship with vitality. Age was negatively related to self-perceived employability and to work ability, but not to vitality. The relationship between developmental opportunities and vitality was negatively influenced by career commitment (a negative two-way interaction effect), while a positive three-way interaction effect was found between career commitment, age, and development opportunities, and with self-perceived employability as the outcome. Our findings confirmed the relevance of adopting a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability, and of considering the possible role of age in this. It requires more detailed analyses in future research to unravel the role of age in the shared responsibility for sustainable employability. In practice, the results of our study imply that organizations should provide all employees with a working context that facilitates learning, however, with a special focus on older employees, for whom it is a particular challenge to protect their sustainable employability, possibly due to age-related stereotyping. Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability and examined the association between organizational learning climate and all three components of sustainable employability: self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability. Moreover, it investigated whether and how the employee's career commitment and age influence this relationship.

Volunteer job design: A fit perspective

By Deeksha Munjal, Andrea R. Neely & 2 more. We propose a theoretically grounded model that explains the flow between volunteers’ needs and their culmination into favorable volunteers’ attitudes and behaviors for nonprofit organizations.

Selecting entrepreneurial employees using a person‐group fit perspective

AbstractAs jobs become unstructured and collective endeavor oriented, it is increasingly being realized that work groups must become more autonomous and entrepreneurial. The selection literature is however silent on the predictive mechanisms that may be leveraged to select group members with the desired competencies. The person‐group fit perspective enables us to hypothesize and demonstrate that selection instruments geared toward gauging an individual's fit within a group are likely to manifest entrepreneurial competencies and behaviors in the individual. Further, the nature of the job, in terms of the structuredness of work (task formalization) and the repetitiveness of work activities (task routinization), has a moderating impact on the relationship between overall entrepreneurial competence and selection practices. The study has implications for incorporating the principles of person‐group fit into the design of job profiles.

The Curvilinear Effects of Leader Public Service Motivation on Person–Supervisor Fit and Subordinate Emotional Exhaustion: Evidence From Field and Experimental Studies

Past research has shed important light on the dark side of individuals’ public service motivation (PSM) in relation to their own well-being. This study turns attention to the role of leader PSM and asks whether it could have a curvilinear relationship with subordinate emotional exhaustion. Drawing from the person–environment (P-E) fit perspective, this study proposes that this curvilinear relationship is mediated by perceptions of person–supervisor (PS) fit and moderated by subordinate PSM. The results from the field and two experimental vignette studies in Thailand provide support for the proposed hypotheses. In particular, higher levels of emotional exhaustion and lower levels of PS fit were observed at the low and high levels of leader PSM, whereas the moderate level of leader PSM was associated with lower emotional exhaustion and higher PS fit. The results from the experimental studies further indicate that individuals with high PSM, in comparison with those with low PSM, perceived higher PS fit with leaders who have moderate to high levels of PSM, in turn, experiencing less emotional exhaustion. These findings highlight the potential dark side of leader PSM, which lends further credence to the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect. Nevertheless, these effects also depend on employees’ PSM levels.