Person-Environment Fits as Drivers of Commitment

This chapter describes how employees’ fit experiences drive their commitments to their job, supervisor, team, and organization. Employees commit – that is, become attached – when they experience positive affective reactions as a consequence of the correspondence (versus discrepancy) between their attributes and those in their work environment. Because work environments comprise varying domains (for example, the job, the supervisor, the team, and the organization) to which employees may connect, the authors suggest that employees can experience multiple fits, which combine into holistic fit perceptions and result in various types of commitment. They distinguish two types of fit that inform these holistic perceptions: the needs, preferences and values that all people share (universal fits) and those that vary among individuals (distinctive fits). Finally, the authors delineate several opportunities for research and practice relating to how different fit perceptions emerge, how they combine, and how they might inform an organization’s selection and change practices.