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This meta-analysis investigated the relationships between person-job (PJ), person-organization (PO), person-group, and person-supervisor fit with preentry (applicant attraction, job acceptance, intent to hire, job offer) and postentry individual-level criteria (attitudes, performance, withdrawal behaviors, strain, tenure). A search of published articles, conference presentations, dissertations, and working papers yielded 172 usable studies with 836 effect sizes. Nearly all of the credibility intervals did not include O, indicating the broad generalizability of the relationships across situations. Various ways in which fit was conceptualized and measured, as well as issues of study design, were examined as moderators to these relationships in studies of PJ and PO fit. Interrelationships between the various types of fit are also meta-analyzed. 25 studies using polynomial regression as an analytic technique are reviewed separately, because of their unique approach to assessing fit. Broad themes emerging from the results are discussed to generate the implications for future research on fit.
Theories of person-environment (PE) interaction have been prevalent in the management literature for almost 1OO years (e.g., Ekehammer, 1974; Lewin, 1935; Murray, 1938; Parsons, 1909; Pervin, 1968), making it "one of the more venerable lines of psychological theorizing" (Dawis, 1992). It is against this interactionist backdrop that the concept of PE fit emerged. Described as a "syndrome with many manifestations" (Schneider, 2001, p. 142), PE fit is broadly defined as the compatibility between an individual and a work environment that occurs when their characteristics are well matched. Despite, or perhaps because of, the simplicity of this definition, several distinct types of fit have garnered attention. Much emphasis has been placed on the match between peoples' interests and those of others in a vocation (e.g., Holland, 1985). However, other types of fit, such as an individual's compatibility with his or her job, organization, work group, and supervisors have also emerged as important research domains.
Although research on these other types of fit has been prolific, rarely has it been synthesized to draw conclusions about the true impact of fit on individual-level outcomes. Some progress toward integration has been made. However, most reviews have been nonquantitative, not differentiated between various types of fit, or focused solely on single types of PE fit. Edwards (1991) provided a comprehensive qualitative review of PE fit studies published between 1960...