Fit has long been an important subject in management and organizational studies and, usually implies, either explicitly or implicitly, positive organizational or individual outcomes. Particularly, the supplies-values (S-V) fit perspective, which suggests that an alignment between an individual's preferences (values) and what the job or environment supplies will result in optimal outcomes on individual well-being as well as positive work-related attitudes such as satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, the study of fit remains rather primitive because of the lack of a sound methodology and of a parochial understanding of fit that issues mainly from a single-culture context. This dissertation was designed to overcome these shortcomings by adopting appropriate methodologies and extending the study of fit into different cultural contexts (national and occupational) with a series of comparative studies in order to investigate whether P-E fit showed the same pattern across different contexts.
Empirical data were collected from the headquarters of a Taiwanese multinational corporation and its European subsidiaries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland) by an online survey, with a sample size of 789. Organizational members' preferences and perceived reality on dimensions of organizational structure such as formalization and centralization were assessed in order to test the hypothesis of S-V fit and supplementary fit at the individual level. Confirmative factor analysis (CFA) with structural equation modeling (SEM), within-and-between analysis (WABA), and polynomial regression and response surface methodology were applied to ensure cross-cultural equivalence of the measurements, level effects of the constructs, and a comprehensive understanding of fit that took into account both components of fit . Moderated multiple regression was also conducted to check the moderating effect of job level and individualism-collectivism on fit.
The results of this study showed that cultural values were principally individual-level constructs. This finding suggests a necessity to reflect on the conceptualization of culture and to what extent culture can be defined as something "shared" by the group. In addition, differences in the patterns of S-V fit and supplementary fit were statistically significant, which suggests that P-E fit should not be treated as something universal but rather context-sensitive. The study of fit was advanced by encompassing national and occupational cultures and the conceptualization of "P-E fit sensitive" dimensions in organizations. As a consequence, organizational design and management practices should be varied according to achieve better performance. However, certain results were difficult to interpret because of the sophisticated shapes of the response surfaces. The lack of construct validity of the cultural dimensions made it even harder to explain precisely the variation among different contexts. Implications for future research and possible improvement of the present study were also discussed.