Person-environment fit, social exchange relationships, and employee outcomes in organizations

Abstract

With an integrative outlook, this study examines the effects of employees‟ fit with their organizations, fit with their jobs, and fit with their supervisors on their job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions by paying special attention to the change in the form and strength of these relationships under different levels of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader-member exchange (LMX) quality. Hypothesized relationships are examined with a preliminary qualitative study, which consists of three focus groups and three interviews, and a quantitative research that comprises a survey. Data are collected from 213 employees who work in five different banks operating in Istanbul, Turkey and hypothesized relationships are analyzed with structural equation modeling procedure in AMOS18. The primary finding of the study is that among three fit types, person-job fit, significantly affect employees‟ job involvement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The results also indicate that job fit – organizational commitment relationship is moderated by employees‟ support perceptions in such a way that the effect of job fit on commitment is significant only for those employees with lower organizational support perceptions. Another prominent finding is that the effect of person-supervisor fit on employees‟ turnover intentions is conditional, as this fit type decreases turnover intents only when employees perceive higher support from their organizations and have higher quality relationships with their leaders. Similarly, the relationship between employees‟ organization fit and organizational commitment is moderated by their leader-member exchange relationships such that organization fit influences commitment only when employees have high quality exchange relationships with their supervisors.