Person–environment fit

Person–environment fit (P–E fit) is the degree to which individual and environmental characteristics match. Person characteristics may include an individual's biological or psychological needs, values, goals, abilities, or personality, while environmental characteristics could include intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, demands of a job or role, cultural values, or characteristics of other individuals and collectives in the person's social environment. Due to its important implications in the workplace, person–environment fit has maintained a prominent position in Industrial and organizational psychology and related fields. Person–environment fit can be understood as a specific type of person–situation interaction that involves the match between corresponding person and environment dimensions. Even though person–situation interactions as they relate to fit have been discussed in the scientific literature for decades, the field has yet to reach consensus on how to conceptualize and operationalize person–environment fit. This is due partly to the fact that person–environment fit encompasses a number of subsets, such as person–supervisor fit and person–job fit, which are conceptually distinct from one another. There has been a long debate about the relative importance of the person versus the situation in terming human behavior. One group researchers have argued that it is the situation which primarily responsible for individual behaviors, while another group of searchers believe that the personal characteristics are primary responsible for behavior. Nevertheless, it is generally assumed that person–environment fit leads to positive outcomes, such as satisfaction, performance, and overall well-being. Person–organization fit (P–O fit) is the most widely studied area of person–environment fit, and is defined by Kristof (1996) as, "the compatibility between people and organizations that occurs when (a) at least one entity provides what the other needs, (b) they share similar fundamental characteristics, or (c) both".