Identifying With How We Are, Fitting With What We Do: Personality and Dangerousness at Work as Moderators of Identification and Person–Organization Fit Effects
Authors
Emmanouela Mandalaki
Department of Organizations, University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Gazi Islam
Department of People, Organizations and Society, Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France
Urszula Lagowska
Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Camila Tobace
Department of Administration, Insper Institute for Education and Research, São Paulo, Brazil
Abstract
Using a sample drawn from a Brazilian electric company exposing employees to both dangerous and non-dangerous working conditions, the current study provides evidence on the differential underlying mechanisms guiding the relationships of organizational identification and person-organization-fit (P-O fit) with job performance. We suggest that despite their relatedness in current literature, organizational identification operates as a largely self-centered process and P-O fit as a predominantly context-dependent one, leading to distinct work-related processes deriving from each construct. Our findings suggest that P-O fit serves as a pathway through which job identification induces job performance. In this mediating path, personality and in particular neuroticism, hinders the effects of identification, whereas job dangerousness, a contextual factor, undermines work-related effects of perceived environmental congruence (P-O fit). Discussing these results, we provide novel insights on the distinct mechanisms driving organizational identification, P-O fit and their contingencies.
