Three trends in organizational research suggest that our understanding of the mutual attraction and selection of individuals and organizations is incomplete and may be informed by considering these processes in light of research on interpersonal relationships and vocational psychology. Because people often move from job to job within organizations, researchers are beginning to acknowledge the importance of hiring people with the larger organizational context in mind in addition to the specific requirements of the job (Bowen, Ledford, & Nathan, 1991). The second trend concerns the recognition that traditional rational models of selection and job choice may be improved upon by supplementing them with noncompensatory (or satisficing) models of the choice process (cf. March & Simon, 1958). Finally, an approach to person-organization match based on similarity rather than complementarity has been proposed that incorporates existing literature from the fields of interpersonal attraction and group dynamics (Schneider, 1987a) In this dissertation, a rationale was developed for the commensurate measurement of people and organizations in which personality constructs were used in the assessment of each. Specifically, I hypothesized that the Big Five personality structure would provide a meaningful structure within which to assess individuals' perceptions of their work environments One hundred ten individuals from a medium-sized university responded to a survey regarding organizational characteristics. Scales for each of the Big Five 'organality' dimensions were developed from this sample and these scales exhibited the expected factor structure as well as acceptable levels of reliability. An assessment of interrater agreement indicated that there was organization-wide agreement with respect to all five organality variables An additional 112 respondents from the same university completed a different questionnaire that contained personality scales. Contrary to predictions from the attraction-selection-attrition model (ASA), there was no evidence of organization-wide personality similarity. Depending upon the way in which 'fit' was assessed, personality-organality fit was significantly related to satisfaction with the organization and intent to stay with the organization. The potential value for using interpersonal research as a guide for person-organization research is discussed as well as other possible uses of the organality concept / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_24655 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Contributors | Timmerman, Thomas Alan (Author), Folger, Robert (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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