Towards an Understanding of Perceived Fit and Misfit
Date: Tuesday 1 May 2012
Time: 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Location: KF05 Kirkwood Village
Contact: For further information regarding this event, please contact Irene Joseph by sending email to irene.joseph@canterbury.ac.nz or by calling 3642660
Audience: University staff and students
Department of Management Research Seminar Series
We are fortunate indeed in having two notable international academics to present our first and second Department of Management seminars this term – and both in the same week! So make diary notes to attend now.
Have you ever wondered whether people really ‘fit’ in particular organisations? If there’s a misfit, it may mean psychological and physical stress, reduced effectiveness and personal and organisational trauma. Our first speaker of the new term, Prof. Jon Billsberry, examines this thorny issue, using his own well-regarded and thought provoking research to challenge conventions on person-organisation fit.
Jon is a Council Member of the British Academy of Management and Editor/ Associate Editor and Editorial Board member of prominent management journals. He is extremely knowledgeable about publishing in his respective field and will offer insights into research of considerable benefit to both staff and students alike.
I hope to see you at these exciting events.
Dr David Stiles
Senior Lecturer in Management Strategy and International Business
Management Research Seminar Coordinator
Professor Jon Billsberry, Deakin University and 2012 Erskine Fellow, presents Towards an Understanding of Perceived Fit and Misfit
In recent years there has been considerable unease with the research domain of person-organisation fit. This unease stems from poor definition. It has been suggested that there are as many definitions as scholars who study the subject. In this seminar I shall address this issue in two ways. In the first half of the seminar, I shall discuss the definitional problem and advance a new way to conceive of organisational fit that solves many of the confusions surrounding the concept. In short, I shall identify two distinctly different organisational fit paradigms that, when identified and separated from each other, clarify the field. These two paradigms are the person-environment (PE) fit paradigm and the perceived fit one. These two paradigms relate to two different fields of study. In the second half of the seminar, I shall report upon an exploratory empirical study that sought to develop an understanding of employees’ perceived fit and misfit using causal mapping. The data reveals that perceived fit is indeed detached from PE fit and that perceived fit and misfit are linked, but not opposites of each other as the literature has previously accepted.
Jon Billsberry is a Professor of Management at Deakin University. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from the University of Nottingham. Jon’s research interests are in organisational fit with an emphasis on perceived fit approaches and misfit. He is also interested in the cinematic portrayal of work and working life and has written extensively on the use of film in the management and leadership classrooms. Jon’s published work has appeared in Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Business and Psychology, Journal of Management Education, New Technology Work and
Employment, and Higher Education and in a number of other journals. In addition, Jon has authored three books and edited four more. For more details please go to www.jonbillsberry.co.uk.
Jon is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management Education. He serves on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Learning & Education, International Journal of Management Reviews, and Organization Management Journal. He is the current Chair of the Management Education and Development division of the Academy of Management and he was the Inaugural Chair of the Organisational Psychology Special Interest Group and a Council Member of the British Academy of Management. He is a 2012 Erskine Fellow at the Department of Management.