Higher education employees’ self-assessment of person–organization fit: the role of work conditions and job satisfaction

In the public sector, the relationships between person–organization (P–O) fit and important individual outcomes, such as work performance and turnover intention, are well established in the literature. However, substantially less research has focused on the structural factors and mechanisms through which job incumbents may experience subjective P–O fit. In particular, in higher education, the types of hierarchy observed in traditional organizations are less visible in the ways in which faculty collaborate with others. Thus, greater effort to understand the role(s) played by contextual factors (e.g. physical settings) in job incumbents’ perception of organizational fit in higher education is clearly warranted. Therefore, we propose and test a multiple mediation model to examine the role(s) of perceived job-related (autonomy and role clarity), supervisor-related (leader support), and organization-related (communication, procedural justice, and distributive justice) work conditions on affective attitude (job satisfaction), which in turn influences job incumbents’ evaluation of P–O fit. The findings indicate that work conditions significantly and consistently contributed indirectly, rather than directly, to higher education employees developing positive perceptions of P–O fit, as a result of developing an affective attitude. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.