The Indefinability of Essential and Non-Essential Misfit

This chapter explores the definitional complexity of employee misfit in organisational contexts. Despite a surge in scholarly interest, misfit remains an underdeveloped and conceptually fragmented area of research. Drawing on a recent systematic review, the chapter identifies a proliferation of divergent conceptualisations, definitions, and measures of misfit, which hinder cumulative knowledge development. To bring coherence to this nascent field, the chapter introduces a philosophical distinction between essentialist and non-essentialist approaches. Essentialist perspectives view misfit as a measurable misalignment between individual and environmental characteristics, grounded in interactional psychology. In contrast, non-essentialist perspectives conceptualise misfit as a subjective, psychological construct shaped by individual meaning-making processes, drawing on constructivist psychology. By distinguishing between ‘misfit as misalignment’ and ‘misfit as psychological construct’, the chapter argues that misfit should be treated as an umbrella term encompassing multiple definable subtypes. It proposes tailored definitions for each and advocates precision in language to improve theoretical clarity and methodological rigour. In doing so, the chapter advances the field by providing a novel organising framework that resolves long-standing conceptual ambiguity and lays the groundwork for more coherent and cumulative research on misfit.