| We already know much about how organizations "fit" an employee to his job. But we need to investigate a broader but less-understood kind of fit, namely that of the employee to the organization itself. Obviously, an organization functions more effectively with employees whose traits and desires match its organizational culture and, in particular, its reward structure. So it enhances person organization fit by selecting and socializing its employees, that is, by finding potential employees who will be responsive to organizational practices and by molding them smoothly to its structure.; Using longitudinal techniques, this paper studies the progress of newly recruited entry-level auditors in the eight largest American accounting firms. Specifically, I test and find support for three hypotheses: First, that recruits whose personalities and preferences already match those of the firm will adjust to it more quickly; Second, that those whom the firm most vigorously socializes will better fit into its structure than those whom it does not; Third, that recruits whose values most closely match the firm's will feel most satisfied, will perform best, will express greatest commitment to it, will intend to and will actually remain with it longer, and will even contribute to its interests beyond the narrow limits of their assignments.; With accounting students and professional accountants as my sample populations, I have developed a unique instrument for measuring their respective values. Using a Q-sort methodology (Block, 1978), this instrument generates a profile of the values preferred by a recruit and by the firm that hires her. I compare these profiles, and I show that the more similar the new-recruit profile is to the composite profile, the closer the fit of the recruit to the organization.; A practical consequence of this study is that it can teach managers about the values of their own firms and how better to choose and socialize new recruits. But its primary purpose is to show how selection and socialization contribute to behavioral results and how cultural values--of organization and recruit alike--get translated into actual recruiting and socializing practice. |
