BUS603: Managing People

Research on Person-Environment Fit

Contemporary P-E fit research is often traced to Parsons who developed a matching model to describe the fit between attributes of the person and characteristics of different vocations. Afterward, Murray's need-press model and Lewin's field theory lay a theoretical foundation for the research on P-E fit. For a long time, P-E fit has been discussed from the two perspectives of supplementary fit and complementary fit. Supplementary fit usually means that individuals and organizations have similarities in terms of goals, attitudes and values; for example, individuals and organizations deem that autonomy is of greater significance. Complementary fit denotes that the resources owned by the individual or the organization are able to meet each other's needs; for example, the skills possessed by the individual meet the requirements of the organization, or the resources provided by the organization meet the needs of the individual. That being the case, complementary fit can be divided into demands-abilities fit and needs-supplies fit. Demands-abilities fit considers fit from the angle of the individual meeting the requirements of the organization, that is, the matching between the person and the organization occurs only when the individual has abilities the organization needs. Organizational requirements generally include job requirements, role expectations, organizational norms, and certain aptitudes, skills, time, and energy owned by the individual. Needs-supplies fit considers fit from the angle of the organization satisfying the requirements of the individual, that is, the matching between the person and the organization emerges only when the organization meets needs and preferences of the individual. Individual needs generally include innate biological and psychological needs, values, and achievement motives. Organizational supply refers to satisfying individual needs through internal and external resources such as food, money, social participation, and self-realization opportunities.

A large number of P-E fit studies center on changes in employee attitudes, physical and psychological responses, and behavior brought by various types of fit, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identification, and work stress. As a result, creativity, a variable of P-E fit, has also been given importance by some researchers. One standpoint holds that person-environment interaction will lead to P-E fit, going with which the homogeneity of the person will enhance as well; yet, the homogeneity may impede the divergent thinking of employees, thus undermining their creativity. Another standpoint holds that P-E fit brings good psychological feelings to employees, which in turn leads to improvements in employee creativity. It can thus be told that the relationship between P-E fit and creativity is inconclusive. Given that supplementary fit usually involves both the individual and the organization, and that this study places stress on the impact of employees' perceived fit on their creativity, this article looks back at length on the relationship between creativity and demands-abilities fit as well as needs-supplies fit, based on which research hypotheses have been put forward.

Demands-Abilities Fit and Employee Creativity

Considering that knowledge and skills are very crucial or fundamental antecedent variables in individual creativity, the kernel of demands-abilities fit tends to emphasize that the knowledge and skills of employees fulfill the requirements of their jobs. In other words, knowledge and skills provide a set of cognitive pathways that individuals can follow to resolve a given problem or accomplish a given task. The higher the employee's demands-abilities fit, the more knowledge and skills they acquire to satisfy job requirements; hence, it is easier for them to get rid of their conventional thinking modes. The multidimensional cognitive structure facilitates employees to leverage knowledge and skills more flexibly at work, thus constantly developing new ideas and put them in to practice.

On top of that, in accordance with the Social Cognitive Theory, demands-abilities fit can motivate individuals to construct positive self-recognition during the work process and promote them to develop inherent driving forces based on implicitness and abilities. Integrating self-efficacy with creativity theory, proposes the concept of creative self-efficacy, which refers to the individual's belief in his ability to creatively accomplish a specific task, embodying his confidence in demonstrating creative abilities and behavior during the work process. When individuals have the abilities to address specific problems and accomplish specific tasks, or when their capabilities exceed the requirements of the job, they believe that they can successfully adopt innovative thoughts and ideas to solve problems at work. On the contrary, when individuals' own abilities are unable to meet job requirements, they show little confidence in creativity. Good self-efficacy stimulates creativity. It can thus be seen that demands-abilities fit may produce an indirect effect on creativity through positive self-cognition. On account of the above analysis, Hypothesis 1 has been proposed.

Needs-Supplies Fit and Employee Creativity

Needs-supplies fit indicates whether the resources provided by the organization can meet the needs of employees. When the resources provided by the organization are the same as the resources employees expect from the organization, needs and supplies match up with each other. In line with the Social Cognitive Theory, when the resources provided by the organization comply with individual needs of employees, they hold the organization is creating a positive working environment, under which they tend to have higher commitment and loyalty to the organization, and give organizations corresponding rewards based on the principle of exchange and reciprocity, thereby stimulating individual creativity. In addition to the principle of reciprocity, the perception of fairness in social exchanges also exerts an influence on employee creativity. When employees think that their efforts and rewards match, they will show more creativity.

From the perspective of Motivational Theory, when employees' needs are met by the organization to a higher degree, they will have a lasting emotional input in work, show more sense of responsibility in the work process, and are willing to step up efforts, in order to fulfill the psychological needs of autonomy in internal motivations. Proactive work motives make them more willing to think hard in the work process and therefore more likely to pose new problems and come up with new solutions.

A more painstaking study divides needs-supplies fit into two categories of internality and externality by its nature. Internality refers to the matching between achievement motivation, self-realization, and values; whereas externality usually refers to material incentives provided by the organization. From this perspective, different aspects of needs-supplies fit produce diverse effects on creativity. When employees can obtain some resources from organizations, such as autonomy and decision-making power, they will express a higher level of creativity. In such research needs-supplies fit is internal. Yet conclusions are inconsistent regarding the relationship between external material incentives and employee creativity. The Humanistic Psychology School represented by Amabile believes that external incentives inhibit internal motivation and creativity; on the contrary, the Learning School represented by Eisenberger holds that external incentives promote internal motivation and creativity. Upholding the ideas of freedom and individualism, deems that: mankind's nature lies in the pursuit of freedom, self-expression, and self-realization; external motivation destroys employees' interest in creativity and causes employees to lose their sense of self-determination, resulting in employees paying close attention to short-term results and incentives themselves, but no longer trying new solutions to problems. As a consequence, the Humanistic Psychology School regards external incentives as being inherently destructive for employee creativity to explore new discoveries. In contrast, upholding utilitarianism, and believes that through reasonable material incentives, individuals can effectively enhance their self-determination and performance pressure, thereby improving internal motivation and creativity. Be that as it may, new research revealed that external motivation is also conducive to inspiring creativity, indicating that external motivation and internal motivation can synergistically influence creativity. The above analysis leads to Hypothesis 2.

The Moderating Role of Multicultural Experience

Culture is "any knowledge legacy shared and passed down in a community that can satisfy the psychological needs of individuals or communities". The multicultural perspective breaks through the "trait theory" of cross-cultural perspective. Viewing culture as an implicit sharing of knowledge among individuals, it delves into how a particular situation activates the cultural constructs in individuals' brain and influences their mentality and behavior. From this perspective, researchers begin to center on the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity. As pointed out by existing studies, multicultural experience can raise the level of individual creativity by improving the epiphany learning, long-distance imagination and concept formulation of individuals, increasing the extraction of unconventional knowledge, and generating new ideas through unfamiliar cultures. Multicultural experience facilitates individuals to encode information in different ways, to draw new concepts and ways of thinking from other cultures, and to establish multiple connections among concepts. Such being the case, individuals draw new ideas from different cultures and integrate them in novel ways when in problem-solving scenarios. Integrating seemingly irrelevant concepts in different cultures leads to the expansion of conceptual categories in the brain. In brief, the individual creativity can be increased by multicultural experience which exposes individuals to novel concepts and ideas, and enhances their abilities to perceive, process, and arrange cultural information.

As to employees with richer multicultural experience, when their perception ability fulfills job requirements, multicultural experience enables them to encode information in various manners, to draw new concepts and ways of thinking from other cultures, to get rid of conventional thinking modes, thus constantly forming and applying new ideas to the practical problem-solving process.

When the resources provided by the organization meet the needs of employees, needs and supplies match up with each other. For employees with richer multicultural experience, their ability to integrate diverse culture, together with the proactive work motivation brought by needs-supplies fit, can better enhance their problem-solving creativity. The following hypotheses are thus put forward: