Workshop 13 (half day)

Fits About Fit:  Can You Have Too Much of a Good Thing and Is There Anything You Can Do About It?

Presenters:     Benjamin Schneider, Valtera Corporation
                        Nancy T. Tippins, Valtera Corporation
                        Scott A. Young, Valtera Corporation

Coordinator:    Tomas Giberson, Oakland University

Organizations attempt to attract employees who will fit the demands of the jobs at which they will work and the climate and culture of the organization in which they will work.  In turn, applicants attempt to choose jobs for which they have the KSAOs required and organizations where they will feel comfortable and satisfied.  For the most part, both parties seem to achieve their goals. Applicants are particularly successful in attaining their goals when many possible jobs are available, and organizations are successful when there are many potential applicants.  The assumption on the part of both parties is that good fit is a positive, and indeed, most of the research on fit shows that individual job performance is higher when individuals’ KSAOs fit those required by jobs and that employees are more satisfied when the climate and culture fits their predilections.  On the other hand, there is some growing evidence suggesting that there are numerous positive effects of diversity in applicant pools and eventual employee bodies: increased levels of innovation, team performance, and engagement in work and the organization.  And there is theory and a bit of evidence suggesting that homogeneity in an organization’s eventual employees may be bad for long-term organizational health.  This workshop will be of interest to practitioners and researchers who are interested in exploring the benefits and liabilities of good fit for task and organizational performance—and who are interested in exploring what can be done about it.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Summarize the different research literatures regarding homogeneity and diversity in employees for individual, group, and organizational performance
• Describe the various attributes of the job and the organization potential employees consider when they make decisions about where to work, and the characteristics of individuals organizations consider when they choose who should work there
• Explain the variety of individual attributes along which homogeneity and diversity in organizations may exist and the cultural, climate, and structural organizational features that reinforce homogeneity and diversity
• Identify the issues on which, and boundary conditions for when, homogeneity and diversity among employees might be useful—and how to manage them—so the positive and negative consequences of both may be balanced

Benjamin Schneider is senior Research Fellow with Valtera and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland.  In addition to Maryland, Ben has taught at MSU and Yale and for shorter periods of time at Dartmouth College, Bar-Ilan University (Israel, on a Fulbright), University of Aix-Marseilles (France), and Peking University (PRC).  Ben’s academic accomplishments include more than 125 professional journal articles and book chapters, as well as nine books.  His most recent book is Staffing Organizations: Practice and Theory, 3rd ed. (with Robert Ployhart and Neal Schmitt, Erlbaum, 2007).  Ben’s interests concern service quality, organizational climate and culture, and the role of personality in organizational life.  Ben was awarded the 2000 Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award by SIOP and the same named 2007 Award by the Services Interest Group of the American Marketing Association.  He is a Fellow of SIOP, APA, APS, and AoM.  He received his PhD from the University of Maryland.

Nancy T. Tippins is the managing principal for the Selection Practice Group of Valtera where she is responsible for the development and execution of firm strategies related to employee selection and assessment.  Prior to Valtera, Nancy worked in private industry for GTE, Bell Atlantic, Exxon, and IBM.  She has extensive experience in the development and validation of selection tests for all levels of management and hourly employees as well as in designing leadership development programs, including the development of assessment programs for executive development and the identification of high-potential employees.  Nancy has been active in professional affairs and SIOP and received the Distinguished Service Award in 2004.  She is a Fellow of SIOP and APA.  She received her PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Scott A. Young is a managing consultant at Valtera Corporation. He has been with Valtera for 8 years, where he has consulted with clients and conducted research in the areas of employee engagement, service climate and quality, survey design and statistical analysis, employee socialization and retention, test development and validation, job analysis, diversity, and organizational climate and culture.  He received his PhD in I-O psychology from Northern Illinois University, where his research focused on the antecedents and consequences of agreement in employees’ perceptions of their work environment.

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