Misfit Managed: Navigating, preventing, and even benefitting from misfit at work

Person-environment (PE) fit, the perceived compatibility between an employee and their work environment, is desirable for employees and employers alike, as it is associated with positive job attitudes (e.g., satisfaction and commitment), better employee well-being and fulfillment, and higher levels of organizational attraction, performance, and retention (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). In contrast, employee misfit, or perceived incompatibility between the person and their work environment, is considered an unpleasant and undesirable experience characterized by employee strain and discomfort, as well as negative organizational outcomes, such as employee withdrawal and turnover (Follmer et al., 2018). Nevertheless, it has been recognized that most work experiences are characterized by some degree of misfit (Wheeler et al., 2007). Despite the commonality of this experience and the negative implications it has for both employees and employers, the field still has a limited understanding of how misfit emerges, how employees avoid and/or cope with misfit, what attitudinal and behavioral outcomes are associated with misfit, and what organizations can do to manage the experience of misfit.
We developed this symposium to deepen our understanding of the misfit experience by “rethinking conventional ways” of studying the concept to empower organizations to “innovate for the future” and effectively manage misfit. Misfit is a complex and dynamic experience that can be triggered by changes in the person and/or the environment (Kristof-Brown et al., 2023). Given the rapid change and volatility that characterizes modern organizational life (due to, for example, political unrest, economic volatility, and rapid technological change), it is especially important to showcase innovative (mis)fit research that can help employees and organizations navigate misfit experiences. Hence, we have gathered four research presentations that adopt different theoretical perspectives, employ a variety of study designs (e.g., qualitative, experimental, and multisource and multiwave field studies), and adopt an array of analytic methods (e.g., polynomial regression and response surface modeling) to explore the topic of misfit. We start our symposium by considering how the negative impact of misfit varies in severity across different work situations, such as when employees are confronted with a threat (Vleugels & Deprez). Next, we discuss how the common experience of boredom at work can be used to diagnose misfit (Zabinski, Schurer Lambert, Dimotakis, and Gray) and investigate the strategies employees adopt to avoid misfit altogether (Zhang & Li). Finally, we end with an exploration of the conditions under which organizations can actually benefit from misfit via innovative employee voice (Reid, Black, and Nahrgang).
The research reviewed in this symposium contributes to the literature on fit and misfit in several ways. First, we challenge several assumptions regarding the theoretical processes, experiences, and outcomes associated with misfit. For example, presentations from Vleugels and Deprez and from Reid and colleagues refute the notion that fit is universally bad, demonstrating that the impact of misfit can vary depending on the external context in which it occurs, becoming more negative in some situations, but also leading to benefits in others. Additionally, Zhang and Li’s work breaks with traditional passive conceptualizations of fit by highlighting how employees actively manage their fit to prevent misfit, and Zabisnki and colleagues challenge conventional more-is-better thinking about how managers can effectively resolve boredom-related misfit. Finally, we also provide valuable insights to both researchers and practitioners by identifying actionable strategies employees and employers can adopt to diagnose, prevent, resolve, and even benefit from employee misfit.