What is this thing called misfit? A systematic review into how employee misfit has been defined and researched

Abstract

AbstractSince 2015, there was a significant surge of interest in employee misfit. These studies demonstrate that although misfit is generally associated with negative outcomes such as organizational exit, social isolation, and depressive states, it can also be viewed more positively as an opportunity for job crafting, growth, and development. In these studies, misfit has been conceptualized, defined, and measured in a myriad of different ways making the interpretation of results problematic. This systematic review investigates how scholars have approached misfit with the goals of documenting and organizing the various ways it has been conceptualized and measured to highlight the main themes and forms of empirical misfit research. The systematic review surfaced 107 studies in 91 papers investigating workplace misfit within the domain of person-environment fit. Close analysis of the design and construction of these studies reveals that misfit has largely been conceptualized atomistically or as value incongruence and there is considerable variation in the way that researchers have defined the concept. It has mainly been measured using atomistic and molar measures rather than molecular ones, which are more suited to misfit investigation. The paper ends with a discussion of the elusiveness of misfit with an argument that it is an umbrella concept beyond definition. Instead, researchers take perspectives on the topic and six different perspectives of employee misfit are identified and defined. Avenues for future research are outlined for each perspective. There is also a discussion of the methodological challenges currently limiting misfit research.