The Relationship Between Individual Personality Characteristics and Person-Job Fit Among Primary and Secondary School Teachers in New Zealand

Abstract

Research has shown that individual personality characteristics are strongly related to an employee’s affective and behavioural responses to the job and/or workplace (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Judge & Bono, 2001, Kumar & Bakhshi, 2010). The perception of positive person-job fit was proposed as a favourable employee response in this research, and hypotheses that are relevant to individual personality characteristics and person-job fit were examined. The concept of person-job fit refers to the degree which an individual’s knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), preferences, needs and values align with his/her job requirements (Brkich, Jeffs & Carless, 2002). The two types of person-job fit are the match between the KSAs of an individual and the demands of the job, also known as demands-abilities fit, and the match between the preferences, needs and values of an individual, and what is supplied by the job, also known as needs-supplies fit (Lauver & Kristof-Brown, 2001). The relationship of person-job fit, both demands-abilities fit and needs-supplies fir with a number of affective and behavioural responses, such as job satisfaction, turnover intention and organisational commitment, was also explored.

A total of 179 teachers from 88 primary and secondary schools completed an online self-report questionnaire. The results revealed that extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability were positively and significantly correlated with demands-abilities fit, while extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability were positively and significantly correlated with needs-supplies fit. Both demands-abilities fit and needs-supplies fit were positively and significantly correlated with job satisfaction, turnover intention, affective commitment and normative commitment. Mediation analysis revealed an indirect effect for conscientiousness on the relationship between demands-abilities fit and job satisfaction, as well as for emotional stability on the relationship between demands-abilities fit and continuance commitment. Emotional stability mediated the relationship between demands-abilities fit and job satisfaction, and needs-supplies fit and job satisfaction. The practical implications from these findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed