Date of Award

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences

First Supervisor

Dr Mark Andrew Groves

Second Supervisor

Dr Craig Speelman

Abstract

This thesis empirically examined the theoretical domain of Person-Job Fit proposed by Edwards (1991). Two models were tested with data collected from a sample of 101 Office Workers and 101 Teleworkers categorised as professional, managerial, clerical, technical and sales. The adequacy of the two models was tested using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. The Person-Job Fit model found that measures of Abilities, Desires, Supplies and Demands were equally predictive of Personal and Organisational Outcomes for both groups. Commensurate measures were employed for Desires and Supplies. The h1ended Person-Job Fit model included the meaning of home (Groves, 1996b), which was hypothesised to be salient to Teleworkers because they work from home. The Person-Job Fit model was an adequate to good tit of the data for both Office Workers and Teleworkers, whereas the Extended Person-Job Fit model was a slightly better fit for Teleworkers. These findings supported the hypotheses for this study. Furthermore, the R2 for both models were statistically significant for Personal and Organisational Outcomes and improved for both Office Workers and Teleworkers in the Extended Person-Job Fit model. For both models differences emerged between Office Workers and Teleworkers in regard to Abilties, Desires, Supplies and Demands as predictors of Personal and Organisational Outcomes. In particular, the outcomes for Office Workers were predicted by contextual attributes whereas psychological aspects were predictive of Teleworker outcomes. In the extended model, the addition of the Home was an important predictor with each group. The interesting difference between Le groups was evidenced in the reversed effect between the Home and Organisational Outcomes for Teleworkers. This finding suggests that benefits accrue to the organisation when the Teleworkers' home environment is compromised. It is concluded that the Edwards' ( 1991) Person-Job Fit domain does provide cohesive parameters for investigation of Person-Job Fit. Moreover, the expansion of the measured environment to include the Home (Groves, 1996b) highlighted the need to consider the impact of the changing work environment These findings have implications for recruitment, staff retention and the successful accommodation of structural change within organisations.

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