RESEARCH PROJECTS

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Overview

This page provides a brief description of my current research projects. If you have any thoughts, ideas or feedback on any of these projects, or about 'fit' and related issues in general, please feel free to contact me. I'd love to hear from you.

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The Fit Project

The Fit Project is an exploration of person–organisation fit in real business situations. It began as a study of the impact of high levels of person–organisation fit seven years ago, but it has expanded its remit to consider the nature of fit itself.

In the first stage of the project, the project’s first Research Fellow, Dr. John Moss-Jones, conducted sixty in-depth interviews using the techniques of storytelling and cognitive mapping to form an understanding of employees’ sense of fit. This qualitative data revealed a complex web of factors influencing people’s perceptions of fit that has been portrayed as a taxonomy in our papers (see Publications section). In addition, the analysis of the data suggested that positive levels of fit were largely tacitly-held whereas people who rated themselves as a misfit were very conscious of their sense of fit and the misfit had negative effects on their behaviour.

The goal of the second stage of the project is to create a questionnaire from this taxonomy that allows us to capture people’s sense of fit across a broad spectrum of fits. This questionnaire will have both academic rigour and be practical in organisational situations. My colleague, Dr. Nathalie van Meurs, is taking the lead on this project.

We have just been given the go-ahead for the third phase of the project, which is to build and validate a selection tool to test applicants' fit to the organisation. We are only in the earliest stages of doing this and hope to report more soon.

In addition to me, the current team consists of:

  • Julian Edwards, Research Fellow, Open University 
  • Dannie Talbot, PhD student, Open University
  • Patrick Nelson, PhD student/Project Officer, Open University
  • Ross Davidson, PhD student, Open University
  • Jitse van Ameijde, PhD student/Project Officer, Open University
  • Chris Carter, Project Officer, Open University 
  • Ros Searle, Senior Lecturer, Open University
  • Deborah Price, Lecturer, Open University
  • Philip Marsh, Director of Human Resources, Open University (retired)
  • Véronique Ambrosini, Professor, Cardiff University
  • Nathalie van Meurs, Senior Lecturer, Middlesex University
  • David Coldwell, Professor, Witwatersrand University
  • Denise Skinner, Professor, Coventry University

The development of this generic fit questionnaire is just one of the avenues we are interested in. We are also doing some theoretical work. We are looking at how issues on consciousness relate to people's fit. We are also looking at how national values interact with individual and organisational values to influence fit. And, last but not least, we are thinking about the issue of whether 'fit' is a methodology or a meaningful psychological construct.

In our future empirical work we hope to replicate our qualitative study at another organisation. If you are interested in your organisation providing the venue, please contact me at j.billsberry@open.ac.uk. Another future project is to explore misfit with a view to understanding its antecedents and consequences.

If you'd like to find out more about the project, please click the following link which takes you to the project's web site: www.fitproject.co.uk.

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Global e-Conference on Fit

We were delighted to host the 1st Global e-Conference on Fit in November 2007. This conference attracted many of the leading researchers in fit along with Ph.D. students, practitioners and other people just interested in finding out about the subject. We had over 130 people formally register for the three day conference, over 500 messages, and a peak traffic of over 350 people visiting the conference site. The keynote speakers were Amy Kristof-Brown, Cheri Ostroff, Ben Schneider, Annelies Van Vianen and J.W. Stoelhurst. 

I'm delighted to announce that registration is underway for the 2nd Global e-Conference on Fit which we are again proud to host. You can find all the details about the conference at www.fitconference.com. This year is going to be something special. Like last year, it is completely free, but this year we are delighted to open Fit Island - the centre of the World's fit community and the only Fit Resort. This will host our reception, disco, workshops and firework finale. But more than that, it'll be open 24 hours a day, 12 months of the year. Chill out during your lunch break or have a drink after work all in the World's most beautiful resort and amongst other people all interested in fit. You can also use the meeting and presentation facilities for your fit-related work - all free - and we hope to be running all manner of seminars, workshops, reading groups and lectures on the island. We'd be delighted to see you on Fit Island. All you need do is register for a Second Life Account (www.secondlife.com), also free, and then transport to Fit Island. Here are a few screen shots of our fit paradise.

  
  

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Testing ASA Theory

One of the most fully mature research projects I have been running is an investigation of Schneider's ASA theory. This is the interesting idea that organisations attract, select and retain people who are similar to people they already employ. As a result of this process, organisations become increasingly homogeneous as the diversity decreases. Schneider calls this dysfunctional process 'organisational dry rot'.

Several researchers have looked at this cycle and found for the increase in organisational value homogeneity and also noted the attrition of staff during socialisation. My project began by developing a questionnaire to explore the attraction and selection phases of the cycle and, once this was developed, used it to test the attraction and selection hypotheses.

My data suggests that attraction has no impact at all on the ASA cycle (generally speaking, people seem to apply for jobs because they want work, not through a sense of value alignment with the organisation) and that the effect of selection on the process is very slight and only in evidence when there is some face-to-face contact.

If you'd like to find out more about these studies, you can find copies of these papers in the Publications section of my CV.

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Ph.D. Advertisement

Do you want to do a Ph.D.?

Do you want to paid to get it?

Do you want someone to give you your research question?

Do you want a supervisor passionately interested in your study?

This might be your solution!

At present, I have a number of projects that are suitable for people who want to study for their Ph.D.s in fit-related, recruitment and selection or management education subjects at the Open University. If you want a Ph.D., but don't want the hassle of identifying the subject, these projects might be just right for you. They are:

Fit and Misfit

  • Is person–network fit an improvement on person–organisation fit?
  • The impact of high levels of fit on creativity
  • Selecting for person–organisation fit
  • Does home-working erode person-organisation fit?
  • How do managers assess the fit of their staff?
  • Perceived vs. projected fit
  • A narrative study of misfit
  • What, if anything, predisposes people to be misfits?
  • What, if anything, triggers misfit? 
  • Is misfit a psychopathology?

Recruitment and Selection

  • How do mixed applicant pools influence recruitment and selection?
  • Why do interviews dominate personnel selection?
  • References: Are they worth the paper they are written on?
  • The impact of reality recruitment on real recruitment and selection

Management Education

  • Are feature films a useful learning device in the management classroom?
  • The impact of visual media in the management classroom
  • Could undergraduate business education be modelled on medical education?
  • The impact of management education on business

You can study for either a part-time or a full-time Ph.D. at the Open University. The part-time version is similar to the traditional model in British universities. The full-time model is quite different in that you will spend the first year doing an MSc in Research Methods before three years doing the Ph.D. itself. We are able to offer research studentships in the region of £13,600 per year (usually tax free) for people doing the full-time programme. Obviously there are entry qualifications and there is competition for places on the programme. But, if you're interested, the closing date for applications is the end of April.

If you want to find out more, please feel free to contact me on +44 (0) 1908 652906 to discuss the opportunities, or email me at j.billsberry@open.ac.uk.

Alternatively, you can find out more about Ph.D.s at the Open University at  http://www.open.ac.uk/research-school or you can email the Open University Business School research office at oubs-research@open.ac.uk.

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Experiencing Recruitment and Selection

This was a project I had been working on for many years. I have been gathering together people's stories of their recruitment and selection experiences – from both sides of the encounter: Over 250 stories in total. In September 2007, I authored a book in which fifty-one of these appear, with accompanying commentary, in a book entitled, Experiencing Recruitment and Selection, that was published by Wiley. It can be bought from all good booksellers now!

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Reality Recruitment

I find myself concerned about the rise and rise of TV programmes in which people compete in front of the cameras for a glamourous job. During 2007, this form of programming was being used as the flagship programmes on three of our terrestrial channels: BBC1 (Joseph: Any Dream Will Do), BBC2 (The Apprentice) and ITV1 (Grease is the Word). Other recent examples include cookery, modelling, football and even becoming an astronaut (admittedly this was a spoof). Although these programmes have some positive aspects (the work-relatedness of the tests, the large sums of time and money invested into recruitment and selection, and some developmental work), I worry about some of the negative aspects of these programmes. In particular, many of these programmes humiliate the contestants (e.g. having to sing 'So long, farewell' immediately after your elimination), show unpleasant and rude behaviours (finger-pointing "You're fired!"), and concentrate on spotting weaknesses rather than examining strengths (survival of the not worst).

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Cinematic Representations of Recruitment and Selection

I have a project on the back-burner that looks at the way that recruitment and selection (and leadership) is portrayed in the cinema. My interest in this subject was by the realisation that over a third of films include scenes (or references) to recruitment and selection (the 33%+ number comes from a later piece of research). With this penetration, I believe that the way that these episodes are depicted in film must have an impact on our perceptions of organisational entry. They may contribute to our hopes and fears and thereby shape our behaviour when we come to apply for jobs or interview the people that do.

I've been working up some papers on the subject, but my ultimate goal (probably in a couple of years time) is to write a book that explores this phenomenon in depth. In the meantime, I hope to launch a new website at www.recruitmentfilms.co.uk that will provide a forum for the sharing of thoughts on this (and related) subjects.

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Penalty Shoot-Outs

I have developed an interest in the psychology of the penalty shoot-out. In particular, I am interested in finding out why England and Holland are so bad at these things and Germany is so good. I have just launched a new website at www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk where I discuss the issue in more depth. The main finding has been that the cultural dimension of collectivism/individualism is very strongly related to success in penalty shootouts with countries high on collectivism being the ones that are advantaged. Sadly England is one of the most individualistic national cultures around and consequently has an awful record in penalty shoot-outs.