RESEARCH PROJECTS
.
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.
.
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 ten 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 (right), 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 was to create a questionnaire from this taxonomy that allowed us to capture people’s sense of fit across a broad spectrum of fits. This questionnaire had both academic rigour and proved to be practical in organisational situations. So much so, that it became the skeleton upon which The Open University's annual staff survey was built. We have run this twice and have the go-ahead for a third year giving us tremendous longitudinal data with 3000 employees completing the survey every year. My colleague, Dr. Nathalie van Meurs (left), took the lead on this project.
We have also 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. However, we're quite excited by progress and are in the middle of developing an electronic platform that will allow us to unveil a fully-functioning selection instrument, which we are calling the Fit Selection Instrument. Without giving too much away, our idea is to combine what we've learnt about multidimensional fit from our phase one and two studies with card-sort technology in a computerised delivery system. Dr. Julian Edwards is taking the lead on this development.
In addition to these three main phases of our work, we are also home to a constellation of other fit studies. These include studies of misfit, fit and organisational performance, fit and expatriates, fit and homeworking, fit and trust, fit and creativity, fit and absence, fit and work/life balance, fit and knowledge transfer, and the nesting of organisational fit in regional and national cultures.
In addition to me, the current team consists of:
- Julian Edwards, Research Fellow, Open University
- Dannie Talbot, PhD candidate, Open University/Senior Lecturer, Covetry University
- Patrick Nelson, PhD candidate/Project Officer, Open University
- Jitse van Ameijde, Project Officer, Open University
- Steve Godrich, PhD candidate, Coventry University/Regional Manager, Open University
- Chris Carter, PhD candidate, Nottingham University
- Ros Searle, Senior Lecturer, Open University
- Deborah Price, Lecturer, Open University
- Steph Broadribb, HRD Director, Open University
- Sukhvir Manak, PhD candidate/Senior Lecturer, Coventry University
- Brenda Hollyoak, PhD candidate/Lecturer, Coventry University
- Gary Connor, PhD Candidate/Senior Lecturer, Coventry University
- Amanda Lee, PhD Candidate/Senior Lecturer, Coventry University
- Mary Crossan, Lecturer, Coventry University
- Véronique Ambrosini, Professor, University of Birmingham
- Rein De Cooman, Lessius University, Belgium
- David Coldwell, Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
- Philip Marsh, Director of Human Resources, Open University (retired)
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.
.
.
Global e-Conference on Fit
In 2007 I launched the 1st Global e-Conference on Fit. This has become an annual online conference that serves the organisational fit community. These conferences have 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. On average, over 200 people attend the conference, with over 800 messages, and a peak traffic of over 350 people visiting the conference site. Each year the conference has become bigger and the 2009 required an extra day to help attendees discuss all the papers. The keynote speakers have been Helena Cooper-Thomas, Jeff Edwards, Karen Jansen, Tim Judge, Amy Kristof-Brown (twice), Cheri Ostroff, Ben Schneider, J.W. Stoelhurst, Annelies Van Vianen and me.
You can find all the details about the conference at www.fitconference.com. Each year we try to do something innovative. In 2007, the online conference was innovation enough. In 2008, we launched Fit Island in Second Life, where we hosted the social elements of the conference. In 2009, we integrated the conference with the discussion of chapters for a new book, New Directions in Organizational Fit, that is being collated and editing by Amy Kristof-Brown and me.
.
.
Ph.D. Advertisement
Do you want to do a Ph.D.?
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 Deakin 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.
You can find out more about doing a PhD with me on the relevant pages on the research sub-menu at the top of this page. Please read these before contacting me. To contact me on +61 (0) 3 9244 5438 to discuss the opportunities, or email me at j.billsberry '@' deakin.edu.au.
Alternatively, you can find out more about Ph.D.s at Deakin University at http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/admin/hdradmin/.
.
.
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.
.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Fit Project Fit Conference Fit Island Sky Pictures Penalty Shootouts