Latent Trait Theory Approach to Measuring Person-Organization Fit: Conceptual Rationale and Empirical Evaluation

The purpose of this article is to offer a new approach to measuring person-organization (P-O) fit, referred to here as “Latent fit.” Respondents were administered unidimensional forced choice items and were asked to choose the statement in each pair that better reflected the correspondence between their values and those of the organization; scaling was done using an item response theory (IRT) model for stimulus endorsement. An empirical study comparing this new approach to two traditional P-O fit measurement approaches was also conducted. The results indicated that the Latent fit approach had merit, with the fit scores exhibiting theoretically expected patterns of relations with other variables and incremental validity in predicting intentions to leave.