Person-Group Political Orientation Fit: Relations With Workplace Friendships, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Identification, and Turnover Intentions

The workplace is a life domain in which people meet others who share their political views to varying degrees. However, potential relations between employees’ person-group political orientation fit and important work outcomes have been largely neglected. Accordingly, based on person-environment fit theory and the social identity perspective, we hypothesized positive relations between person-group political orientation fit (i.e., operationalized as self and other left-wing vs. right-wing, liberal/libertarian vs. conservative/authoritarian, state/social justice vs. market freedom political orientations, respectively) and workplace friendships, job satisfaction, and organizational identification, and a negative relation between person-group political orientation fit and turnover intentions. Results of a survey study with 1,325 employees from various occupations provided support for three of our four pre-registered hypotheses. A greater person-group political orientation fit was associated with higher-quality workplace friendships, higher job satisfaction, and higher organizational identification. In contrast, person-group political orientation fit was not significantly associated with turnover intentions. Overall, in times of increasing political polarization, these findings contribute to a better understanding of how person-group political orientation fit relates to important work outcomes.