Contingency Fit, Institutional Fit, and Firm Performance: A Metafit Approach to Organization-Environment Relationships

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Volberda, Henk W.; van der Weerdt, Niels; Verwaal, Ernst; Stienstra, Marten; Verdu, Antonio J.
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Queens University Belfast; Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0687
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 1040-1054
• 关键词: contingency fit; institutional fit; metafit; quasi fit; organization design; task environment; environmental turbulence; organizational effectiveness; INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT; external legitimacy; ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD; firm performance

摘要

In this paper, we attempt to reconcile contingency and institutional fit approaches concerning the organization-environment relationship. Whereas prior scholarly research has examined both theories and compared their impacts on organizational fit and performance, we lay the groundwork for a metafit approach by investigating how contingency and institutional fit interact to influence firm performance. We test our theoretical framework using a data set of 3,259 respondents from 1,904 companies, examining task environmental demands and institutional demands on organizational design across a broad range of industries and firm size classes. Our results show that contingency and institutional fit provide complementary and interdependent explanations of firm performance. Importantly, our findings indicate that for firms under conditions of quasi fit rather than perfect contingency fit or optimal institutional fit, improvements in contingency and/or institutional fit will result in better performance. However, firms with high contingency fit are less vulnerable to deviation from institutional fit in the formation of firm performance, whereas firms with perfect institutional fit will slightly decrease their performance when they strive to achieve contingency fit.