Fitting the person to the organisation: examining the personality‐job performance relationship from a new perspective

The current study represents an attempt to explore personality dispositions and personality process in a P‐O fit context. A total of 227 employees completed self‐report measures of personality and job satisfaction and their supervisors assessed their citizenship behaviours, generic work competencies and overall job performance. The theoretical approach of the cognitive‐affective personality system was adopted in exploring the research questions and discussing the findings, which reinforced the significance of a confirmatory, theory‐based approach in personality testing. The results supported the existence of relationships between personality and job satisfaction but not between personality and the performance‐related variables, although agreeableness and openness to experience were related to performance for occupations involving interpersonal interaction.