Person–Organization Fit and Incentives: A Causal Test

We investigate the eects of organizational culture and personal values on performance under individual and team contest incentives. We develop a model of regard for others and in-group favoritism that predicts interaction eects between organizational values and personal values in contest games. These predictions are tested in a computerized lab experiment with exogenous control of both organizational values and incentives. In line with our theoretical model we nd that prosocial (proself) orientated subjects exert more (less) eort in team contests in the primed prosocial organizational values condition, relative to the neutrally primed baseline condition. Further, when the prosocial organizational values are combined with individual contest incentives, prosocial subjects no longer outperform their proself counterparts. These ndings provide a rst, armative, causal test of person-organization t theory. They also suggest the importance of a 'triple-t' between personal preferences, organizational values and incentive mechanisms for prosocially orientated individuals.