Structural contingency theory and individual differences: Examination of external and internal person-team fit.

Hollenbeck, John R., Moon, Henry, Ellis, Aleksander P. J., West, Bradley J., Ilgen, Daniel R., Sheppard, Lori, Porter, Christopher O. L. H., Wagner, John A., III·2002·Journal of Applied Psychology
DOI 10.1037//0021-9010.87.3.599

Abstract

This article develops and tests a structurally based, integrated theory of person-team fit. The theory developed is an extension of structural contingency theory and considers issues of external fit simultaneously with its examination of internal fit at the team level. Results from 80 teams working on an interdependent team task indicate that divisional structures demand high levels of cognitive ability on the part of teammembers. However, the advantages of high cognitive ability in divisional structures are neutralized when there is poor external fit between the structure and the environment. Instead, emotional stability becomes a critical factor among teammembers when a divisional structure is out of alignment with its environment. Individual differences seem to play little or no role in functional structures, regardless of the degree of external fit.

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    Ilgen, Daniel R., Hollenbeck, John R., Johnson, Michael, Jundt, Dustin · 2005 · Annual Review of Psychology
  3. A century of work teams in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
    Mathieu, John E., Hollenbeck, John R., van Knippenberg, Daan, Ilgen, Daniel R. · 2017 · Journal of Applied Psychology
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  5. Facing Differences With an Open Mind: Openness to Experience, Salience of Intragroup Differences, and Performance of Diverse Work Groups
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This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Structural contingency theory and individual differences: Examination of external and internal person-team fit. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0021-9010.87.3.599
The paper
Hollenbeck, J. R., Moon, H., Ellis, A. P. J., West, B. J., Ilgen, D. R., Sheppard, L., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Wagner, J. A., III. (2002). Structural contingency theory and individual differences: Examination of external and internal person-team fit. Journal of Applied Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0021-9010.87.3.599

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.