Conceptualizing Dynamic Organizational Fit in Multicontingency Contexts

Contingency Theory retains a central place in organization and management research, but the concept organizational fit is treated generally in a relatively static and unidimensional manner, a manner that is incommensurate with the dynamic and often unpredictable, disruptive, multicontingency nature of organizational contexts today. Organizations address multiple, shifting contingency factors simultaneously, and as equilibria are punctuated with increasing frequency, one or more factors can be expected to change constantly. Seeking constantly to establish, re-establish and maintain “good” static fit may prove to represent an inferior strategy. Yet this represents a centerpiece of Contingency Theory as we know it. The problem is that the concept static fit is becoming anachronistic, and both conceptual and methodological tools for assessing and predicting dynamic fit with changing organizations and multicontingency contexts remain largely absent. In this article, we work to extend Contingency Theory through conceptualization of dynamic organizational fit, articulating an inherently dynamic relationship between multicontingency fit and organizational performance. We begin with promising contingency conceptualizations in Organization and Management Theory, and then draw from Dynamics to inform both conceptualization and operationalization of dynamic fit in terms of longitudinal, multidimensional trajectories. We illustrate the ensuing conceptual integration in a punctuated equilibrium context, and elucidate important interrelationships between static and dynamic organizational fit. This moves us considerably beyond fit as a static concept and unidimensional construct, and offers insight into operationalization via two, new, inherently dynamic constructs. A set of evocative research propositions emerges, and we guide continued research along the lines of this investigation. INTRODUCTION For more than a half century, Contingency Theory has retained a central place in organization and management research. Beginning with seminal works by Burns and Stalker (1961), Woodward (1965), and Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), organization and management theory has been guided by the understanding that no single approach to organizing is best in all circumstances. Moreover, myriad empirical studies (e.g., Argote, 1982; Donaldson, 1987; Hamilton & Shergill, 1992, 1993; Keller, 1994; cf. Mohr, 1971; Pennings, 1975) have confirmed and reconfirmed that poor organizational fit degrades performance, and many diverse