The relational fit in organizational interventions—what can organizational research learn from research in psychotherapy?

Abstract

There is a growing interest in organizational interventions (OI) aiming to increase em-ployees’ well-being. An OI involves changes in the way work is designed, organized, and managed. Studies have shown that an OI’s positive results are increased if there is a good fit between context and intervention and between participant and intervention. In this article, we propose that a third fit—the Relational Fit (R-Fit)—also plays an important role in determining an intervention’s out-come. The R-Fit consists of factors related to 1) the employees participating in the OI, 2) the intervention facilitator, and 3) the quality of the relation between participants and the intervention facil-itator. The concept of the R-Fit is inspired by research in psychotherapy documenting that participant factors, therapist factors, and the quality of the relations explain 40% of the effect of an inter-vention. We call attention to the importance of systematically evaluating and improving the R-Fit in OIs. This is important to enhance the positive outcomes in OIs and thereby increase both the well-being and productivity of employees. We introduce concrete measures that can be used to study and evaluate the R-Fit. This article is the first to combine knowledge from research in psychotherapy with research on OIs.