An investigation into how value incongruence became misfit Yuwei Sun and Jon Billsberry School of Business, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this review is to argue that the way that perceived employee misfit (PEM) has been measured in quantitative studies does not capture the construct identified in qualitative studies. Design/methodology/approach – Through reverse citation analysis, this study reveals how low levels of value congruence became the currency of PEM in quantitative studies. Findings – This study finds that in the absence of alternatives, researchers have taken low scores of value congruence as a measure of misfit. However, there is limited evidence to show that PEM relates to values, supplementary conceptualization or interactions with the organization (rather than interactions with other employees, tasks, etc.). In addition, the most commonly used instruments measure degrees of similarity, not disparity, making the interpretation of PEM-related data unclear. Combined, these factors raise construct validity concerns about most quantitative studies of PEM. Research limitations/implications – Given the upsurge of interest in PEM, there is an urgent need for greater clarification on the nature of the construct. From the analysis, this study identifies two key dimensions of studying PEM that create four distinctly different ways of conceptualizing the construct. Originality/value – This study highlights a series of major methodological weaknesses in the study of PEM and reveal that almost all published quantitative studies of PEM are actually studying something else; something whose nature is very unclear. Keywords Person – environment fit, Person – organization fit, Value congruence, Value incongruence, Misfit, Perceived misfit, Research methods, Molar, Molecular Paper type General review It makes me feel I’m worthless. It makes me feel I’m useless. In fact, there’s a time that I walked out and I didn’t feel like coming back to the office to work. This is really depressing. Sometimes it’s really hard. I can’t sleep. It’s hard when you just struggle to be accepted to fit in. It’s not a good thing (Follmer et al., 2018, p. 449). I don’t think like the others do, kind of like I don’t really belong (Cooper-Thomas and Wright, 2013, p. 28). The isolation and devastation of feeling like you are the only one who doesn’t belong or fit in can overshadow all else in one’s life (Hollyoak, 2018, p. 148). The entire experience brought me enough down to go see a therapist. When I was mentally stable enough, I quit (Billsberry et al., 2022, p. 8). I was so miserable [...] so unhappy. I kept crying, kept going to the bathroom crying, crying, crying. It was awful (Follmer et al., 2018, p. 449). As these quotes illustrate, when the voices of misfits are heard, they are emotive, plaintive and arresting. Such people are clearly in the grips of a painful and debilitating psychological state with ramifications beyond their working lives. Accounts such as these talk about the How value incongruence became misfit Received 17 September 2022 Revised 29 October 2022 Accepted 31 October 2022 Journal of Management History © Emerald Publishing Limited 1751-1348 DOI 10.1108/JMH-09-2022-0051 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1751-1348.htm