| dc.description.abstract | The link between job satisfaction and job performance is one of the most studied
relationships in industrial/organizational psychology. Meta-analysis (Judge, Thoresen,
Bono, & Patton, 2001) has estimated the magnitude of this relationship to be ρ = .30.
With many potential causal models that explain this correlation, one possibility is that
the satisfaction-performance relationship is actually spurious, meaning that the
correlation is due to common causes of both constructs. Drawing upon personality
theory and the job characteristics model, this study presents a meta-analytic estimate of
the population-level relationship between job satisfaction and job performance,
controlling for commonly studied predictors of both. Common causes in this study
include personality trait Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and core selfevaluations,
along with cognitive ability and job complexity. Structural equation
modeling of the meta-analytic correlation matrix suggests a residual correlation of .16
between job satisfaction and performance—roughly half the magnitude of the zero-order
correlation. Following the test of spuriousness, I then propose and find support for an
integrated theoretical model in which job complexity and job satisfaction serve as
mediators for the effects of personality and ability on work outcomes. Results from this model suggest that job complexity is negatively related to satisfaction and performance,
once ability and personality are controlled. Contributions of this paper include
estimating the extent to which the satisfaction-performance relationship is partly
spurious, which is an advancement because the attitude-behavior link has not been
estimated in light of personality and job characteristics. Another contribution is the
integrated theoretical model, which illuminates mediators in some of the effects of
personality and ability. | en |
