Job satisfaction and job performance: is the relationship spurious?

The link between job satisfaction and job performance is one of the most studied\nrelationships in industrial/organizational psychology. Meta-analysis (Judge, Thoresen,\nBono, & Patton, 2001) has estimated the magnitude of this relationship to be ρ = .30.\nWith many potential causal models that explain this correlation, one possibility is that\nthe satisfaction-performance relationship is actually spurious, meaning that the\ncorrelation is due to common causes of both constructs. Drawing upon personality\ntheory and the job characteristics model, this study presents a meta-analytic estimate of\nthe population-level relationship between job satisfaction and job performance,\ncontrolling for commonly studied predictors of both. Common causes in this study\ninclude personality trait Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and core selfevaluations,\nalong with cognitive ability and job complexity. Structural equation\nmodeling of the meta-analytic correlation matrix suggests a residual correlation of .16\nbetween job satisfaction and performance—roughly half the magnitude of the zero-order\ncorrelation. Following the test of spuriousness, I then propose and find support for an\nintegrated theoretical model in which job complexity and job satisfaction serve as\nmediators 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,\nonce ability and personality are controlled. Contributions of this paper include\nestimating the extent to which the satisfaction-performance relationship is partly\nspurious, which is an advancement because the attitude-behavior link has not been\nestimated in light of personality and job characteristics. Another contribution is the\nintegrated theoretical model, which illuminates mediators in some of the effects of\npersonality and ability.