Is the Job Satisfaction–Job Performance Relationship Spurious?

Journal of Vocational Behavior 71 (2007) 167–185 www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

Is the job satisfaction–job performance relationship spurious? A meta-analytic examination q

Nathan A. Bowling

Department of Psychology, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, OH 45435, USA Received 13 March 2007 Available online 12 April 2007

Abstract The job satisfaction–job performance relationship has attracted much attention throughout the history of industrial and organizational psychology. Many researchers and most lay people believe that a causal relationship exists between satisfaction and performance. In the current study, however, analyses using meta-analytic data suggested that the satisfaction–performance relationship is largely spurious. More specifically, the satisfaction–performance relationship was partially eliminated after controlling for either general personality traits (e.g., Five Factor Model traits and core self-evaluations) or for work locus of control and was almost completely eliminated after controlling for organization-based self-esteem. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. Ó 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Job satisfaction; Job performance; Personality; Meta-analysis

1. Introduction The job satisfaction–job performance relationship has been the topic of hundreds of studies, including three prominent meta-analyses (Iaffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985; Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001; Petty, McGee, & Cavender, 1984) and has been described as the ‘‘Holy Grail’’ of industrial and organizational psychology (Landy, 1989). A recent meta-analysis by Judge et al. (2001) found a mean corrected correlation

q The author thanks Terry A. Beehr and Julie M. Bowling for providing useful comments regarding earlier versions of this manuscript and Stephen H. Wagner for assistance with data collection. E-mail address: nathan.bowling@wright.edu

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