The True Relation of Job Satisfaction and Job Performance - Essay Example

The common sense view that a happy worker is a productive worker is taken to be true, but several studies by Iaffaldano and Munchinsky point out that there is no strong relationship between the two (as cited in Selladurai 1991). According to Fisher (2003), no matter how pervasive is this belief in people, it is largely incorrect. But if there is any relationship whatsoever between job satisfaction and job performance, it remains to be the "Holy Grail" of researchers in Organizational Behavior.

Instead of a simple relationship, Selladurai inferred that the relationship of the two is complex. We cannot simply say that there is a direct or inverse relationship between the two (Selladurai 1991). Therefore, the solution to the problem of improving job performance is not really that straightforward. In reality, job performance drives job satisfaction. An employee will feel good if he or she has performed well, not the other way around. This is the consequence of a study testing three variables: job effort, job performance, and job satisfaction.

Christen, Iyler, and Soberman predict that, generally speaking, while employee effort will have a positive relationship with job performance, it will have a negative relationship with job satisfaction. Taken together, Christen, Iyler, and Soberman's results highlight the need to consider effort, compensation, and job characteristics to better understand the connections between job performance, job satisfaction, and firm performance. Moreover, their study serves to challenge the view that job performance and job satisfaction are directly related in that increasing one will improve the other.

At best, they are only weakly connected. The study also suggests that if firms want to motivate and keep their best employees, taking steps to improve their job performance might help improve their job satisfaction (as cited by McFarlin 2006). On the other hand, there exist a research finding as to why there appears to be a lack of relation between job satisfaction and job performance. People think that a productive, "happy" worker has job satisfaction. This is not necessarily correct. Wright and Cropanzano (1997) opine that instead of using job satisfaction as a variable (which is a measure of attitude) that has a direct relationship with job performance; researchers should use psychological well-being or the extent that "one feels good.

" Well-being is a measure of affect. Accordingly, consider two workers who are dissatisfied with their work. Eventually, one performed better than the other. What's the cause One felt that he will be promoted, while the other felt that nothing will change. A similar view is expressed by Providence College researcher Michelle Jones. After reviewing the literature on the Happy Worker/Productive Worker Hypothesis, she concluded that life satisfaction must be added to the equation and this is a better indicator of job performance (Jones 2006).

Her life satisfaction variable corresponds to the well-being variable of Wright & Cropanzano. From the findings of several researchers, we find that the factors affecting job performance or the factors that job performance affects include those outside the work place. An employer may help improve an employee's well-being in the work place, but it cannot do so in other contexts. Therefore, an employer no matter how unkind has no