ORGANIZATIONAL-STRUCTURE AND JOB-SATISFACTION - DO BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONS PRODUCE MORE SATISFIED EMPLOYEES

Popular and social scientific critiques of the bureaucratic model of o rganizational behavior argue that employment in highly structured bure aucratic work organizations adversely affects worker attitudes and beh avior. In particular these critics suggest that bureaucratic structure is associated with lower employee job satisfaction. Several empirical studies, however have yielded an unexpected positive relationship bet ween bureaucratic structure and satisfaction. In this research, the au thors argue that this paradoxical pattern is the result of these studi es having used measures of organizational structure that conflate job and organizational characteristics. The authors show that among member s of an emerging profession, highly structured organizational activiti es have a negative effect on employee satisfaction when job characteri stics are controlled.