A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF THE JOB PERCEPTION JOB-SATISFACTION RELATIONSHIP - A TEST OF THE 3 ALTERNATIVE SPECIFICATIONS

Although past job design research has demonstrated that job perception and job satisfaction are related, there is considerable debate on the causal direction of this relationship. Three alternative specificatio ns of the causal direction can be deduced from three different theorie s: (1) job perception is the cause (deduced from the job characteristi cs model); (2) job satisfaction is the cause (deduced from social info rmation-processing theory) and (3) the two constructs are reciprocally related (deduced from cognitive social learning theory). Past studies have not provided a comparative test of these three alternative speci fications. Thus, the causal relationship between these two constructs remains nebulous. A longitudinal design was employed tu examine the re lationship between job perception and the different components of job satisfaction (i.e. overall, intrinsic and extrinsic) with data collect ed over a two-year time span. Structural equation modelling was conduc ted to investigate the cross-lagged relationships between job percepti on and job satisfaction. Results indicated that job perception was rec iprocally related to overall and intrinsic job satisfaction. Implicati ons for job design research and practices are discussed.