Job satisfaction and performance: The moderating effects of value attainment and affective disposition

The job satisfaction-performance relationship is one of the most frequently examined in the organizational sciences, yet one of the least successfully resolved. Research in the area of subjective well-being suggests that the experience of work is multifaceted (Diener, 1984). Acknowledging the comple xity and perhaps multifaceted nature of the job satisfaction-performance re lationship might lead to more fruitful efforts to understand the dynamics o f this association. In this study, we hypothesized and found support for th e contention that value attainment and affective disposition would demonstr ate complex interactions with performance and satisfaction. The sample cons isted of 270 managerial personnel of national hotel chains located across t he United States. Three-way interactions demonstrated that the strongest po sitive relationship between job satisfaction and performance occurred when high value attainment was coupled with either high positive or low negative affective disposition. Implications of these results and directions for fu ture research are discussed. (C) 1999 Academic Press.