The antecedents and consequences of the variability in job satisfaction.

摘要

Given the recent increase in the investigation of the intraindividual variability of job satisfaction (e.g., Ilies & Judge, 2002) the present study sought to further our understanding of this topic through more comprehensively investigating the potential predictors and criteria of the frequency and amplitude with which individuals vary in their levels of job satisfaction over short time frames. It was hoped that by including both personality (i.e., NA, PA, Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience) and situational predictors (i.e. job stressors), results from this study would help clarify how individual differences interact with situational characteristics to explain patterns of within-person variability. In addition, this study also sought to determine the extent to which job satisfaction variability is important to the prediction of employee job performance and turnover intentions. Results from the current study suggest that it may not be useful to distinguish between the frequency and amplitude with which individuals vary in their levels of job satisfaction over short time frames. Aside from this general conclusion, the situational predictor and three of the five personality traits investigated were shown to be important in explaining the frequency with which individuals' coworker, nature of work and promotion satisfaction varied. Variation in the facet of work satisfaction was also found to be an important predictor of job performance, and this remained true after accounting for mean levels of work satisfaction measured cross-sectionally. Finally, results lend some support to suggest the facets of coworker and nature of work satisfaction to be particularly important when considering short-term within-person variation. While many of the hypothesized relationships were not supported, given the current results, it seems worthwhile to continue to investigate the roles that personality and situational change play in describing the within-person variation of different facets of job satisfaction as well as the role of this within-person variation in predicting organizational outcomes.