The Influence of Cognitive and Affective Based Job Satisfaction Measures on the Relationship Between Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

One of the most widely believed maxims of management is that a happy worker is a productive worker. However, most research on the nature of the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance has not yielded convincing evidence that such a relationship exists to the degree most managers believe. One reason for this might lie in the way in which job performance is measured. Numerous studies have been published that showed that using Organizational Citizenship Behavior to supplant more traditional measures of job performance has resulted in a more robust relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Yet, recent work has suggested that the relationship between job satisfaction and citizenship may be more complex than originally reported. This study investigated whether the relationship between job satisfaction and citizenship could depend upon the nature of the job satisfaction measure used. Specifically, it was hypothesized that job satisfaction measures which reflect a cognitive basis would be more strongly related to OCB than measures of job satisfaction which reflect an affective basis. Results from data collected in two midwestern companies show support for the relative importance of cognition based satisfaction over affect based satisfaction. Implications for research on the causes of citizenship are discussed.