5The Determinants of Job Satisfaction Among United States Air Force Security Police A Test of Rival Theoretical Predictive Models

The volummous literature on workplace attitudes has identified two competing types as determmants of employee job satisfaction demographic charactenstics of individuals and the characteristics of the work environment This research tests the relative effects of these two sources of variation in job satisfaction among United States Air Force securay pohce Our findings suggest that work environment variables produce significant effects on employee job satisfaction, while demographic variables, generally, failed to demonstrate appreciable influence Since the former are a matter of public management practices and policies while the latter are fixed features of employee background, the imphcation of these findings is that public sector managers ’ leadership and management activities have senous consequences for employee job satisfaction Over the past 30 years, job satisfactionhas become an important feature of at-tention for organizational researchers and managers alike, and is experiencing a re-newal of interest as a consequence of efforts to engage public service employees in the effort to &dquo;reinvent&dquo; government. The roots of empirical research on employee job satis