Job satisfaction: New strengths and old risks of a fundamental concept in organizational psychology

The concepts of motivation and job satisfaction are currently being re-discovered by both academia and commercial market research. This article reviews recent developments in this area and gives an assessment of the main results. Although the research tradition in the field of motivation and job satisfaction is an exceptionally strong one, it has until recently been in a deep crisis. The postulated causal relationship between job satisfaction and performance, which was at the heart of the crisis, is again pivotal to the current debate. This article reviews different forms of causal explanations in relation to empirical results. In all, results seem to justify the new emphasis on job satisfaction. However, this article also reviews a relatively recent study that, in stark contrast to earlier research, unreflectingly assumes the concept’s external validity and puts forward a simplistic view of one-directional causality. It is argued that two approaches are particularly suitable to increase the explanatory value of the concept: Identifying separate facets of job satisfaction, and recognising its emotional implications