Job Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis of Stabilities Author(s): Christian Dormann and Dieter Zapf Source: Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol.

22, No. 5 (Aug., 2001), pp. 483-504 Published by: John Wiley & Sons Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649554 Accessed: 21/06/2010 04:23
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Journal of OrganizationalBehavior J. Organiz.Behav. 22, 483-504 (2001) DOI: 10.1002/job.098

Job satisfaction: a meta-analysis of stabilities

CHRISTIAN DORMANN* AND DIETER ZAPF
Instituteof Psychology, Mertonstr.17, Johann WolfgangGoethe-Universityof Frankfurt, D-60054 Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Summary

is and Evidence that is suggesting job satisfaction caused individual by dispositions reviewed, for studies analysed a meta-analytic are with coefficients job satisfaction previous in stability limit Previous studies longitudinal job implyanupper procedure. analysing changer samples on A of estimate 0.51fordirect of influences job satisfaction. study jobchangers dispositional of that has the conditions considering stability working suggests thisestimate to be considerAt that downwards. present, is concluded it is morelikelythatdispositions it ablycorrected for affectjob satisfaction selectionandself-selection via indirectly Implications processes. are as assessment discussed. Copyright 2001John job satisfaction a toolfororganizational ? Wiley& Sons,Ltd.

Introduction
Job satisfaction is one of the best-researchedconcepts in work and organizationalpsychology for at least two reasons. Job satisfaction is relevant for all those who are interested in the subjective evaluationof working conditions such as responsibility,task variety,or communicationrequirements (e.g., Hackmanand Oldham,1980) becausejob satisfactionis supposedto be stronglycaused by such conditions.Job satisfactionis also of majorconcern wheneveroutcome variablessuch as absenteeism (e.g., Breaugh, 1981; Keller, 1983; Tharenou, 1993), fluctuation (e.g., Farkas and Tetrick, 1989; Rusbult and Farrell, 1983), or organizationalinefficiency such as counterproductive behavior (e.g., GottfredsonandHolland, 1990) or sabotage(Chenand Spector,1992), aredealt with becausejob satisfaction is supposedto be a majorcause of such problems. By integratingthese two perspectivesjob satisfactionis placed as a centralconcept in work and organizational psychology, which mediates the relationbetween working conditions on the one hand and organizationaland individualoutcomes on the other hand. Althoughintuitivelyconvincing,workingconditionsas the majorcause of job satisfactionhave been challenged. One counterargument emphasizes the role of personalityvariables. Staw and colleagues (Staw et al., 1986; Staw andRoss, 1985) suggestedthatjob satisfactionmight reflect stable underlying
* Correspondence to: Christian Dormann, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Institute of Psychology, Mertonstr.17, D-60054 Frankfurt/Main, Germany. E-mail: Dormann@psych.uni-Frankfurt.de

1 Received June1999
Copyright ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Accepted 30 August 2000

Published online 26 June 2001

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dispositionswhich might be genetically determined.Obviously,this suppositionchallenges the use of job satisfactionfor the assessment of work and organization. Despite the diverse plausible mechanisms which have been suggested, the significance of personality dispositions in the development of job satisfaction has been subjected to much criticism and inspired an intensive discussion in the literatureduringrecent years (e.g., Arvey et al., 1989, 1993; Bouchardet al., 1992, 1990; Cropanzanoand James, 1990; Davis-Blake and Pfeffer, 1989; Gerhart, 1987; Gutek and Winter, 1992; Judge and Hulin, 1993; Keller et al., 1992; Levin and Stokes, 1989; Newton and Keenan, 1991; Staw et al., 1986; Staw and Ross, 1985; Watson and Slack, 1993). The central issue raised with the assumptionof dispositional influences on job satisfaction is concerned with the extent to which individuals'job satisfactioncan be changed by organizationalmeasures.If the malleable parts of job satisfaction were only small and stable personalitytraits were the major causes, a varietyof conclusions would have to be drawn.Measuringjob satisfactionfor organizational climate, would be questionable.Instead,based assessment,for example, work design or organizational on the trait-likecharacterof job satisfaction,one would tend to follow suggestions to use individuals' job satisfactionin personnelselection procedures(Staw and Ross, 1985) because highly satisfiedpeople would be also satisfied in the future. Turnover,absenteeism, and other factors of organizational inefficiency might be affected by this (Carsten and Spector, 1987; Brayfield and Crockett, 1955; Herzberget al., 1957; Mobley et al., 1978; Nicholson et al., 1976; Vroom, 1964). Thus, it is of great importanceto know how strongdispositionalinfluences are in comparisonto situationaldeterminants such as working conditions when it comes to job satisfaction. Several explanationshave been given for the relationof job satisfactionand personalitytraits.Job satisfaction may be affected by emotion-relatedpersonalitytraits because job satisfaction has been equatedwith a pleasurableemotional state (e.g., Locke, 1969, 1976). Recent theorizingon the dispositional influences on job satisfactionhas mainly focused on negative affectivity (NA) and to a lesser extent on positive affectivity (PA) (e.g., Brief et al., 1988; Brief and Roberson, 1989; Munz et al., 1996). Negative affectivity has been sometimes equatedwith neuroticism(Burkeet al., 1993; Watson and Clark, 1984), and it has been interpretedas a general dimension which lowers the thresholdto experiencenegativeemotions. Similarly,PA has been definedas a dimensionwhich increasesthe likelihood to experience positive emotions. Opposed to such internalpsychological processes, it can also be assumed that personalityhas an impact on job satisfactionvia influencing the objective working conditions (e.g., Hulin, 1991). Personality traits are relevant for job choice and for being selected and promotedby the organization(Hogan, 1991). Mental ability and personalitytests are frequently used in personnel selection. A study by Spector et al. (1999), for example, showed that NA is more strongly correlatedwith non-incumbent(job analyst and supervisor)measures of job characteristics thanwith incumbentmeasures.In a laboratoryand in field studies Cook et al. (1995 - paperpresented at the SIOPconvention,Lake Buena Vista, FL) showedthatpeople scoringhigh in NA areless likely to successfully complete selection interviews. These studies suggest that NA, PA, and other personality dispositions such as extraversion,openness or intelligence affect which job a persongets and, by this, affect the working conditions. The working conditions in turn affect job satisfaction.In other words, the effect of personalitydispositionson job satisfactionis mediatedby working conditions.This may either take place via self-selection and career decisions made by the individual or by selection and promotion by the organization.In contrast to other mechanisms, the usefulness of job satisfaction for evaluationpurposes is not threatenedif selection due to personalitydispositions applies because job satisfaction is a reaction to working conditions. Even if individuals with certain dispositions are exposed to bad workingconditions,workingconditionscould be improvedindependentlyof these dispositions leading to higher levels of job satisfaction. In this article,we firstprovidea brief overview of resultsobtainedfrom differentapproaches used in studies on dispositional causes of job satisfaction to provide an estimate of the effect of personality Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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dispositionson job satisfaction.Second, we presenta meta-analysisof stabilities obtainedfrom longitudinalstudies. This analysis comprises a greatvarietyof differentoccupationsand organizations,so the results may apply to the overall population.We distinguishbetweenjob changersandjob stayers and argue that stability coefficients of job changersrepresentevidence for the upper-limitof the dispositional influence on job satisfaction.Third,we investigatethe indirecteffects of personalitydispositions on job satisfaction via working conditions. Our aim is to demonstratethat stability of job satisfaction may arise because of the stability in working conditions even when job changes occur. Therefore, we apply a partial correlationapproachto a longitudinal sample of job changers. It is hypothesized that a substantialpart of dispositional influence on job satisfactionis indirect through the influence on job conditions caused by selection. The reductionin job satisfaction stability after partiallingjob conditions should reflect the indirect effects of personality in contrast to its direct effects. The general aim of the present article is to provide a basis to decide whetherjob satisfaction should be either used for subjectiveevaluationof the organizationor as a personalityvariablewhich might be useful elsewhere, for example, in employee selection, or both.

Approachesto the DispositionalBasis of Job Satisfaction

Research on the role of personalityvariablesas determinantsof job satisfactioncan be distinguished accordingto their use of a direct or indirect approach.Whereas direct approachestried to explicitly identify certain dispositions as determinantsof job satisfaction, indirect approaches were used to demonstratethat some unspecified disposition to be satisfied or dissatisfied with the job is likely to exist.

Indirectapproaches
In a longitudinalstudy,SchneiderandDachler(1978) reportedan averagetest-retest correlationof the of job descriptionindex (JDI; Smith et al., 1969) satisfaction-measure 0.57 over a time intervalof 16 months. Assuming a reliability of 0.84 and correctingthis estimate for attenuation(which was the average reliability obtainedfrom the meta-analysisof longitudinal studies presentedbelow) implies a corrected stability of 0.68. This result tempted some researchers to draw the conclusion that the reason for the high stability of job satisfaction cannot be found in working conditions (e.g., Staw and Ross, 1985) because the lattershouldbe expected to change considerably.Takinginto account that Americanemployees changejobs frequently(Wegemann,1991), such a high test-retest correlationmay undercutthe idea that job satisfaction is primarilycaused by working conditions. Rather,it may suggest thattraitsor stable individualdispositions are responsiblefor satisfactionwith the job. Although a particulardisposition that may cause job satisfaction cannot be derived from our research,test-retest correlationsallow us to estimate the maximum dispositionaleffect on job satisfaction. Since dispositions are supposed to be stable at least across short time periods, their influence should be almost constantover time. Consequently,dispositionalvarianceinherentin job satisfaction should covary across time. As Gerharthas noted '... an observed relation between previous and currentjob satisfaction should perhaps be viewed as an upper bound on the total effect of traits on job satisfaction.' (1987, p. 371). The test-retest correlationthus provides an upper limit estimate of the variance attributable those causal factors that are stable over time. It should be noted that the to Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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correlationdirectly correspondsto the maximumeffect of an underlyingstable factor and thus should not be squared(Bouchardet al., 1990; Bouchard, 1997). The test-retest correlationusually does not provide an unbiasedestimateof the actual dispositional effect because there are other variableswhich also remainconstantover time to some degree. Only if every non-dispositionalcause of job satisfactionhad completely changedbetween two measurements, test-retest correlationswould be unbiasedestimatesof the absolutedispositionaleffect. This condition is partlymet if individualschange their occupation and/ortheir employer, as suggested by Staw and Ross (1985). Moreover,long time lags between subsequentmeasurementsalso contributeto this condition because the probabilityof changes in work and non-workconditionsincreaseswith time. However, it can be supposedthatpeople will not be spreadoverjobs at randomaftera job change.Rather,a varietyof workingconditionswill remainsimilarto those before the change because people remainin their occupation. Nevertheless,job conditions should be less stable in samples of job changers.The test-retest correlationsfor job satisfaction obtained under such conditions (i.e., change of job and employer) reported by Staw and Ross (1985) was 0.19 across five years. Assuming that the one item-measureappliedhas a reliability of 0.57 (which was the averageestimate of the minimumreliability obtained by Wanous et al. in their recent meta-analysis, 1997), and correctingthe test-retest correlationfor attenuationled to an estimate of 0.33 for the maximum effect for dispositionalinfluences. This estimateis only aboutone half of the corresponding measure(0.65) which was obtainedfor subjects who neither changed occupationnor employer duringthe same time. Given the widespreaduse of job satisfactionmeasuresand the increasedavailabilityof longitudinal studies, the bulk of evidence relevantfor the discussion of dispositionalinfluences on job satisfaction can certainlybe found in this line of inquiry.Collecting all availableinformationon the stabilityof job satisfactionin orderto providea moreaccurateestimateof themaximumdispositionaleffect thusseemed to be a promisingavenueto pursue.We presenta comprehensivemeta-analysisof stabilitiesin Study 1. Another kind of indirect evidence for dispositional influences emerges from twin studies. In 1989, Arvey and his colleagues demonstratedthat monozygotic twins who were reared apart for most of their lives sharedabout 31 per cent of their variancein general and intrinsicjob satisfaction. Intrinsicaspectsof thejob aredirectlyrelatedto the tasks(e.g., skill variety),whereasextrinsicaspectsare relatedto externalcircumstances(e.g., promotionopportunities). extrinsicsatisfaction,no common For varianceamong twins was found. This result was replicatedpartly by Arvey et al. (1993), although correlations job satisfactionscores for dizygotic twins were lacking in this study.Nevertheless,these in results suggest a searchfor traitsthat are known to be genetically determined.

Direct approaches
Based on the definitionof job satisfactionas a pleasurableemotional stateresultingfrom the appraisal of one's job (e.g., Locke, 1969, 1976), many authors considered dispositions related to the experience of positive (PA) and negative emotions (NA) as good candidatesto affect job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. First, there are several cross-sectional studies estimating the relation between affectivity and job satisfaction.The strongesteffect for NA was found in the study of Munz et al. (1996), where the corrected common variancebetween generaljob satisfactionand NA was 21 per cent. In the same study, the effect for PA was 30 per cent. Brief and Roberson (1989), after correcting for measurement error,reportedthe common variance of NA with two measures of job satisfaction to be 14 per cent on average. For PA the average corrected common variance was 34 per cent. Levin and Stokes (1989) reportedan intermediatecorrectedeffect of 12 per cent for NA. Somewhatlower associations were found by Watsonand Slack (1993) who reported14 per cent correctedcommon variancefor PA Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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with job satisfaction and 8 per cent for NA. Similarly, approximately8 per cent correctedcommon variancewas obtainedby Staw et al. (1986). Second, thereare longitudinalstudies thattested whetherjob satisfactioncan be predictedby affect variablesmeasuredlong before. Although such designs do not actuallyprove the causal role of affecthan cross-sectional ones. tive dispositions, evidence obtainedfrom such studies is more trustworthy Longitudinalstudies were carriedout by Gustavssonet al. (1997), Staw et al. (1986), and Watsonand Slack (1993). In the study of Staw et al. the 50-year lagged correctedcommon varianceof affective disposition andjob satisfactionwas 20 per cent, assumingthat theiroverall satisfactionmeasurehad a reliabilityof 0.80. However,in this study,the synchronouscorrectedcommon variancewas only 8 per cent. It can be supposedthatthe most important selection processes takeplace in early adulthoodwhen the individualhim- or herself and others decide on the individual'sfuturecareer.Therefore,the fact that the common variance of prior (childhood) affective disposition and job satisfaction was larger when compared to the concurrent (adult) affective disposition supports the selection hypothesis. Gustavssonet al. used neuroticismfactor-scoresto predictjob satisfactionnine years later.Assuming a reliabilityof 0.73 for neuroticism,which was the averagereliabilityof the nine scales loading on this factor, 12 per cent correctedcommon varianceemergedfor two cross-validationsamples, on average. In the two-yearprospectivestudy of Watsonand Slack, the squaredtime-lagged correlation(corrected for attenuation)in job satisfactionexplained by negative emotionalitywas 0.01 and 0.13 for positive emotionality. Even strongerevidence for a possible causal role of affective disposition comes from longitudinal analyses which test whether the stability of job satisfaction breaks down when affectivity is controlled, as suggested by Judge (1992). This was tested by Schaubroecket al. (1996) in a seven-year follow-up. For employees who did not change their job, the average stability of various facet satisfaction scales was reduced from 0.34 to 0.33 when NA and PA were controlled, and for employees who changed theirjob the average reductionwas from 0.25 down to 0.23. Obviously, the reduction obtained was so small that the results question the role of NA and PA as underlying dispositions of job satisfaction. Althoughmost of the directapproachesdealt with NA or PA, therehave been claims to include other traitsin dispositionalresearch(e.g., House et al., 1996). Recently, Judge et al. (1998) suggested that NA, and possibly PA, representaspects of a core self-evaluationfactor which also comprises selfesteem, generalized self-efficacy, and locus of control. In two samples, the authorsshowed that the core self-evaluationfactor was indeed related to job satisfaction. A scale by scale analysis revealed that the strongest associations existed for self-esteem (the corrected common variance was 26 per cent), which the authorsthink of as '... the source (or an importantsource) of positive affectivity' (Judgeet al., 1998; p. 19). Since PAwas not directly measured,the results of Judge et al. are thus still in line with the notion that affective dispositions seem to be most relevant.Noteworthy,the weakest associationamong the four variablesstudiedby Judgeet al. was found for NA, for which the corrected common variancewas 14 per cent (in line with the selection hypothesis, Judge et al. (2000) recently showed thatat least partof the relationbetween core self-evaluationsandjob satisfactionis mediated by job characteristics).

Summary of previous findings The indirectapproachesof Staw and Ross (1985) and Arvey et al. (1989) indicate that the maximum dispositionaleffect can be expected to be some 30 per cent. This approach,which combines the effects of all possible personality traits, shows higher estimates than those typically found in more direct approaches which test the influence of certain personality variables. In most instances, direct Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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approachesexplain between 10 and 20 per cent of variancein job satisfaction,andNA seems to be less importantthan PA. In the following section, we firstpresentthe results of a meta-analysis(Study 1). This study represents an indirect approachbecause it summarizesstabilities of job satisfactionreportedin previously publishedarticles. If stable organizationalvariablescontributeto the stabilityof job satisfaction,then changes of these organizationalvariablesshould lower the stability of job satisfaction.Such changes are more likely to occurif employees change theirjobs. Thus, we supposedthattest-retest correlations reportedin the literatureshould be smaller for job changersthan for job stayers. The foregoing suppositionrests on the assumptionthatjob changersactuallyexperience changes in working characteristics,which in turn affect their job satisfaction level. However, the stabilities of Of some of the situationalfactorsbefore and aftera job change are often underestimated. course, there are factors such as organizationalclimate or leadership,which may fundamentallychange in a given sample. For example, persons being badly treatedby their supervisorsmay succeed in finding a new job underbrilliant supervision,thus moving from the very bottom to the very top of this dimension. However,this is unlikely for job content andjob stressors.Job content is closely relatedto job skills. Usually, people acquire skills for a specific occupation and skills within an occupation are typically more similarthan skills between occupations.In most cases, people remainin their occupationaftera job change. If not, they try to get a job with a similaror a somewhatbetterjob content.It shouldalso be noted thatjob contentvariablesusually show the highest relationswith job satisfactioncomparedwith otherorganizational variablessuch as leadershipor payment(Dawis et al., 1974; Zapf, 1991). As is the case withjob content,almostthe same is trueforjob stressors,althoughthese may show morevariation in comparisonwith job content. An example is a firefighterwho changes his or her job and moves to anotherfire brigade.Time pressureor job hazardswill probablynot change to a large extent. That is, some of the organizational variablesare sufficientlycontrolledwhen using a job changersample.However, other variables, in particular content and job stressors,may remain stable even after a job job change. These factors may be responsible for similar levels of job satisfaction before and after the variablesin job changersamples job change. To our knowledge, studies controllingfor organizational have not yet been carriedout. Therefore,we decided to test in a second study (Study 2) whetherpartialling job characteristicswould result in reduced test-retest correlationsof job satisfactionfor job changers.This analysis was based on data from a Germanmulti-wave study.

Study 1: A Meta-Analysis of Stabilities of Job Satisfaction

Method
A computer-basedliteraturesearch on the stability of job satisfaction was conducted in order to identify as much empiricalinformationas possible. This searchwas appliedto the electronicdatabase PSYCLITup to September 1997. Search terms were 'satisfactionand (stability or retest or panel or longitudinalor follow up) and (organizationor job or work or managementor business)'. References given in these articleswere also takeninto account,leading to 45 articlesprovidinginformationon job satisfactionover the course of time. Recorded information We intendedto investigateoveralljob satisfaction,which is often measuredusing single item measures or particularly designed scales. On the otherhand,thereare measuresthatassess differentfacets of job satisfaction,such as the JDI (Smith et al., 1969). However, '... JDI total does have meaningand can
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be used as a global measureof satisfaction' (Wanous, 1974, p. 140). Regardingthe Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire can (MSQ;Weiss et al., 1967), or otherfacet-basedmeasures,a similarargument be made. Therefore,we either collected informationon global job satisfactionor aggregatedscales of facet satisfaction. Test-retestcorrelations,r-squareincrementsfrom hierarchical regressionanalysis whereTime 1job satisfactionwas exclusively entered in the first step predictingTime 2 satisfaction, and mean levels at two points in time together with the correspondingstandarddeviations and the test statistic (e.g., t-values,F-ratios, orp-values with at least two decimals) were recorded.The lattertwo kinds of information are useful because r-squareincrementsand differencesin mean levels over time can be transformed into a correlation. Twelve articlesdealt with issues which requiredthe formationof subsamples,for example, Type A versus Type B behavior,job stayersversus leavers, etc. Sometimes informationabout the stability of job satisfactionwas reportedfor both the sample as a whole and the subsamples. In such cases we recordedthe informationabout the overall sample to avoid the problem of dependentsamples, with the exception of studies where subsamplesfor stayers and leavers were reported.Thus, our databasis consists of 60 samples taken from 42 studies. Some of the studies found were multi-wavestudies comprisingmore thantwo measurements. Since we were interestedin computingan upperlimit estimateof dispositionalinfluenceson job satisfaction, it was reasonableto choose the test-retest correlationbased on the longest time lag available.Besides informationabout stability,we also recordedtime lags and reliabilities. Calculations All available informationwas algebraically transformedinto test-retest correlations.Not all of the studies reportedinformationon the reliability of job satisfaction scales. When no informationabout reliabilitywas reported,we estimatedthe reliabilityusing the approachimplementedin the meta-analytic procedureof Rajuet al. (1991). In otherwords, the approachof Rajuet al. allows for correctionof test-retest correlationsfor unreliabilityin the job satisfactionmeasure(at both measurementperiods) by taking samplingerrorin the sample-basedreliabilityestimates into account.We did not correctfor rangerestrictionbecause no informationaboutthis was available,which may have led to slightly conservativeestimates. We used the computerprogramMAIN by Raju and Fleer (1997). The corrected test-retest correlationsinclude the amountof dispositionalvarianceplus the amountof variancedue to lack of change in environmental conditions. Thus, the test-retest correlationsare actually upper-limit estimates of dispositionalvariancebecause other sources of stability are also included.

Results
In Figure 1 the correctedtest-retest correlationsof job satisfactionacross time are shown. In the top part of Figure 1 all samples identifiedin the literatureare included (overall N= 14 944), whereas the middle part of Figure 1 comprises only stayer samples (N= 3512), and the bottom part of Figure 1 shows only samples where employees changed theirjob, the organization,or both (N= 4033). Unfortunately,the numberof samples where employees changedeither employer (n = 2) or theirjob (n = 6) was rathersmall so we did not consider this distinction further. Table 1 shows the meta-analyticresults. The mean correlation(Mr) for all samples was 0.42. The sample-weighted corrected test-retest correlation (Md) was 0.50 (for an average sample-weighted time-lag of 35.89 months). The standarderrorof this mean was 0.01, resulting in a 95%-confidence intervalof 0.44 up to 0.48. The 95%uppercredibilityvalue, below which 95% of all truestabilitieslie, was 0.85. Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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The top part of Figure 1 shows that stabilities decrease when time lags increase (r = - 0.41). The amountof unexplainedvarianceremaining(83 per cent) suggests thattheremight be differencesin the developmentof the varioussatisfactionscales over time. We could not analyse this possibility because with the exception of the MSQ (4 times) and the JDI (14 times), most othersatisfactionmeasureswere only rarelyused. Although global job satisfactionmeasuredby one item was used in most cases (18 times), equivalence among the 1-item measures was unclear to a great extent because the verbatim wordingwas often not reported.Anotherpossibility mightbe thatthe samplesanalysedcomprisedjobs with varyingdegrees of stability.For example, working conditions for forestersmight be more stable across time than working conditions in the high-tech industry.Again, there are so many diversitiesin the samples analysed that we were unable to test for this possibility. The next analysis dealt with differences in the stability of job satisfactionbetween job stayers andjob leavers. Since not all studies found in the literaturereportedwhether or not subjects changed, the numberof stayer samples was only 19. The mean sample-weightedcorrectedtest-retest correlation(Md) for stayers was 0.48. For changers,M? was 0.35 (see Table 1). In line with Finkelstein et al. (1995), we used standardnormal deviate comparisonsto test the differences between the mean correctedtest-retest correlationsusing the formulagiven in Quifioneset al. (1995). The differencebetween these two estimates was significant (z = 5.36, p < 0.01).

A look at the middle and bottom partof Figure 1 reveals that for job stayers and for job changers only moderaterelations between time lag and stability emerged. For job stayers the relationshipwas slightly negative as expected (r = - 0.20), whereas, contraryto expectation,the relationwas slightly positive when job changers were considered (r = 0.22). However, because of the very small sample size, we will not interpretthis result.

All Samples 60) (N=

1,1

1.0a

S.3

Time Lag (Months)

Lag Time (Months)

Figure 1. Correctedtest-retest correlations(ps) of job satisfactionfor varyingtime lags separatelyfor all samples, samples where participantsstayed within theirjobs, and samples where participantschanged theirjobs or their employer between two measurements Copyright ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz.Behav. 22, 483-504 (2001)

OF STABILITY JOBSATISFACTION 491

Pure Samples = 19) Stayer (N

1,1 1,0
,9
_

o
c

,8
,7

4 o S

4W,

-,3

43

TimeLag (Months)

1,1

ChangerSamples (N= 10)

1,1

-.3

1,0

.8

26a

,13

-.2 -,3
0 12 24 3 40 60 84 96 108 120 132 144

Time (Months) Lag

Figure 1. Continued.

Copyright ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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results the stability job satisfaction for of Table1. Meta-analytic Observed statistics
Condition N No. of

Estimated parameters population

SD, SEMi 95% 95% CI

effects All samples 14.944 3.512 Stayersamples Changer samples 4.033 60 19 10

Mr

SDr

M0

0.42 0.42 0.18

0.22 0.17 0.15

0.50 0.48 0.35

0.21 0.23 0.14

0.01 0.02 0.02

CV around upper M6 0.44 to 0.48 0.85 0.86 0.45 to 0.51 0.31 to 0.38 0.58

standard of theestimated of p. Note: is error mean SEM, anasymptotic

CV = Credibilityvalue. CI = Confidenceinterval.

As already noted, the sample-weighted corrected ps for stayers and leavers were 0.48 and 0.35, respectively. Note that these values are conservative. They may even be higher if range restriction is takeninto account,supportingthe position that one shouldnot be too optimisticwhen assumingthat facjob satisfactioncould be easily changed. However,this estimateis based on stable environmental tors as well, and the question arises as to what degree test-retest correlationsare lowered when working conditionsare partialled.Using a directlongitudinalapproach,this issue was addressedin Study 2.

Study 2: Partialling Work Characteristics From Test-retest Correlations of Job Satisfaction

It can be assumed that even for those employees who changed theirjob or their employer, working conditions of the new job or in the new organizationare not completely differentfrom those before. People are likely to search for jobs that fit their qualification,their needs, and theirjob expectations. Therefore,they often remainin the same branchesand hold ajob in the same occupation.Forexample, high-qualifiedjobs give more control to employees. Controlat work should thus be correlatedeven if people change theirjobs, and, if control affects job satisfaction,a stability of job satisfactionshould emerge because controlas one underlyingcause does not completely change over time. If causes of job satisfaction are partialledfrom the stability of job satisfaction,this stability should be reduced. This argumentis similarto partiallingpersonalityfrom the stability of job satisfaction,which shouldresult in a significantdecrease. However,as alreadynoted, previousresults (Schaubroecket al., 1996) failed to demonstratethat partialling NA and PA as personality characteristicsreduced the stability of job satisfaction. Partiallingjob characteristicstakes the opposite point of view and was applied in the present study.

Method
The data analysedwere collected in the AHUS-project.AHUS is a Germanacronymfor 'active behavior in a radical-changesituation.'The AHUS-projecthas been carriedout in former East Germany and comprises six waves of data collection between 1990 and 1995. The generalpurposeof the study was to analyse how working conditions change as a consequence of the unificationof West and East Germanyin 1990. In this context,job satisfactionwas also measured.Otherpartsof the project,which did not focus on job satisfaction, were published in Dormann and Zapf (1999), Frese et al. (1997), Frese et al. (submitted),and Frese et al. (1996). Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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The six waves took place in July/August 1990 (when West German currency was introduced into East Germany),in October/November1990 (a few weeks after the unificationof East and West Germany),in July/August 1991, July/August 1992, July/August 1993, and July/August 1995.

Contextual Sidebar

Dresden and the unificationof East and WestGermany

Dresden until 1989 Dresden was one of the biggest cities in the GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR). It was founded about 1200. It rapidly grew and had its maximum of about 630 000 inhabitantsin 1939. In 1945, shortlybefore the end of WorldWarII, Dresdenwas heavily bombedby Britishand U.S. American airforces resultingin about350 000 victims. In October1949, the GDR was foundedon the grounds of the formerSoviet zone of occupation.In 1968, a socialistic constitutionwas established,which stressedthe exclusive leadershipof a single partytermedSozialistischeEinheitspartei Deutschlands After foundationof the GDR, Dresdenbecame capital of the districtof Dresden, one out of (SED). 15 districtsin the GDR. In 1990, Dresdenhad about500 000 inhabitants it was the thirdbiggest and in the GDR. city In the periodup to 1989 the largestenterprisesin Dresdenwere a power plant, a transformer and in the electrical engineeringbranchand the electronics and microelecx-ray enterprise,enterprises tronics sectors,typewriter works, Pentacon(cameras),Nagema (a firmproducingmachineryfor the foods andrelatedindustries),a high-vacuumplant,pharmaceuticals, and air-conditioning refrigeration plants. The unification Stimulatedby the perestroikapolitics in the USSR, the civil rights movementin the GDR received more andmorewordof encouragement the population,resultingin mass demonstrations 1989. in in The people forced the opening of the frontiers.In November 1989, the socialistic governmentcollapsed andBerlin's wall breached.The elections in March1990 were won by partiesthatwere looking forwardto an unificationof the GDR and the FederalRepublic of Germany(FRG), which has had a social marketeconomy and a political system that has been strongly devoted to democratic principles.The unificationprocess began in July 1990 with the introductionof a common currency system. The unificationprocess was finalized in October 1990, when the newly founded Federal States of the GDR joined the FRG. After an initial period of enthusiasmfollowing the unification,East Germans(i.e., the former GDR) became more andmore disillusioned.Before the unification,the work in the GDR was poorly organized;supplies were often missing, tools were of poor quality and qualificationsoften counted less thanpolitical correctness.Supervisorsusuallyprescribedin detailhow the workhad to be done, but they had little sanctionpower.After the unification,a lot of East Germanfirmswere acquiredby West Germanand international companies. East Germansupervisorswere often replacedby West Germans,western business rules were quickly adopted, and a lot of employees were fired. In the GDR therewas virtuallyno unemployment,but as early as in 1991 therewere mass demonstrations against unemploymentin Leipzig, the second biggest city in the former GDR. ( Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav.22, 483-504 (2001)

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Dresden since 1990 About 45 billion 4 have been invested in Dresden since 1990. The numberof businesses has risen of from 12000 to 34600. The industrial diversity has facilitated the transformation economic structuressince the unification,but neverthelessthis was difficult. Even those industriesthat had the potentialto compete in a world market,such as some of the electrical and electronic industries, were vastly overstaffed in terms of West German standards.However, for some branches the transformation was successful. Today the most important branches are the high-tech sectors with microelectronics and associated applications, telecommunicationsand information technology. There are currentlyaround400 companies with more than 15000 employees operatingdirectly in microelectronics or in affiliated branches (e.g., Infineon Technologies and Advanced Micro Devices). In addition, there are 15 independentresearch institutes and more than 150 software offices. Also very importantare the pharmaceuticalsector, environmentalengineering and biotechnologies, precision engineering and apparatus, opitcal engineering and cameras, aircraft engineering, medical technology, fine chemicals, printing and publishing, food and tobacco, constructionand the service sector. Three quartersof all employees in the city are employed in the service sector: more than 10000 service enterprises have been newly established since 1990. The 64 banking and insurance branches in the city employ some 7000 people, and there are over 700 lawyers, countless tax, business and personnel consultants, more than 800 estate agents and accommodationbureaus, and a great number of other business-relatedservice providers.The productivityof Dresden's enterprisesis today more than four times higher than it was in 1990. The population of Dresden now achieves the highest purchasingpower in Eastern Germany. More than 30 institutes and scientific centres, including those of the Leibnitz Society, the FraunhoferSociety and the Max Planck Society, are located in Dredsen. The Technical University of Dresden is a large and importantuniversity in Germany.It employs more than 9000 people, including 800 professors and senior lecturers,and there are about 24 000 registered students.

Participants were sampledusing a randomroute method: streetswere selected at random,and within Participants each selected street every third house was visited. In largerblocks of flats, the inhabitantsof every fourthapartment smallerhouses every third)were contacted.All participants were assuredof con(in fidentiality.The refusal rate was 33 per cent. The data were collected in the district of Dresden, one of the three big cities of former East Germany.During the first wave of data collection, 365 subjects participatedin the study. At Time 2, data from 202 additionalsubjects were collected. Since there are relatively few participants availablefor Time 1-Time 6 analyses, we decided to omit Time 1 data and analyseddatafrom Time 2 and Time 6. With respect to age, social class, and male/female workers,the participantswere representativeof the working populationof Dresden (Frese et al., 1996). All participants were paid for their participation in the study.Forty-nineper cent of the participantswere male and 51 per cent were female. Age rangedbetween 16 and 63 years (M = 39, SD = 11.42). Most subjectsworkedin public or privateservices (35.9 per cent). Tradeor manufacturing enterprisesemployed 30.9 per cent of the participants. There were 18.9 per cent office workersholding jobs which requirelittle qualification.Managersor formed27.4 per cent of the sample.Therewere 12.5 professionalswith high qualificationrequirements
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per cent higher-levelpublic servantsmostly employed in schools and universities, and 16.5 per cent skilled and 14.9 per cent unskilled blue-collar workers,respectively. To determine the degree to which the stability of job satisfaction is due to stable environmental factors, work-relatedvariables were controlled in a job changer sample. In line with the meta-analysis, we did not differentiate between those who changed either their job or their employer. Participantsunemployed at Time 2 or at Time 6 were excluded, as well as participantswith missing values for job satisfaction at either time. The sample analysed consisted of 184 subjects. For these subjects, there was an overall rate of missing values of about 3 per cent. Missing data were accounted for by application of the EMCOV computer program (see Graham and Donaldson, 1993; Grahamet al., 1996). We tested whether the sample analysed differed from the whole sample with respect to gender, age, socioeconomic status,job satisfaction,job content (see below), andjob stressors(see below). Those participantswho changed theirjob were 2.65 years younger on average comparedto those subjects not analysed (t - - 2.58; df- 566; p = 0.01). We furthertested whether the reason for excluding certain participantswas responsible for differences between participants included in the study and excluded participants. Subjects who were employed at Time 2, but who did not report their job satisfaction and were thus excluded from analyses, had significantly (t= 2.01, df= 197, p < 0.05) lower satisfaction scores at Time 6 (M = 3.12, SD=-0.68) than those participantsanalysed (M= 3.48, SD = 0.66). For subjects excluded due to unemployment,no differences were found. Measures Job satisfaction. Thejob satisfactionmeasureused was adoptedfrom Warret al. (1979). Eight items asked participants how satisfiedthey were with respect to several aspects of their work. These aspects were 'Possibilities to develop new skills and knowledge,' 'Possibilities to carry out work as it is most suitable to oneself,' 'Availability and condition of working resources which facilitate task accomplishment (properties, devices etc.),' 'Social recognition,' 'Environmental conditions at work (noise, light, temperature etc.),' 'Pay and social benefits,' 'Trustreceived by supervisors,'and 'Promotion opportunities.'The items required a response on a 5-point scale that ranged from 1 (very dissatisfied)to 5 (very satisfied). Job content. Measuresfor job contents andjob stressorswere taken from the Instrument Stressof orientedJob Analysis (ISTA;Semmeret al., 1995). A composite scale was used to assess job content. This scale compriseditems used to assess control at work and complexity. A sample item for control was 'Can you decide on your own how to fulfill your tasks?' A sample item for complexity was 'Is it possible to use your skills and knowledge at work?' Responses were given on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very little) to 5 (very much). The resulting composite scale of job content is similar to the measure of job control used by Karasek(Karasekand Theorell, 1990). For a discussion on how job control and complexity are related, see Frese (1987), or Frese et al. (submitted). Job stressors. A composite scale similarto Frese (1985) was used to assess job stressors.This scale comprisedscales for organizational problems(e.g., 'How good is your workingequipment?'),concentrationrequirements time pressure(e.g., 'How often do you have to work undertime pressure?'), and and uncertainty(e.g., 'How often do you receive unclear instructions?').Responses were given on a 5-point scale rangingfrom 1 (very seldom) to 5 (very often). Psychometricinformationof the variables used in this study can be found in Table 2. Analytical procedure Since there is no basic statisticaltest available to evaluatewhethertest-retest correlationsare statistically reduced when job conditions (i.e., job content and job stressors) are controlled, we followed the proceduredescribed by Williams et al. (1996). In brief, we used two series (with and without Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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Table2. Descriptive statistics study2- Variables of n (onlyjob changers; = 184) No. of items 1. Jobsatisfaction t2
2. Job satisfactiont6

M 2.99
3.50

SD 0.66
0.66

1 0.77
0.26

8
8

0.81

3. Jobcontent t2 4. Jobcontent t6 t2 5. Jobstressors 6. Jobstressors t6

8 8 15 15

3.33 3.52 2.70 2.56

0.71 0.71 0.56 0.50

0.38 0.16 -0.38 -0.40

0.26 0.38 -0.05 -0.38

0.80 0.61 0.18 0.05

0.82 0.31 0.24

0.76 0.51

0.79

Note: value significant < 0.01; Correlations 0.17 value correlations 0.12 exceeding inabsolute are forp exceeding inabsolute are with Correlations in were corrected missing Cronbach's for data. significant p < 0.05(one-sided). appearingthetable alpha in appears thediagonal. measurementmodels) of three different structuralequation models. The first two models were saturated structural models. The first model estimatedthe zero-ordercorrelation(i.e., stability) of the job satisfaction scale without any other variable involved. The second model estimated the residual correlation after the four job condition-scales (job content in 1990 and 1995 and job stressors in 1990 and 1995) were controlled. Finally, the third model was identical to the second model but the restrictionwas imposed that the residual correlationbetween the two job satisfaction scales in 1990 and 1995 equals the zero-ordercorrelationobtainedin the firstmodel. Model 2 and Model 3 can then be comparedusing Chi-squaredifference tests (Bentler and Bonnett, 1980). A significantdifference between the two Chi-squarevalues indicates that the reduction in stability after controlling for job conditions is significant.

Results
Descriptive statistics of Study 2-variables are presentedin Table 2. Interestingly,the stability of job satisfaction (0.26) was lower than the stabilities of job content (0.61) andjob stressors(0.51). It was also lower than the respective average correlationobtained from the meta-analysisof stabilities. In the next step, the test-retest correlationof job satisfaction after partiallingjob content and job stressorswas analysed. The partialcorrelationwas 0.01. A Chi-squaredifference test revealed that it was significantlylower than the zero-ordercorrelationof 0.26 (Ax2 = 23.24, df= 1, p < 0.01). A similarseries of analyses was conductedwith latentvariablesin orderto accountfor measurement error.In this instance, the availableindicatorswere randomlydistributed across three item parcels for each latentfactor (job satisfaction,job content,andjob stressors)at both pointsin time. The zero-order correlationbetween latentjob satisfactionin 1990 and 1995 was 0.29, which was reducedto - 0.04 after controllingfor job content andjob stressors(AX2 = 23.60, df= 1, p < 0.01). The results suggest that even in samples of job changers, several characteristicsof their work remained stable, and it cannot be excluded that these stable characteristicsaccounted for the stability in changers' job satisfaction scores.

GeneralDiscussion
In this articlewe have presentedan overview of studies concernedwith dispositionaldeterminants of job satisfaction.Indirectapproachessuggest that unspecifieddispositionaldeterminants explain about 0 Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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30 per cent of variance in job satisfaction; correspondingeffects obtained from direct approaches explain 10 to 20 per cent of variancein most instances. Direct approachestypically analyse the role of affectivity. Positive affectivity seems to be more importantthanNA, which often shows only small effects. Most indirectevidence for the dispositional argumentemerges from longitudinalstudies analysing the stability of job satisfactionacross time. An overview of such studiesrevealedsubstantialstabilitiesfor job satisfactionboth for employees staying with theirjob and for job changersamples. Interestingly, meta-analyticcomparisonof stabilitiesof the job changersandjob stayersresultedin a difference as small as 0.13. For each group the relationship between time lag and size of correlationwas weak: it was slightly negative for stayers and slightly positive for changers. From the point of view that organizationalconditionsprimarilydeterminethe level of job satisfaction, this is certainly a surpriseand the results seem to supportthe dispositional argument,or at least weaken the argumentthat organizationalconditions should be the main causes of job satisfaction. However, these analyses do not take into considerationthat levels of job satisfaction may be maintained by stable environmentalconditions even under the condition of job change. Job changers are not randomly exposed to organizational conditions after the change. Therefore, stability in job satisfaction is likely to be only partly due to dispositions. Rather,it is substantiallymaintainedby environmentalcharacteristicsthat are malleable in principle but nevertheless remain constant. Of course, people try to improvetheir working conditions, but, all in all, they either stay in their occupation or findajob in a relatedoccupation,and thus may keep certainorganizational conditionsconstant, in particular job content and job stressors. Therefore, we analysed a sample of East Germanswho underwenta societal change, where more drastic organizationalchanges should occur. Nevertheless, the correctedstabilityof job satisfactionof 0.33 in this studyis similarto the averagesample-weighted and corrected test-retest correlation of the job changer samples analysed in previously published studies (0.35). This suggests that the between-organization variance in working conditions affecting job satisfactionwas not affected by societal changes and, thus, that our results may generalizebeyond the present study. of Partiallingrelatively stablevariablesthat are typically majordeterminants job satisfactionshould furtherreducethis correlation.Whenjob contentvariables(complexity,control at work) andjob stressors (organizational and problems,concentration requirements time pressure,anduncertainty)arecontrolled, the stability of job satisfaction decreases to - 0.04. This result clearly challenges the assumptionof a direct effect of an underlyingdispositional factor on job satisfaction, but may still be compatiblewith the idea that selection effects are responsiblefor personality-job satisfactionrelations mediatedby working conditions. The mediatingeffect of workingconditionstriggeredby selection effects can be testedby partialling work content and stressors.In the study of Arvey et al. (1989) this did not reduce the job satisfaction correlationsof twins very much, althoughthe twins shareda substantialamount of variancein work content and stressors.Obviously, these variables were unrelatedwith job satisfactionin the study of Arvey et al., which is contraryto many findingsin the job satisfactionliterature.The problemmay be that Arvey et al. derived work content and stressorsby using the Dictionary of OccupationalTitles (DOT; U.S. Departmentof Labor, 1977). Although variables derived from the DOT are less prone to severalsortsof biases when comparedto self-reports,they may be too fuzzy. ComparingDOT-based and self-reportedmeasuresof complexity as predictorsof job satisfaction,Gerhart(1987) found that DOT-based measures were much weaker predictors of job satisfaction. Indeed, concurrent selfreportedcomplexity was the strongestpredictorin his analyses, and it was even a strongerpredictor than past satisfaction. The correlationof - 0.04 obtained after partiallingjob content variables and job stressors should not be takenas a proof thatthereis no dispositionalinfluence at all. Rather,this findingcould be interCopyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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preted as a supportof the selection hypothesis:people with certainpersonalitytraitsobtain theirjobs throughself-selection and selection by the organization.For example, intelligence may lead to a high level of qualificationwhich determinesthe level of complexity (e.g., Kohnand Schooler, 1982) and, in turn, increases satisfaction with the job. Extraversionmight be associated with social competencies, which may be helpful in swaying a supervisor'sdecision to promotea personto a job with betterwork content, which again leads to higher satisfaction. Such reasoning leads to the conclusion that when stable environmentalfactors are partialledfrom job satisfaction,dispositional causes of job satisfaction throughselection effects are being partialled,too. The results may strengthenthe selection hypothesis in several respects. First, althoughour results are in contrastto the findingof Arvey et al. (1989), we partialleddifferentjob contentvariablesandjob stressors,which may explain the divergenceacross studies. Second, since partiallingNA and PA from the stability of job satisfactionhad virtually no effect in the study of Schaubroecket al. (1996), our results suggest that selection processes are more likely to be triggeredby other personalityvariables which are more stronglyrelated to qualificationissues. In sum, our results suggest that personalityfactorsplay an importantrole leading to high stabilities of job satisfaction. However, it seems likely that a substantialpart of this effect operates indirectly through selection mechanisms: personality affects job conditions and these affect job satisfaction. These kinds of personality effects, however, do not question the usability of job satisfaction for the subjective assessment of the organization.Even some part of the direct effects of PA and NA on job satisfaction may be a result of the selection effects, an assumptionwhich is supportedby the already mentioned studies of Cook et al. (1995 - paper presented at the SIOP convention, Lake Buena Vista, FL), which found that individuals scoring high in NA were less successful in selection interviews. A careful interpretation the presentdata must allow for the fact that not all effects of personality of variablesare mediatedby working conditions. Rather,it has to be takeninto accountthat a small part of variancein job satisfactionremainsthat is directly determinedby personalityvariablesand which may be considered as a contaminatingfactor in the measurementof job satisfaction.This could limit the use of job satisfactionmeasuresas a tool for work and organizational assessment.The problemcan be circumventedto some degree if longitudinaldesigns are applied.For example, when priorsatisfaction is used as the firstpredictorin hierarchicalregressionwith subsequentsatisfactionas the outcome, it can be assumedthatthe majorpartof dispositionalvarianceis also partialledbecause of the relation between prior satisfaction and dispositions (Zapf et al., 1996). This is based on the assumptionthat variablessimilarlyat differentpoints in time andthatthereis dispositionalfactorsaffect organizational no interactionbetween personalitytraitsand the factorsresponsiblefor change. Since job satisfaction is highly stable, the residualvariancein current satisfactionwould only be small in such instances, job and it is not easy to find furthersubstantialpredictors.Thus, even small effects of workingcharacteristics could then be of enormous importance.Moreover,if means of satisfactionbefore and after an interventionare compared,the difference can be assumed to be due to differencesin the environment apartfrom randomerrors,if personalityeffects are very stable.

Limitationsand directionsfor research

An issue which was not dealt with in the present article has to do with the measurementof job satisfaction. We did not differentiatebetween global satisfaction measures and compounds of several facets. This echoes the view of other authors(e.g., Wanous, 1974) who equate both ways to measure global satisfaction. But our main reasons for doing so were practical.The number of studies in the meta-analysiswas too small to allow for a break-downof differentsatisfactionmeasures.In addition, Copyright ) 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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therewas no global satisfactionmeasureavailablein our own empiricalstudy.However,the effects of personalitydispositions on all facets and global satisfactionitems are not necessarily uniform. Some facets may be more susceptibleto traitinfluencesthan others (cf, Arvey et al., 1989). This may apply to trait effects on emotional informationprocessing as well as selection effects that are triggeredby traits.Futureresearchshould take the possibility into considerationthat there are either differentialor general effects. In addition to the issue of differential versus general effects another issue is worth attention. Williams et al. (1996) distinguished between confounding measurementmodels and confounding congenericmodels and suggestedtesting the models using structural equations.Using the confounding measurementmodel the authorstested the hypothesis that personalitybiases, among others,job satisfaction items (indicators).The confoundingcongeneric model was applied to test the hypothesis that personalityaffects, among others,the true score of (latent)job satisfaction.Althoughwe thinkthat the issue of item nuisance versus true score-effects is as importantas the issue of differentialversus general effects, we did not pursueit in the presentstudy.The reasonwas two-fold. First,therewas no way to consider this distinction in the meta-analysisbecause of the lack of appropriate information(i.e., stabilitiesof items) in the literature.Second, it would have been possible to analyse confoundingmeasurementmodels andcongenericmodels using our own data,but this implies at least two problems:too many parameterswould have then to be estimated relative to our sample size and the interpretation would be far from clear.The interpretation problemlies in the fact thatwe could not partialpersonality directly but only indirectlyinasmuchas their effects are included in job conditions andjob stressors. However,we should once again refer to the study by Spectoret al. (1999). Their study did not apply differentstructural equationmodelling techniquesto test these competing models against each other, but provided a more direct test by correlatingobjective (non-incumbent)and subjective (incumbent) measures.As we have alreadymentioned,their results clearly favouredthe selection model (i.e., the confoundingcongeneric model). One problem with the selection hypothesis is that people are selected to good as well as to poor workingconditions,but that a typical findingof job satisfactionresearchis that more than 80 per cent of a sample reportbeing satisfied.This result has also proved stable over time (Weaver, 1980). Most however,are convinced thatthe organizational job satisfactionresearchers, reality does not justify this high numberof satisfiedpeople. If the result cannot be explained by organizationalfactors, must not the selection hypothesis be discarded and direct effects of personality factors be the explanation? Diener and Diener (1996) argue that people typically reportpositive satisfaction data, which seems to be a necessity for theirwell-being and thatone shouldnot conclude that 'justbecause people report positive levels of satisfaction with their work or with a consumerproduct,for example, this does not mean inevitablythat the work or product is highly desirable' (p. 185). On the basis of the presented studies it can be hypothesizedthatreportingsatisfactionratherthan dissatisfactionis a process affecting every individual:it leads to increasedlevels of satisfactionbut to little change of the rankorderof the individuals. A related issue is thatjob satisfactionis dependenton individuals' aspirationlevels (Bruggemann et al., 1975; Biissing, 1992). Again, the questionis whetheraspirationlevels affectjob satisfactionlike a personalitytrait.Bruggemannand colleagues have suggestedin theirtheoreticalmodel thatthereare various 'types' of job satisfaction,one of them called 'resignedjob satisfaction'. If there is a discrepancy between the perceptionof one's work and of one's expectations,individualsstartto cope with this discrepancy.One strategyis to lower one's aspirationlevel, resultingin resignedjob satisfaction. This may contributeto the result that most employees reportto be satisfied with theirjobs. The processes of resignedjob satisfactionare probablythe results of an interactionbetween person and situation. There may be a personalitycomponentto the distinctionbetween employees who resign under dissatisfying working conditions and those who do not. Of course, there is also a strong situational Copyright 2001 JohnWiley& Sons,Ltd. ? J. Organiz. Behav. 483-504 (2001) 22,

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of to componentbecause dissatisfyingworkingconditionsare a prerequisite elicit the attenuation one's In any case, these are issues that need to be pursuedin futureresearch. aspirationlevel. In this article we intended to show that the effects of personality dispositions do not impose a strong limitation on the use of job satisfaction for work and organizationalassessment. Rather,our results supportthe hypothesis that a strong part of personalityinfluence on job satisfactionis due to selection mechanisms, which lead to differences in working conditions. However, we do not believe thatmeasuresof job satisfactionarewithoutproblems.Thereis still a lack of theory,but process models such as the one developed by Bruggemannet al. (1975) are promising.Their considerationshould lead to an improvementof job satisfactionmeasures.The presentpaperhas shown that such improvements are not limited by the dispositional determinationof job satisfaction.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Michael Frese who gave us the data from the project AHUS. The project AHUS (AktivesHandelnin einerUmbruchsituation activeactionsin a radicalchangesituation)was supported the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft MichaelFrese). (DFG,No Fr 638/6-6) (principal by investigator: We are also gratefulto HanspeterIrmerfor his helpful comments on an earlier draftof this paper.

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O'Driscoll M. 1987. Attitudes to the job and the organisationamong new recruits:influence of perceivedjob characteristicsand organisationalstructure. Applied Psychology: An InternationalReview 36: 133-145. O'Driscoll M, ThomasD. 1987. Life experiencesandjob satisfactionamong mobile and stablepersonnelon largescale constructionprojects.New Zealand Journal of Psychology 16: 84-92. Saks AM, AshforthBE. 1997. A longitudinalinvestigationof the relationshipsbetweenjob informationsources, applicantperceptionsof fit, and work outcomes. Personnel Psychology 50: 395-426. Schaubroeck J, Green SG. 1989. Confirmatory factor analytic procedures for assessing change during organizationalentry.Journal of Applied Psychology 74: 892-900. Schaubroeck J, Ganster DC, KemmererB. 1996. Does trait affect promote job attitude stability? Journal of OrganizationalBehaviour 17: 191-196. Schmitt N, Mellon PM. 1980. Life and job satisfaction:is the job central?Journal of VocationalBehavior 16: 51-58. SchneiderB, DachlerPH. 1978. A note on the stabilityof thejob descriptionindex. Journalof AppliedPsychology 63: 650-653. Snizek WE, BullardJH. 1983. Perceptionof bureaucracyand changingjob satisfaction:a longitudinalanalysis. OrganizationalBehavior and Human Performance32: 275-287. Staw BM, Ross J. 1985. Stability in the midst of change: a dispositional approachto job attitudes.Journal of Applied Psychology 70: 469-480. Steel RP,RentschJR. 1997. The dispositionalmodel of job attitudesrevisited:findingsof a 10-yearstudy.Journal of Applied Psychology 82: 873-879. Tharenou P. 1993. A test of reciprocal causality for absenteeism. Journal of OrganizationalBehaviour 14: 169-190. van der Velde MEG, Feij JA. 1995. Change of work perceptionsand work outcomes as a result of voluntaryand involuntaryjob change. Journal of Occupationaland OrganizationalPsychology 68: 273-290. commitment. RJ, Vandenberg Lance CE. 1992. Examiningthe causal orderof job satisfactionand organizational Journal of Management18: 153-167. Journal of WanbergCR. 1995. A longitudinalstudyof the effects of unemploymentand qualityof reemployment. VocationalBehavior 46: 40-54. WanousJP. 1975. A causal-correlational analysis of the job satisfactionand performancerelationship.Journal of Applied Psychology 59: 139-144.

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J. Organiz.Behav. 22, 483-504 (2001)