Impact of Job Satisfaction on Workplace Behavior – Role of Perceived Organizational Support as a Mediator / Moderator

Abstract

Decades of research on Job Satisfaction (JS) has found researchers emphasizing the association between employee attitudes and workplace behavior with more discreet deductions than most assume, but had failed to appreciate the nature of the relationship and grasp the set of moderators/ mediators that ultimately determine the actual impact. Given the significance of the topic, it seems apt to reconsider and reevaluate this relationship.

We surmise that reconceptualising Job Satisfaction as an attitude (comprising Affect, Cognition and Evaluation), and examining its impact on workplace behaviors through identified mediating/moderating variables (Perceived Organizational Support (POS) in this investigation) in the work environment would unlock the ambiguities of the Job Satisfaction – Workplace Behavior relationship. Premising on the Social exchange theory, we perpetrated to examine the mediating/moderating role of POS. We gathered the data from 223 employees belonging to four cement manufacturing units from Tamilnadu and Kerala in South India. This study hugely supports and contributes to the understanding of the attitude-behavior relationship in the workplace. We also demonstrate by unveiling the causal path of the Job Satisfaction-Behavior relationship, that some components of the Job Satisfaction construct are supplemental and more proximal to some of the organizational behaviors. Affect component of Job Satisfaction has a relatively stronger impact on Organizational Commitment (OC) and Performance, while Cognition strongly influences Intent to Stay. Further, we contend to the best of our knowledge, that the influence of Job Satisfaction attitude components on workplace behaviors, with the moderating /mediating effect of POS has not been examined empirically earlier, particularly, in the Indian milieu.