Performance and Job Satisfaction: A Critical Analysis

The human aspect in the present context has acquired immense importance. The need based motivational theories relate need and psychological gratification to motivation and job satisfaction; they consider performance as the end result. However, Lawler and Porter postulate reversely that job performance leads to job satisfaction. The study focuses on testing the degree and direction of the relationship between Performance and Job Satisfaction with intervening variables such as job relations, commitment, role conflict, value system, motivation and organizational climate and with socio-economic variables. The study is conducted on 928 employees drawn from 13 public sector and 5 private sector organizations using simple random sampling and males as the matching sample in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is evident from the study that the performance level of the employees is significantly lesser than their job satisfaction level. The analysis leads to state that all those performing well are satisfied and all those satisfied do not perform well indicating that performance leads to job satisfaction, job satisfaction does not lead necessarily to performance and the relationship is intertwined. This empirical evidence supports the theory of Lawler and Porter and sets direction for future studies at micro level.