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Recent evidence consistently shows that corporate performance has an important effect on job satisfaction. This study aims to contribute further to this novel field of research by examining the relationship between corporate performance and job satisfaction in a longitudinal study. Results show that corporate performance is associated with job satisfaction. The study discusses the importance of corporate performance as control variable in current HR - Attitude studies. The connection of job satisfaction with HR practices is also discussed. Future research questions are proposed.
The area of research in HR practices and employee attitudes has not received its fair share of research over the years. However, recent studies have attempted to fill this gap by investigating the impact of HR practices on employee attitudes (e.g. Guest and Conway 1998, Macky and Boxall, 2007; Edgar and Geare, 2005; Petrescu and Simmons, 2008; Steijn, 2004; Kalmi and Kauhanen, 2008; Ting, 1997). The underlying argument is that HR practices are associated with job satisfaction, and hence better organizational performance as a result. Indeed, this view may not be surprising given that modern HR practices (Applebaum, et al., 2000) are grounded in principles and theories relating to employee motivation and satisfaction (Schein, 1980). A recent meta-analysis has shown that job satisfaction is related to performance (Judge et al., 2001). HR policies, which unquestionably affect the lives of employees at the workplace, are indeed expected to be a key drive of job satisfaction.
A number of recent studies have established statistically that HR policies are in fact associated with better attitudes (Macky and Boxall, 2007; Ting, 1997). For example, Guest (2002) found that one HR practice, the deliberate attempt to make jobs as interesting and varied is strongly and consistently associated with higher work satisfaction across the four business sectors that were investigated. In addition, across the sample as whole other types of HR practices were also associated with higher job satisfaction. These are keeping people well informed about developments, equal opportunities, practices to limit harassment at work and family friendly policies. On the other hand other HR practices such as performance-related pay and training and development, employee involvement activities, filling vacancies from inside, and a stated policy of avoiding compulsory redundancies were not associated with employee satisfaction. However, it...