Job Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being As Determinants of Job Adaptation

Abstract

An important controversy in the literature on employee withdrawal/adaptation concerns whether job satisfaction predicts behaviors that are manifestations of this construct. Although the area has not lacked for empirical research, Hulin (1991) has argued that several unresolved issues have limited the generalizations we can make about the role of job satisfaction in influencing isolated work behaviors. Hulin (1991) hypothesized that there is a general construct underlying many adaptive behaviors, including job withdrawal. When this general construct is assessed through combination of individual behaviors, the ability of constructs such as job satisfaction to influence job adaptation was hypothesized to increase over the prediction of specific behaviors. In the present study, individual behaviors thought to represent the adaptation construct were obtained through three different sources of data. Job satisfaction, subjective well-being, and other variables were hypothesized to influence the adaptation construct within the framework of a causal model. Results indicated support for both the job adaptation construct and its relation to job satisfaction and subjective well-being.