The (affective) dispositional approach to job satisfaction: sorting out the policy implications

• Published in: Journal of organizational behavior Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 79 - 97
• Main Author: Gerhart, Barry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.02.2005; John Wiley & Sons; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Affect; Affect (Psychology); Applied psychology; Attitudes; Empirical evidence; Employee attitude; Employees; Hiring; Human resources; Job performance; Job satisfaction; Mathematical independent variables; Organizational behavior; Organizational behaviour; Personality; Personality traits; Policy making; Psychological attitudes; Regression coefficients; Situational models; Statistical variance; Studies; Validity
• ISSN: 0894-3796; 1099-1379
• DOI: 10.1002/job.298

The dispositional approach to job attitudes has played an important role in refocusing attention in organizational behavior on person factors, in addition to situational factors, as determinants of job attitudes and behaviors. I focus on what have been suggested as policy implications of research on dispositions, in particular, research on affective dispositions. My reading of the evidence suggests that affective dispositional factors may be useful in employee selection, and I identify questions that need to be resolved for this case to be stronger. On the other hand, I find little in the way of logic or evidence to support the claim that dispositions constrain the success of situational interventions designed to improve employee attitudes (or behaviors). Consistent with recent developments in the personality literature and with arguments made by Gerhart and Davis-Blake and Pfeffer in the organizational behavior literature, I show that within-person consistency in attitudes and behaviors can coexist with mean level changes in attitudes and behaviors induced by situational changes in the workplace.