Global job satisfaction and facet description: The moderating role of facet importance

Examined the utility of E. A. Locke's (1976) moderated model of facet satisfaction for the prediction of organizationally important global measures of job satisfaction. A large dataset from 2 groups of workers at a large military organization allowed testing over different time periods (quarterly between 1988-1993) and across a broad range of satisfaction measures. 6,003 officers (mean age 35 yrs) and 13,721 ranks (nonofficers; mean age 27 yrs) completed measures of job facet description, facet importance, and global satisfaction. Results show that the hypothesis derived from Locke's model, that global satisfaction would represent a linear function of facet satisfactions (i. e., facet description×facet importance), was not supported. Instead, a simple (have-want) discrepancy model, operationalized as facet description, provided the most consistent set of predictors. The results suggest that workers, when providing global measures of job satisfaction, may use cognitive heuristics to reduce the complexity of facet description×importance calculations. The implications of these data for Locke's model and directions for future research are outlined.