| Abstract: | Current speculation continues to imply that satisfaction and performance are causally related. While the performance-causes-satisfaction proposition is a more recent development, the contention that satisfaction causes performance remains more widely held. Recent research findings, however, offer only moderate support of the former view and reject the latter. The evidence indicates that the relationship is more complex: rewards constitute a more direct cause of satisfaction than does performance, and rewards based on current performance cause subsequent performance. Thus, the manager who wants to improve his subordinates' performance must, first, provide valued rewards of sufficient magnitude and then establish the necessary contingencies between effort and performance and between performance and rewards. Last, he needs to consider a range of nonmotivational factors. |
