A Concurring Opinions post by Michelle Harner seems to invoke the idea that happy workers are more productive workers:
Employing a workforce that enjoys coming to work, is comfortable communicating throughout the firm and portrays that positive image to the outside world potentially holds real value.
It makes some intuitive sense, I suppose. As I detail in my article, Privately Ordered Participatory Management, however, the evidence does not support that hypothesis:
Over two decades ago, Nobel economist Kenneth Arrow opined that “the empirical evidence, such as it is, points to very little relation between the morale of workers and their performance.” Kenneth J. Arrow, The Limits of Organization 76 (1974). The intervening years have done little to change that conclusion. A more recent literature review likewise concluded that there is “simply no direct connection between job satisfaction and subsequent productivity.” Edwin A. Locke et al., Participation in Decisionmaking: When Should it be Used?, 14 Org. Dynamics 67, 71 (1986). Accord Thomas A. Kochan et al., The Transformation of American Industrial Relations (rev. ed. 1994) (same); Oliver E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism 270 (1985) (same); Tom Juravich, Empirical Research on Employee Involvement: A Critical Review for Labor, 21 Lab. Stud. J. 51, 56 (1996) (based on research to date no proof that “happy workers are necessarily more productive”); Charles D. Watts, Jr., In Critique of a Reductivist Conception and Examination of “The Just Organization,” 50 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1515, 1518 (1993) (“I do not see the propagation of just or participative organizations that one would expect if these benefits [i.e., increased job satisfaction etc...]” were as significant as the proponents of participatory management suggest); cf. Alan Hyde, In Defense of Employee Ownership, 67 Chi-Kent L. Rev. 159, 201 (1991).
Because that article was written circa 1997, of course, there may be more recent research. And so there is. But the more recent research is consistent with my rather pessimistic view:
Job satisfaction has traditionally been thought of by most business managers to be key in determining job performance. The prevailing thought is if you are satisfied and happy in your work, you will perform better than someone who isn’t happy at work.
Not so, according to a research project by Nathan Bowling, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Wright State. His findings, which will be published soon in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, show that although satisfaction and performance are related to each other, satisfaction does not cause performance.
“My study shows that a cause and effect relationship does not exist between job satisfaction and performance. Instead, the two are related because both satisfaction and performance are the result of employee personality characteristics, such as self-esteem, emotional stability, extroversion and conscientiousness,” he explained.
Bowling, who specializes in industrial and organizational psychology, said his findings are based on reviewing data from several thousand employees compiled over several decades. His subjects, mostly in the United States, involved several hundred different organizations.
Bowling said the public, and even researchers, can get confused over the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. “Just because two things are related doesn’t mean that one causes the other. For example, there is a relationship between the amount of ice cream sold on a given day and the crime rate for that day. On days when ice cream sales are high, the number of crimes committed will also tend to be high. But this doesn’t mean that ice cream sales cause crime. Rather, ice cream sales and crime are related because each is the result of the outdoor temperature. Similarly, satisfaction and performance are related because each is the result of employee personality.”
Why does this matter? In the first place, firm HR efforts to boost employee morale may be unproductive. In the second place, some liberal labor theorists argue that the government ought to try to promote worker happiness so as to promote competitiveness. With President Obama apparently about to go on a competitiveness kick, it may prove necessary to once again nip the happiness fable in the bud.
