¶ … gaps between the academic research and practitioner knowledge with respect to HR that are identified by Saari & Judge (2004) are: "the cause of employee attitudes, the results of positive or negative job satisfaction and how to measure and influence employee attitudes." The authors note this in context of the lack of understanding in practice with respect to employee satisfaction. Employers do not fully understand how employee satisfaction arises (cause of employee attitudes). They also have a lack of knowledge about the outcomes associated with positive or negative job satisfaction. Some employers believe that happy workers are more productive, others disagree. Practitioners generally do not know the answer and are not familiar with current research in the area. The authors assert that practitioners generally are not able to measure employee attitudes, much less influence them.
Saari and Judge point out that academic research has more or less answered each of these questions. Employee attitudes often derive from non-job factors, as noted in studies that show one's attitude towards work remains relatively stable over time, even across jobs. Disposition is a powerful influencer because is affects the experience of emotional significant events at work. Culture influences job satisfaction levels as does the work situation -- matching employees to the right job goes a long way in determining job satisfaction.
With respect to the second gap ("the results of positive or negative job satisfaction") the authors assert that research has clarified this issue significantly. The relationship between job satisfaction and job performance has been studied since the 1930s. The correlation between these two variables has been determined to be relatively low. Job satisfaction does, however, correlate with organizational citizenship behaviors -- employees are more involved and engaged with their company when they are satisfied. In addition, research has found that there is a strong link between satisfaction and performance for more complex jobs.
Job satisfaction is somewhat correlated with overall life satisfaction, for example. Employers cannot override disposition as an influencer in job satisfaction, but can have some degree of influence by ensuring a good fit between employees and their jobs, as the work situation does have an influence on job satisfaction. As far as measuring employee attitudes, techniques have been refined for decades and today can be very sophisticated. Yet many employers do not take advantage of these resources, and as a result may be relying on poor measures. Employers also seem unaware of the debates surrounding the different measures available and would be unable to make an intelligent decision between different survey methods and questions to determine employee satisfaction. Given this, they are unable to effectively measure employee satisfaction or accurately explain the significance of the findings.
These gaps still exist. The concept of the gap relates to the difference between HR practice and the academic research. The authors point out where the research has answered questions, but the article does not resolve the gap by virtue of its existence. The gap exists because HR practitioners typically are not familiar with the academic research, so an article published in a journal is not going to resolve that communication problem. Future research, therefore, cannot close these gaps if it takes the same form as the past research that is already being ignored. Again, the issue of a knowledge gap between science and practice does not relate to the lack of information available, it relates to the practitioners not being aware of the information available. Further research, if published in journals that these practitioners do not read, is not going to resolve the knowledge gap.
The way to resolve the knowledge gap is to bring the scientific knowledge out of the journals. This means getting the knowledge into more trade publications, getting…
