Situational and Behavioral Moderators of Subordinate Satisfaction with Supervision

Abstract

The additive and interactive relationships of supervisor behaviors (con-sideration, initiation of structure) and work-setting attributes (role clarity, role conflict) relative to criteria of individual job satisfaction were investi-gated with bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. For a sample of 107 supervisor-subordinate dyads, results indicated that situational attributes moderated the influence of supervisor behaviors on satisfaction with supervision, but these attributes did not moderate the influence of supervisor behaviors on other satisfaction criteria. The evidence is inter-preted as underscoring the validity of contingency approaches to the study of leadership and pointing to the need for specifying "relevant" (i.e., con-ceptually proximal) criteria for theoretical networks.