Job Satisfaction and Innovative Performance in Young Spanish Employees: Testing New Patterns in the Happy-Productive Worker Thesis—A Discriminant Study

We aimed to make a theoretical contribution to the happy-productive worker thesis by expanding the study to cases where this thesis does not fit. We hypothesized and corroborated the existence of four relations between job satisfaction and innovative performance: (a) unhappy-unproductive, (b) unhappy-productive, (c) happy-unproductive, and (d) happy-productive. We also aimed to contribute to the happy-productive worker thesis by studying some conditions that influence and differentiate among the four patterns. Hypotheses were tested in a sample of 513 young employees representative of Spain. Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were performed. We identified the four patterns. Almost 15 % of the employees had a pattern largely ignored by previous studies (e.g., unhappy-productive). As hypothesized, to promote well-being and performance among young employees, it is necessary to fulfill the psychological contract, encourage initiative, and promote job self-efficacy. We also confirmed that over-qualification characterizes the unhappy-productive pattern, but we failed to confirm that high job self-efficacy characterizes the happy-productive pattern. The results show the relevance of personal and organizational factors in studying the well-being-performance link in young employees.