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Organizational Structure and Job Satisfaction

Do Bureaucratic Organizations Produce more Satisfied Employees?

University of Georgia

Jack K Martin

University of Georgia

Paul M. Roman

University of Georgia

Terry C. Blum

Georgia Institute of Technology

Popular and social scientific critiques of the bureaucratic model of organizational behavior argue that employment in highly structured, bureaucratic work organizations adversely affects worker attitudes and behavior. In particular, these critics suggest that bureaucratic structure is associated with lower employee job satisfaction. Several empirical studies, however, have yielded an unexpected positive relationship between bureaucratic structure and satisfaction. In this research, the authors argue that this paradoxical pattern is the result of these studies having used measures of organizational structure that conflate job and organizational characteristics. The authors show that among members of an emerging profession, highly structured organizational activities have a negative effect on employee satisfaction when job characteristics are controlled.

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