The correlates of organizational communication to other organizational constructs have been scarcely researched. Two constructs of interest to management researchers and practitioners are job performance and job satisfaction. This interest arises from the fact that the quality of organizational life and effectiveness may be determined by the quality of the two constructs. This study investigates the moderating influence of organizational communication on two models involving the variables of performance and satisfaction: (1) the relationship between performance and satisfaction and (2) the relationship between the congruence of the individual and the job with performance and satisfaction. Organizational communication is assessed in terms of ten dimensions: trust in superiors; influence of superiors; accuracy of information; desire for interaction; communication satisfaction; overload and underload information; and upward, downward, and lateral communication. Executives, research and middle management people, office workers, and manufacturing individuals from two firms provided the data for the study. An expected moderating influence was evaluated through differential validity or differential predictability, as appropriate, and moderated regression analysis. Organizational communication received very weak support as a moderator of both the relationship between the target variables of performance and satisfaction and the individual-job congruence association with the same target variables. Accuracy of information, desire for interaction, and directionality of communication—upward, downward, and lateral—received support as moderators of particular performance/satisfaction relationships. Trust in superiors, influence of superiors, accuracy of information, and desire for interaction acted as moderators of specific individual-job congruence relationships with performance and satisfaction. Organizational communication received moderate-to-strong support as a predictor of the two relationships researched. Thus, either as a moderator or as a predictor, communication constitutes an avenue for improving the quality of organizational life and effectiveness; the performance and satisfaction of individuals may he fostered through communication.
