4.1. Theoretical implications
One of the major debates regarding the definition of job satisfaction is whether it should be conceptualized at the global level or at the facet level (George & Jones, 1999; Roznowski, 1989). According to the first approach, job satisfaction is the overall evaluation of the employee's job. Conversely, adepts of the facet level break the job down into different facets, assess satisfaction with each of them, and then integrate these different facets again into one overall concept. To date, the debate on which of both conceptualizations is superior has not yet been settled and both approaches tend to be used in research and practice depending on the preference of the researcher (Schleicher et al., 2010). However, the discussion on the conceptualization of job satisfaction is far from non-committal. In particular, both approaches are exchangeable only under very strict conditions, that is, when the facets contribute to job satisfaction in the same way for everyone. In other words, only if there are no significant individual differences in the link between satisfaction with the different facets and overall job satisfaction, both conceptualizations converge. Our results show that this crucial condition does not hold. Hence, both conceptualizations cannot simply be exchanged, and researchers should bear this in mind when choosing for one of both conceptualizations. In multifaceted scales such as the JDI and the MSQ the final job satisfaction score is always – in part – a function of satisfaction with pay. However, our results clearly show that for a specific person type pay satisfaction and job satisfaction are unrelated. Hence, their final job satisfaction score will be contaminated or biased since an unrelated facet (i.e., pay satisfaction) is included. Our results imply that it seems preferable to ask for an evaluation of the overall job satisfaction, without referring to separate facets. Then, individuals weigh the important domains themselves, which imply that only those domains that matter for job satisfaction are taken into account