Limitations and Research Directions
Although the current research focuses on testing models of the attitude-behavior connection using the best available empirical estimates of population-level correlations, we acknowledge that substantive moderators of the bivariate effects are still likely to exist. We make no contention that the effects reported in this study are free of substantive moderators—on the contrary, the median percent variance in effect sizes accounted for by artifacts in the published meta-analytic estimates on which our model is based was 28.5 percent, reflecting a
strong possibility that moderators are at work (see above). These published meta-analyses offer some guidance in the search for moderating factors that influence the interrelations of job attitude and behavior, although they are markedly different across the pairwise relationships being examined. For example, Meyer and coauthors (2002) coded whether studies were conducted inside particular continents and showed the satisfaction-commitment as sociation to be weaker outside (ρ.56) than inside North America (ρ.67).