The happy-productive worker thesis (HPWT) is considered the Holy Grail of management research, and it proposes caeteris paribus, happy workers show higher performance than their unhappy counterparts. However, eudaimonic well-being in the relationship between happiness and performance has been understudied. This paper provides a systematized review of empirical evidence in order to make a theoretical contribution to the happy-productive worker thesis from a eudaimonic perspective. Our review covers 105 quantitative studies and 188 relationships between eudaimonic well-being and performance. Results reveal that analyzing the eudaimonic facet of well-being provides general support for the HPWT and a much more comprehensive understanding of how it has been studied. However, some gaps and nuances are identified and discussed, opening up challenging avenues for future empirical research to clarify important questions about the relationship between happiness and performance in organizations.

This paper analyzes the differential effects of autonomy, skill variety, work significance, feedback from the job, and information processing on intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, and the moderating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in these relationships. The influence of job characteristics on job satisfaction has been well established in previous research, but the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction has hardly been considered. Moreover, their effects also depend on workers’ characteristics. PsyCap is a set of resources (self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience) that could strengthen the positive effects of job characteristics and provide protection from negative ones. Hierarchical regressions analyzed data from 1647 workers in Spanish organizations. Results showed positive relationships between autonomy and feedback from the job and the two satisfaction dimensions, whereas significance and information processing were negatively related to extrinsic satisfaction. Moreover, PsyCap strengthens the positive effect of information processing and autonomy on intrinsic satisfaction, and it weakens the negative effect of information processing on extrinsic satisfaction. However, it also increases the negative effect of significance on extrinsic satisfaction. Therefore, job enrichment would be beneficial for intrinsic satisfaction, especially for people with high PsyCap, but it could be negative for extrinsic satisfaction.