Job satisfaction as a catalyst mechanism transforming knowledge competence and intrinsic motivation into sustained lecturer performance in higher education

Universities around the globe are faced with the growing pressure of maintaining lecturer quality because of the growing workload requirements, competition, and changes in pedagogical expectations. Despite sufficient literature that has explored job satisfaction, knowledge competence and motivation as independent predictors of lecturer performance, the key gaps that remain unaddressed include dynamic interactions and overall catalytic influences of the three variables on long-term performance excellence. This paper will fill these gaps by hypothesizing and empirically confirming an integrative triple-mediation model that puts job satisfaction in the middle where intrinsic motivation and explicit knowledge competence interactively influence lecturer performance. We used structural equation modelling with partial least squares estimation of cross-sectional data of 468 lecturers in three countries of private higher education to test two hypotheses based on two mediating pathways, each one being: knowledge competence → job satisfaction → performance, and intrinsic motivation → job satisfaction → performance. Findings indicated that job satisfaction has been found to completely mediate the correlation between knowledge competence and performance (β = 0.64, p < 0.001) and partially mediate the intrinsic motivation-performance correlation (β = 0.58, p < 0.001). The model had shown very high fit indices (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.048, SRMR = 0.052) and it was able to account 71% of the variation in lecturer performance. Importantly, the interaction analysis revealed that job satisfaction has a catalyzing effect augmented by high knowledge competence and high intrinsic motivation by a factor of 34 when present simultaneously as opposed to independent of each other, which implies multiplicative and not additive dynamics. Such results offer the first empirical support on the key role of job satisfaction as the psychological process that converts knowledge resources and motivation to performance results, which act as actionable information in institutionalizing interventions aimed to achieve sustainable lecturer excellence in the light of satisfaction-focused human resource policies.