This study aims at testing a few tenets of affective events theory (AET) from a predictive perspective in the context of Malaysian private higher education sector. Specifically, we examined the impact of workload and autonomy on academics’ job satisfaction through interpersonal conflict and affective states. Additionally, the impact of affective states on job satisfaction via job performance was considered. We gathered data from 325 academics and analyzed them through partial least squares methodology. Our findings corroborated AET tenets considerably. The importance of the joint consideration of workload and autonomy in positively contributing to job satisfaction was highlighted. In addition, positive affect was identified as a stronger predictor of job satisfaction (as an attitude) and job performance (as an affect-driven behavior), comparing with negative affect. Specifically, positive affect was the strongest construct in increasing academics’ job satisfaction in our theoretical model. The findings indicated policy relevance at both the macro and institutional levels and had managerial and practical implications for future research direction in human resource management in the private higher education sector.

这项研究的目的是在马来西亚私立高等教育部门的背景下，从预测的角度检验情感事件理论（AET）的一些原则。具体来说，我们研究了工作量和自主权对人际冲突和情感状态对学者工作满意度的影响。此外，还考虑了情感状态通过工作绩效对工作满意度的影响。我们收集了325名学者的数据，并通过偏最小二乘方法进行了分析。我们的发现大大证实了AET的宗旨。强调了共同考虑工作量和自主权对积极促进工作满意度的重要性。此外，积极情感被认为是工作满意度（作为态度）和工作绩效（作为情感驱动行为）的更强有力的预测指标，与负面影响进行比较。具体而言，在我们的理论模型中，积极影响是提高学者工作满意度的最强结构。研究结果表明，政策在宏观和机构层面都具有相关性，并且对未来私立高等教育部门人力资源管理的研究方向具有管理和实践意义。