Abstract:

Two well-developed bodies of literature address how employees feel about their jobs, yet they rarely speak to each other. One shows that compensation relates to job satisfaction, though less strongly than folk wisdom assumes. The other shows that hybrid and flexible work arrangements relate to satisfaction, with results that swing by context. The question that joins them is seldom asked: does hybrid work change how much pay matters for satisfaction? If flexibility is itself a prized, non-monetary reward, employees may accept and remain satisfied with lower pay when they hold it, the classic logic of compensating differentials. Under that logic, hybrid work should moderate the compensation–satisfaction link. This review examines whether the field has tested that proposition. Following PRISMA 2020, 46 studies (2020–2026) were synthesised from Scopus and Lens.org, coded for whether they treat the compensation–hybrid–satisfaction relationship as an interaction, a substitution, an additive main-effects bundle, or a single edge of the triangle. The verdict is stark. Only two of the 46 studies formally test a compensation × hybrid interaction on satisfaction, and only seven engage the substitution question at all; the remainder study the edges in isolation or stack the variables additively. The field, in short, has assembled every ingredient of the moderation hypothesis and has rarely cooked it. An integrative compensating-differentials / total-rewards framework is advanced, and a research agenda is set out around the untested interaction and the boundary conditions income level, sector, national context most likely to govern it.