This study takes 395 frontline production employees from the Nankang furniture industry in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, as the sample. Drawing on Herzberg’s two-factor theory, self-determination theory, work–family enrichment theory, and social comparison theory, it constructs a comprehensive model that includes Life Satisfaction (LS), Objective Relative Income (ORI), Job Satisfaction (JS), Personality Characteristics (PC), and Job Motivation (JM), and uses PLS-SEM to test both mediating and moderating effects. The results show that JS is the core factor driving JM, and the effects of LS and ORI on JM are fully mediated by JS. ORI exhibits a “suppressor-type” full mediation pattern on JM, highlighting the importance of relative income position and pay equity perceptions. The moderation analysis finds that Neuroticism and Openness weaken the LS?JS path, while Conscientiousness significantly strengthens the JS?JM path; Extraversion and Agreeableness do not show significant moderating effects, indicating the contextual dependence of personality traits in labor-intensive manufacturing. The study reveals the mechanism of “distal life and economic resources ? proximal job attitudes ? motivational outcomes,” emphasizing the need to enhance job satisfaction as a way to translate life resources and income advantages into motivation. It provides important theoretical and practical implications for optimizing frontline employee incentive mechanisms in the Nankang furniture industry and other labor-intensive sectors under resource constraints.
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