Examining the antecedents and consequences of empowerment in a traditional police agency

Bruce A Biggs, Purdue University

Abstract

This study examined the effects that the traditional police organizational and management paradigm exert on police officer job satisfaction and job stress through the lenses of structural and psychological empowerment. The extant literature empirically establishes that the current police paradigm is ineffective in sustaining community oriented policing, exerts a negative influence on officer job satisfaction, and increases officer job stress. However, the specific organizational factors that wield these deleterious effects remain largely undefined, and thus unaltered. The theoretical constructs of structural and psychological empowerment have been successfully employed in private entities to investigate the relationship between the organizational environment and employee affective attitudes. While these constructs had yet to be tested and measured in a law enforcement context, a sound theoretical foundation existed to make this utility practicable. This study theorized that officer perception of structural empowerment (independent variables) was predictive of officer perception of psychological empowerment (mediating variables), which in turn, were predictive of officer perceptions of job satisfaction and job stress. These postulated relationships were incorporated into a hypothesized model which was tested via Structural Equation Modeling (AMOS) analysis and standard multiple regression analysis. The AMOS results indicated that the data was a good fit to the hypothesized model (Chi-sqaure = 967.2 = 153, df = 141, p = .216, CFI = .972, RMSEA = .041, PCLOSE = .620) and that all modeled relationships were significant at p = .05. Also, subsequent regression analysis revealed that all the variable relationships were significant at p = .05. The findings indicate that officer perception of having access to empowering structures within the organization are positively correlated with job satisfaction and negatively correlated with job stress. As such, an initial empirical foundation was established that suggests that police leaders can influence officer affective attitudes by providing officers with optimal access to empowering mechanisms with the organization.

Degree

M.S.

Advisors

Naimi, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Management|Organizational behavior

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