Government Communication Effectiveness and Satisfaction with Police Performance: A Large‐Scale Survey Study

• Author: Alfred Tat‐Kei Ho,Wonhyuk Cho
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12563
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

228 Public Administration Review • March | April 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 228–239. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12563.

Wonhyuk Cho is a senior lecturer in

the School of Government at the Victoria

University of Wellington, New Zealand.

His research interests include citizen

satisfaction, performance management,

organizational behavior, and policing.

E-mail: wonhyukcho@gmail.com

Alfred Tat-Kei Ho is associate

professor in the School of Public Affairs and

Administration at the University of Kansas.

His research focuses on performance

budgeting and management, citizen

engagement, and the use of information

technology by local governments.

E-mail: alfredho@ku.edu

Abstract : For the last two decades, performance management theories and practices have focused on outcome-

oriented management but have paid little attention to the role of public communication. Using multiple large

data sets from Kansas City, Missouri, for 2009–14, this research suggests that the perceived effectiveness of public

communication has a more substantial impact on public satisfaction with police protection and crime prevention

than neighborhood crime rates and broken windows factors and that perceived effectiveness moderates the negative

impact of crime rates. After controlling for residents’ demographic characteristics, the authors find that the perceived

effectiveness of communication is associated with public satisfaction with the content and quality of the city website

and the government television channel. The implications for public safety management and police–citizen relations

as well as directions for future research on public communication strategies and public performance management

are presented.

Practitioner Points

• Better outcomes for city services do not necessarily lead to higher levels of citizen satisfaction with services.

• Effective government communication has a more consistent and substantial impact on residents’ perception

of police effectiveness than changes in crimes rates or neighborhood conditions.

• Online engagement and government television channels are effective tools for enhancing the effectiveness of

public communication.

• Performance management should pay more attention to the extended link from output and outcomes to

communication effectiveness, public understanding, and satisfaction.

Alfred Tat-Kei Ho

University of Kansas

Wonhyuk Cho

Victoria University of Wellington , New Zealand

Government Communication Effectiveness

and Satisfaction with Police Performance:

A Large-Scale Survey Study

F or the past few decades, the public

administration community has emphasized the

importance of results-oriented management

(Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011 ), which is based on the

implicit assumption that if service performance is

improved, the public will become more satisfied with

overall government performance. This seemingly

logical relationship, however, is not necessarily the

case (Kelly 2003 ; Stipak 1979 ; Van de Walle and

Bouckaert 2007 ). Particularly in the area of public

safety, many studies have found that a reduction in

crime rates may not lead to better public satisfaction

with police services (Brown and Coulter 1983 ; Reisig

and Parks 2000 ; Stipak 1979 ). One explanation is

that public cynicism toward government and negative

images of police officers in the media may contribute

to a lack of improvement in public satisfaction

(Berman 1997 ; Lawrence 2000 ). Another possible

explanation is that many residents are apathetic or

ill-informed about the actual service improvement of

the police, especially when they do not interact with

them (Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer 2015 ; Stipak

1979 ). 1

The gap between service outcomes and public

perception is a challenge not only for the police but

also for many public services (Stipak 1979 ). The gap

suggests a need for more understanding of the role of

communication in the performance–perception link

(Berman 1997 ; Van de Walle and Bouckaert 2003 ).

Amid mounting distrust of the public sector (Chanley,

Rudolph, and Rahn 2000 , Nye, Zelikow, and King

1997 ; Pew Research Center 2015 ), understanding

how performance information moderates the

relationship between service outcomes and public

satisfaction and how government agencies can

design and deploy public communication strategies

more effectively can be especially helpful to public

administrators.

We use crime trend and resident satisfaction survey

data from Kansas City, Missouri, to examine how

perceived communication effectiveness and public

communication strategies are related to public

satisfaction. We merged a multiyear citizen survey

data set from Kansas City with police crime data,

nuisance complaint data, and census housing and