Stress and performance: Investigating relationship between occupational stress, career satisfaction, and job performance of police employees

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1986
• Author: Muhammad Imran Rasheed,Sehran Khan Nisar
• Date: 01 February 2020
• Published date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Stress and performance: Investigating relationship between

occupational stress, career satisfaction, and job performance of

police employees

Sehran Khan Nisar

1

|Muhammad Imran Rasheed

2

1

School of Public Affairs, University of Science

and Technology of China, Hefei, P.R. China

2

Department of Management Sciences, The

Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan,

Bahawalpur, Pakistan

Correspondence

Muhammad Imran Rasheed, The Islamia

University of Bahawalpur, Baghdadul Jadeed

Campus, 63100, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Email: emranrsheed@hotmail.com

The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of occupational stress on job

performance of police employees. We theorized and tested the role of career satis-

faction in the relationship between occupational stress and job performance as an

underlying psychological mechanism. Primary data have been collected from 271

police employees working at AJ&K Pakistan. Results of this research study have

shown that occupational stress is negatively related to career satisfaction, in‐role per-

formance, and extra‐role performance of police employees. Moreover, career satis-

faction mediates the relationships between occupational stress and in‐role and

extra‐role performance of police employees. This research study has called

researchers' and policy makers' attention towards an important issue of occupational

stress in the police profession. The research will play an important role in compelling

the top management, authorities, policy makers, and government officials of police to

ponder over the issues of occupational stress aimed at enhancing the job perfor-

mance including in‐role and extra‐role performance of police employees.

1|INTRODUCTION

Policing is one of the most stressful professions in public sector organi-

zations around the world (Bano, 2011; Hammad, Awan, Akhtar, &

Imdadullah, 2012). Police profession is highly dangerous and vulnerable

profession because of several reasons including traumatic events (Naz &

Gavin, 2013). Researchers have pointed out police as one of the most

stressful occupations around the world (Luo & Ruiz, 2012; Wang,

Zheng, Hu, & Zheng, 2014). In Pakistan, police sector is one of the most

neglected and ignoring area of research. Scholars and researchers have

paid very little attention to conduct studies on police sector in Pakistan

(Ullah, Hussain, Alam, & Akhunzada, 2016). It is important to search and

find reasons behind the attitude and general behavior of police person-

nel (Bilal, Tariq, Azam, & Ali, 2009) and to suggest some implications for

the policy makers of this profession.

Occupational stress is a world‐wide problem for police personnel as

Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans (2011) discussed that due to occupational

stress, police shooting‐accuracy efficiency decreases against oppo-

nents. Morrison and Vila (1998) highlighted that annual reports of

United States show that during low stress, police shooting efficiency

reaches nearly 90% and in stress situations their shooting accuracy is

below 50%. Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans (2010) also found in their

studies that due to anxiety police efficiency decreases significantly.

Khan and Manarvi (2011) discussed that a large number of police per-

sonnel have been killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan after 9/11 inci-

dent, which has increased the problem of job stress in Pakistan police.

Abbas (2004) suggested that police in Pakistan is the most affected

force among other military and para‐military forces, which has suffered

a lot due to attacks and fight with terrorism. Naz and Gavin (2013)

discussed that among the increasing terrorism issue after 9/11, short-

age of force is a major problem why police employees are facing severe

job stress. She added that law and order situation in Pakistan is worst as

compared with its other neighboring developing countries and police

force is not only busy in dealing with terrorism issue, but the workload

is much high in police profession, which includes activities such as main-

taining law and order, dealing with riots and disorder, monitoring VIP

movement, and managing security of VIP personnel as well as places

(Figure 1).

Received: 23 April 2019 Accepted: 10 May 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1986

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e1986.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1986

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of9