When Do Police Stressors Particularly Predict Organizational Commitment? The Moderating Role of Social Resources

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1098611120923153
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

When Do Police

Stressors Particularly

Predict Organizational

Commitment? The

Moderating Role

of Social Resources

Jaeyong Choi

1

, Nathan E. Kruis

2

,

and Ilhong Yun

3

Abstract

This study uses data from 570 male police officers working in 16 substations in South

Korea to examine the impact of job stressors (e.g., victimization, authoritative orga-

nizational culture, and perceptions of unfair work assignments) on organizational

commitment. Furthermore, we examine the conditioning effect of social resources

on organizational commitment. The results show that organizational characteristics

(e.g., authoritative organizational culture, unfair work assignments, and conflict with

coworkers) influence officers’ organizational commitment more so than victimiza-

tion experiences. The results also show that social resources spill over into the

workplace and condition the effects of organizational culture on predicting organi-

zational commitment. Potential policy implications are discussed.

1

Department of Security Studies and Criminal Justice, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX, United

States

2

Department of Criminal Justice, Pennsylvania State University—Altoona

3

Department of Police Administration, Chosun University, Gwangju, South Korea

Corresponding Author:

Ilhong Yun, Department of Police Administration, Chosun University, 309 Pilmun-daero, Dong-gu,

Gwangju 501-759, South Korea.

Email: yun.ilhong@gmail.com

Police Quarterly

2020, Vol. 23(4) 527–546

!The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1098611120923153

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Keywords

law enforcement, organizational commitment, social resources, job stressors

Organizational commitment is a hot topic in the organizational psychology

and business literature. Organizational commitment can be defined as “the

relative strength of the individual’s identification with, and involvement in,

a particular organization” (Porter et al., 1974, p. 604). Broadly speaking,

organizational commitment refers to the extent to which employees identify

with and show loyalty to their place of employment. An abundance of research

has found that organizational commitment is associated with a myriad of

positive outcomes in the workforce including lower rates of job turnover

(Jaramillo et al., 2005) and absenteeism (Mowday et al., 1982; Price &

Mueller, 1986) and increased job performance (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).

In fact, meta-analytical research has found organizational commitment to be

one of the strongest predictors of job satisfaction, performance, and turnover

intentions (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005). Regarding law enforcement,

organizational commitment can improve the quality of policing by helping

officers conform to departmental procedures and goals through the

encouragement of fewer unethical behaviors (Farmer et al., 2003; Haarr,

1997), by reducing rates of burnout (Lambert et al., 2017), and by helping

officers gain public confidence (Van Maanen, 1975), which is a primary objective

of policing in a democratic society.

Despite these benefits, little attention has thus far been paid to predictors

of organizational commitment in the policing literature (cf. Dick, 2011;

Johnson, 2015; Morris et al., 1999; Qureshi et al., 2017, 2019). Furthermore,

the literature has often failed to consider work stressors unique to the

policing profession such as victimization experience, authoritative

organizational culture, and perceptions of unfair work assignments (Adams &

Buck, 2010; Yun et al., 2015). This empirical study adds to this literature by

assessing the relative influence of police-specific stressors and social resources on

the organizational commitment of South Korean police officers. We drew on

the job demands/resource model that posits that even when there are high

job demands, employees can experience fewer and less severe, physiological,

and psychological outcomes if the organization provides resources to

support employees (Demerouti et al., 2001). To date, only a few studies have

examined the effects of social resources on organizational commitment

(cf., Ellrich, 2016; Morris et al., 1999), and empirical studies of the conditioning

effect of social resources on organizational commitment are scarce. Thus, by

including these measures in the presented analyses, our multivariate

528 Police Quarterly 23(4)