Examining a third level of police organizational climate: Does organizational self-legitimacy shape officer attitudes on the job?

Abstract

PurposeThis study builds on recent efforts to take a broader (organizational climate) perspective of organizational justice by adding the role of peer officers and supervisor-induced self-legitimacy in modeling the impact of agency supervision on policing outcomes. MethodsThis study regresses measures of supervisory, peer, and officer-level dimensions of organizational climate on Croatian officer (N = 638) judgments of job satisfaction, trust in the public, and external-audience self-legitimacy. ResultsWe find that a third (personal) level of organizational climate, organizationally induced self-legitimacy, was the dominant predictor of the three separate policing outcomes. The three models did not support supervisor procedural justice as an antecedent to positive police attitudes toward their job, but peer officer procedural justice had a modest role as a predictor of officers' perceptions of external audience self-legitimacy. ConclusionsWhile criminal justice scholars have demonstrated the role that perceptions of supervisor fairness have on shaping officer attitudes and behavior across a wide range of institutions, this study suggests that other facets of organizational culture may have a greater impact on officer attitudes toward their job.