Officer's perception of organizational arrangements and preventive policing practice

Abstract

Purpose -The aim of the current study is three-fold: it aims to empirically investigates the relationship between officers' perceptions on organizational structure and preventive policing practices (PPP) in the South Korean context; it attempts to find what aspects of organizational characteristics will be influential in police officers' day-to-day activities;, utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM), it aims to identitify the complex networks of influences among various organizational aspects. Design/methodology/approach -The current study utilizes data collected from two different samples: a total of 146 randomly selected police officers in a metropolitan police agency, and 60 police officers who were attending a community policing training course. Overall response rate was 73.6 percent. The organizational characteristics investigated include strategic direction, decentralization of authority, system flexibility, reward system, and open-system feedback mechanism. Findings -The results of SEM indicate that officers' perceptions on organizational structure (except open-system feedback mechanism) of Korean police agency do not influence an individual police officer's preventive policing activity. The study found a significant relationship between officers' perceptions on open-system structure and preventive policing practice. Finally, the study also identified a complex network of organizational traits on preventive policing: strategic direction influences all other organizational factors; system flexibility is a prerequisite for the open system; and decentralization of authority influences the open system structure. Research limitations/implications -Although this study uniquely utilized organizational factors measured at the individual level, one may criticize the lack of a more direct organizational measure, such as organizational size, age, task scope, or number of ranks. Future study on this topic will benefit from employing both direct and indirect organizational measures. Originality/value -The current study enhances the understanding of individual perception of organizational characteristics on police officers' day-to-day preventive policing activities.

Understanding the effectiveness of performance management system

“…However, demographic characteristics of the respondents closely reflected their actual distribution in the KNPA, as shown in Table I. The sample size of our study is quite large compared to previous studies conducted in Korea (Shim et al, 2015;Crow et al, 2012;Lee et al, 2010), which makes our data unique. Table I shows the demographic characteristics of respondents.…”

Predictors of successful implementation of COP

“…All officers attending the class were asked to participate in the survey, and 60 officers out of 80 filled out the survey (response rate=75 percent). Since demographic characteristics of those two groups were similar (see Lee et al , 2010), two data sets were combined to increase sample size (total n =206).…”

“…COP has become a new paradigm of police organizations in the US; however, only 69 percent of large police agencies with COP policy (serving over 150,000 population) had clearly written COP policies or mission statements in 1999 (Hickman and Reaves, 2001). Recently, an empirical study found that explicit organizational philosophy significantly and positively influenced the practice of preventive policing among South Korean police officers through other organizational characteristics, such as reward system, flexibility, decentralization, and feedback mechanism (Lee et al , 2010). Thus, this study hypothesizes a positive relationship between officers' perception of explicit organizational philosophy and COP practice.…”

“…Kuykendall and Roberg, 1982; Lilley and Hinduja, 2007; Rosenbaum and Lurigio, 1994). Only recently, Lee et al (2010) found that, officers' perception on open‐system feedback mechanism was significantly related to officer's preventive policing practice in South Korea. Thus, this study examines whether officers' perception of open system feedback mechanism is positively related to COP practice among police officers from the US and South Korea.…”

“…In addition, complex mechanisms of influence among organizational factors affecting member's behaviors have not been empirically investigated until recent (e.g. Lee et al , 2010).…”