Testing the Job Demands-Resources Model with Organizational Trust among Prison Staff

Abstract

Trust is an essential component of effective organizations and may be especially important in corrections because of the unique challenges this work environment presents. In corrections, trust in both supervisors and the administration is critical to ensuring the safety and security of staff, inmates, and the community. Previous research has revealed important implications of organizational trust, but less is known about the workplace factors that shape organizational trust. Scholars have divided these workplace factors into job demands and job resources. Using data from 322 correctional staff (both custodial and non-custodial staff) working at a large prison in the Southern United States, this study tested the job demands-resources model on two types of organizational trust – supervisor trust and administration trust. Specifically, we examined three job demands – role ambiguity, fear of being victimized at work, and role overload – and three job resources – job variety, quality training, and autonomy. Ordinary Least Squares regression results showed that workplace variables predicted both types of organizational trust and were generally stronger predictors than were personal attributes. Moreover, job resources played a greater role than job demands in shaping both supervisor and administration trust.

Can’t Shake the Prison Guard Blues: Examining the Effects of Work Stress, Job Satisfaction, Boundary Violations, and the Mistreatment of Inmates on the Depressive Symptomatology of Correctional Officers

“…Soft management practices, on the other hand, include anything from allowing employees to flagrantly disregard rules to permitting correctional officers to mistreat offenders with impunity. If supervisors and managers of correctional officers are fair, firm, and consistent they earn the trust and respect of their subordinates, which enhances the safety and security of the prison workplace (Keena et al, 2022). Supervisors must also be responsible for holding officers accountable when an act of brutality comes to their attention.…”

Exploring the influence of job demands and resources on organisational justice views in a sample of correctional staff

“…Bakker and Demerouti (2007) defined job resources as ‘physical, psychological, social, or organisational aspects of the job that support the achievement of work goals, are instrumental in reducing job demands, or stimulate personal growth, learning, and development’ (p.312). Conversely, a lack of job resources or limited job resources can become a job demand, which is likely to result in greater psychological strain and increase the chances of negative outcomes, such as job stress, job burnout, reduced job satisfaction and lower organisational commitment (Bakker, Demerouti & Schaufeli, 2003; Keena et al., 2022; Lambert, Paoline & Hogan, 2018; Mauno, Kinnunen & Ruokolainen, 2006; Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). Tyler (2004, 2017) argued that people follow the law and view the police as legitimate because of perceptions of procedural justice.…”

“…Further, it is critical to examine how different specific job demand and job resource variables are linked to various outcomes. In the field of institutional corrections, scholars have employed the job demands‐resources model to predict the positive work outcome of organisational trust (Keena et al., 2022), the positive outcome of staff life satisfaction (Lambert, Elechi & Otu, 2022) and the negative outcome of staff job stress (Otu, Lambert & Elechi, 2018). The current study examines the relationship between job demand and job resources variables with perceptions of distributive and procedural justice.…”

“…Some positions are repetitious, while others have variety, requiring different duties and tasks (Keena et al., 2022). Job variety can result in the job being more stimulating and enjoyable (Paoline et al., 2018).…”

“…Job variety can result in positive psychological feelings leading to viewing the organisation in a positive light. Among correctional staff, job variety was observed to be related to greater trust in supervisors and administrators (Keena et al., 2022). For the current study, the job resource of job variety was hypothesised to be positively associated with procedural justice views ( Hypothesis 13 ), general distributive justice views ( Hypothesis 14 ) and specific distributive justice views ( Hypothesis 15 ).…”