The relationship between stressors and police job involvement
| Author | Hanif Qureshi,Eric G. Lambert,James Frank |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355719832621 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The relationship between stressors
and police job involvement
Hanif Qureshi
Inspector General of Police, Security, India
Eric G. Lambert
(Department of Criminal Justice,) University of Nevada, USA
James Frank
(School of Criminal Justice,) University of Cincinnati, USA
Abstract
Police organizations are tasked with a wide variety of duties, and officers often encounter stressful situations. Past studies
have indicated that job stressors are negatively related to job involvement, which, in turn, is positively related to several
beneficial outcomes. The present study empirically tested the job demands model with data obtained from a police agency
in India. Survey data was collected from 827 police officers in the Indian state of Haryana. Analysis was carried out to
determine the impact of job stressors (role overload, role underload, repetitiveness, role ambiguity, fear of victimization,
and role conflict) on job involvement. Findings indicate that all stressors except fear of victimization had a negative effect
on job involvement. The implications of the findings, for organizations in general and the police in particular, include the
need to reduce workplace stressors and improve the work environment.
Keywords
Police, law enforcement, India, job involvement, job stressors
Submitted 30 May 2018, Revise received 02 Dec 2018, accepted 17 Jan 2019
The primary job of the police is the enforcement of laws
and the preservation of the peace; this requires that the
police deal with different responsibilities concurrently.
Goldstein (1977) noted that the role of the police covers
a broad framework, which includes controlling serious
crimes, aiding individuals in danger of physical harm (such
as victims, the intoxicated, the addicted, or the mentally
ill), facilitating the movement of traffic, resolving conflicts,
identifying issues that have the potential to become serious
societal problems, and creating a feeling of security in the
community. Police organizations are manpower intensive.
The most significant and costly resource for police agen-
cies is personnel; therefore, optimal performance of offi-
cers is a highly desirable objective (Roberg et al., 2012). An
important officer concept for the success of police organi-
zation is job involvement. Job involvement is the cognitive
(psychological) identification with the job and is the oppo-
site of job alienation (Kanungo, 1982a, 1982b).
Research to date indicates that job involvement is an
important concept for officers and police agencies. Among
officers in an unnamed country, job involvement was
reported to have a significant relationship with how officers
spent their leisure time (Orpen, 1982). Among Canadian
police officers, job involvement was positively correlated
with both job satisfaction and organizational commitment,
and was theorized to be positively linked to work perfor-
mance (DeCarufel and Schaan, 1990). In a study of U.S.
Corresponding author:
Eric G. Lambert, Department of Criminal Justice, The University of
Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
Email: elambert55555@hotmail.com
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2019, Vol. 21(1) 48–61
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1461355719832621
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