The policemen may have diverse motives for their public services for the nation and citizens. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of their motives for the public service on their performances. To be more specific, this study tes...
The policemen may have diverse motives for their public services for the nation and citizens. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of their motives for the public service on their performances. To be more specific, this study tested the effects of policemen's motives for their public services on their job attitudes (organized citizens' activities and organizational commitment) as well as on their individual performances, and thereupon, examined how such job motives would be affected depending on policemen's Person-Job Fit (P-J Fit).
The police organization is one of the major public sector organizations, while policemen's job scope is very diversified and broad. Lately, the police organization, as an active problem solver, has provided the people with their services, while working for people's conveniences. In short, the police organization's value and goal is to help the people to live a comfortable and happy life. Most of the policemen would join the police organization in order to serve the people or help their organization to serve the public interests (Jo Ho-dae・Park Jae-pung, 2008), and many preceding studies have found that the policemen were more determined to serve the people than their counterparts or the ordinary citizens. (Lee Geun-joo, 2005). In order to analyze how the policemen motivated as such would serve the public, this study sampled about 450 policemen working in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do for a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire consisted of the items about their motive for the public service, organized citizens' activities, organizational commitment, personal achievements, P-J Fit, etc. 450 copies of the questionnaire were distributed from April 10 to 25, 2017, and among them, 404 ones were returned. The results of this study can be summed up as follows;
First, the more highly the policemen were motivated for their public services, their job attitudes or organized civil activities and organizational commitment were higher. In addition, the individual performances were positively correlated with their motives for the public services. Secondly, their P-J Fit affected their organized civil activities, organizational commitment and individual performances directly. Besides, as a result of analyzing how P-J Fit as a moderating variable would indirectly affect the relationship between their motives for the public services and their job attitude/individual performances, it was found that their organized civil activities and individual performances had been affected by the moderating variable or P-J Fit, but that their organizational commitment was not significantly affected. Namely, it was confirmed that their motive for the public services had positive effects on their job attitudes and individual performances, and therefore, that if subjects' mission should match their P-J Fit, such sub-factors of the motives for the public services as organized civil activities would affect the individual performances positively. Merely, this study anticipated that if the P-J Fit should be confirmed, it would positively affect the relationship between motives for the public services and organizational commitment, but as a result of the empirical analysis, such a hypothesis could not be adopted. Such a result may mean that the policemen's organizational commitment encompassing identification with the organization, attachment to the organization, intention to remain as a member of the organization and lower turnover rate (Mowday, 1982) would not differ much depending on their missions or personal competences owing to the strong guaranty of their job status and their strong job stability, and thus, the P-J Fit had not much worked as an indirect variable.
This study may well be limited because the common method bias and subjects' weighted value had worked because the subjects were mostly from the security divisions, but this study may as well be significant as a policy suggestion. First, as policemen's motives for the public services have been confirmed, it is deemed necessary to survey and diagnose policemen's immanent motives. Secondly, it is also necessary to find the ways to make policemen's such motives work or be sustained more positively, while managing the motives effectively. For example, it is deemed desirable to make use of the existing retraining programs like the on-the-job education and thereby, operate the relevant programs. Lastly, as the positive effects of the P-J Fit have been proven, it may well be necessary to allow the policemen to work at the divisions fitting their characters and competence and thereby, help them to develop their job-fitness and professionalism.
Because the preceding studies have been focused on importance and positive effects of policemen's motives for the public services, this study set a moderating variable or P-J Fit to analyze its effects on the motives for the public services. In addition, this study may well be significant since this study used the data collected from 404 policemen to test the direct and indirect effects of their motives for the public services and thereby, suggested the directions for the future studies.