NCJ Number
165549
Date Published
1995
Length
73 pages
Annotation
After discussing the relationship between organizational commitment and employee behaviors that impact organizational effectiveness, this report describes an Australian study designed to identify the factors that influence the development of organizational commitment in Australian police departments.
Abstract
The research program is using a cross-sequential design to describe the development of organizational commitment and to examine the factors responsible for its emergence and modification. This type of methodology incorporates both cross- sectional and longitudinal data collections. This report describes the first phase of the research program: the first cross-sectional data collection. A sample of officers from both New South Wales and New Zealand were selected for the study on the basis of the year they had been attested. Ten groups were formed with attestation dates of 1977 to 1979 and 1987 to 1993 inclusive. Questionnaire data, incorporating measures of organizational commitment and all of the factors within the model, were collected during January and February 1994. The findings indicate that the organizational commitment levels of police officers from an Australian police department are lower than those of officers from New Zealand, thus supporting the findings of previous studies. Overall, the high levels of organizational commitment reported by new constables rapidly decreased across the first 3 years of employment. The decline continued across the later cohorts with up to 16 years of policing experience. Specific factors related to the decline in police organizational commitment suggest interventions that police organizations can use to prevent or reduce the decline in organizational commitment. The report offers recommendations for such interventions. 5 figures, 9 tables, and 93 references