Abstract
Trust is a vital part of society and is critical for organizations. The main forms of organizational trust are management trust, supervisor trust, and coworker trust, each of which allows organizations to function and operate efficiently. This is particularly true for police agencies. Yet, few studies have examined how organizational trust affects police officers. The job of a police officer can be demanding, often resulting in heightened job stress. It is unclear whether organizational trust can reduce job stress or, conversely, whether low or non-existent organizational trust contributes to job stress. The current study explored the effects of management trust, supervisor trust, and coworker trust on job stress among Indian police officers, while also assessing the effects of job autonomy, views on quality training, role overload, role underload, and perceived dangerousness of the job. A sample of 827 police officers was drawn from two districts in the state of Haryana in India. Supervisor and coworker trust had statistically significant negative effects on job stress, while management trust had nonsignificant negative effects. Job autonomy and views on quality training also had significant negative effects, while perceptions of the job as dangerous and role overload had significant positive effects. Role underload had nonsignificant effects. The results indicate that building coworker and supervisor trust, increasing job autonomy, improving views on quality training, and reducing role overload and perceptions of the job as posing a risk should reduce job stress for police officers.
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Notes
Another regression analysis was done using tenure with the police agency in place of tenure in the current position. The results were similar in terms of the R-squared value and in terms of statistical significance. The R-squared value was .25 (F value 16.60, degrees of freedom = 683, p ≤ .01). Tenure with the agency, as well as gender, age, management trust, and role underload, had nonsignificant effects. District, educational level, supervisor trust, coworker trust, role overload, perceiving the job as dangerous, views on quality training, and job autonomy had significant effects. The median value for tenure with the Haryana police agency was 11 years, ranging from 0 (a month) to 39 years. The mean number of years with the agency was 13.82, with a standard deviation of 9.20. We did not measure whether a participant had prior policing experience before joining the Haryana police agency.
A reviewer suggested testing whether management had an indirect effect on job stress. We tested whether the effects of management on job stress were being mediated by supervisor trust using the method proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986). Management trust had a significant negative direct effect on job stress without the variable of supervisor trust (B = − .25, SE = .07, p ≤ .01) and a significant direct positive effect on supervisor trust (B = .69, SE = .05, p ≤ .01). Supervisor trust had a significant direct negative effect on job stress (B = − .25, SE = .04, p ≤ .01). When management and supervisor trust were included together, supervisor trust had a significant direct negative effect on job stress (B = − .24, SE = .05, p ≤ .01), but management trust had a nonsignificant negative effect (B = − .08. SE = .08, p ≤ .01). Using the Sobel test, the resulting value of − 5.69 was significant at p ≤ .001, suggesting that there is a mediation between management and supervisor trust in terms of job stress (Sobel, 1982). The current results suggest that the effects of management trust on job stress may be mediated by supervisor trust and, as such, management trust may have an indirect effect on job stress. Future research should explore whether management trust plays a role in shaping supervisor trust.
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Lambert, E.G., Qureshi, H., Nalla, M.K. et al. Organizational Trust and Job Stress: a Preliminary Study Among Police Officers. Asian J Criminol 17, 81–103 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-021-09355-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-021-09355-2