Perceived fairness of transfers and job satisfaction among police officers

Abstract

Purpose

Police organizations work better when officers feel satisfied with their jobs. High job satisfaction has been linked to positive outcomes for both officers and police organizations. Perceived fairness of transfers should be positively associated with job satisfaction. There has been little research in this area, and none of the limited past studies have studied this association among Pakistani police officers.

Design/methodology/approach

Data for the study comes from a survey of 550 officers working in the Lahore police stations in Punjab, Pakistan.

Findings

After controlling for location, work assignment, rank, length of service, marital status, age and educational level, the strongest predictor of job satisfaction was perceived fairness in transfers, an important aspect of policing in Pakistan.

Research limitations/implications

This was a single exploratory study that only measured perceived fairness of transfers. There is a need for additional studies. Further, broader measures of organizational fairness should be used in future studies.

Practical implications

Police administrators should ask staff why they perceive transfers as fair or not and what can be done to improve their perceptions.

Originality/value

There has been little research on police in Pakistan and the current study examined perceptions of fairness in terms of transfers with the job satisfaction among police officers in Pakistan.

Citation

Nalla, M.K., Akhtar, S. and Lambert, E. (2021), "Perceived fairness of transfers and job satisfaction among police officers", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 161-174. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-04-2020-0061