Organizational Structure and Its Connection with the Justice Views of Police Officers

Abstract

Research on how different workplace variables relate to perceptions of organizational justice for police officers is almost absent from the literature. To fill this void, the current study examined the impact of input into decision-making, formalization, instrumental communication, and organizational support on the distributive and procedural justice views of police officers from the Haryana State of India. Based on the social exchange theory’s principle of reciprocity, these variables should result in favorable views of the organization, and, in turn, should raise views of the police organization’s justice efforts. Measures of distributive justice, procedural justice for promotions, and procedural justice for evaluations were created. Input, formalization, support, and communication had significant associations with higher distributive justice and procedural justice for evaluation views. Formalization, communication, and support had significant associations with higher views of procedural justice for promotions, but input had a nonsignificant relationship. The findings from this study offer police administrators a low cost and practical solution for enhancing organizational justice views of officers by increasing the level of input, formalization, support, and communication.