Effects of officers' cynicism and their perception of managerial leadership on COP activities among South Korean police officers

Purpose ‐ The purpose of the current study is to address limitations identified in the literature on officers' attitudes and their effects on community policing activity. Prior studies are limited in that attitudes toward COP strategy were treated as outcome variables and that factors affecting officers' attitudes were under-investigated. The current study employed officers' attitudes toward individual and departmental policing as well as perception of community relationship to investigate path mechanisms among these exogenous variables and their direct and indirect effects on COP activity. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The data utilized for structural equation modeling were collected from 206 South Korean police officers, who were designated as COP officers or who were under COP training at the time of the survey. Variables were measured by an organizational survey developed by the Michigan Regional Community Policing Institute. Based on results of the literature review, a hypothesized structural model was proposed and tested to identify a best-fitting model, explaining the greatest amount of variance in COP activity. Findings ‐ The results of SEM indicated that officers' positive attitude toward managerial leadership was one of the direct influences on COP activity, and cynicism toward departmental policing and its effectiveness directly and negatively influenced COP activity. In addition, cynicism was negatively influenced by community ownership and job satisfaction, and it in turn negatively influenced commitment to COP. Finally, community ownership directly and positively influenced strategic commitment among South Korean police officers. Research limitations/implications ‐ Although the current study utilized data collected from a random sample, the number of data are relatively small, so as to make generalization of the findings to the entire population of South Korean police departments. Originality/value ‐ The current study investigated attitudinal factors that have not been examined in previous studies on COP implementation. In addition, using SEM, the current study attempted to identify a path mechanism among various attitudinal variables relevant to COP activity.