Assessment of Innovative Performance Management in Chinese Police System

Abstract

After decades of development effort and referring to best practices from other public sectors, an integrated performance management system for the police organizations in China has already been established. However, it is rare that any evaluation of the effect of implementing performance management is conducted either by researchers or practitioners. This study targets police officers as samples from police organizations in Zhejiang Province in China. A questionnaire on evaluation of performance management for police officers was developed which included four factors: job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanism of performance management, and interpersonal relationship. This study also explored the relationship between evaluation of performance management and job satisfaction, and tested the mediating effect of perceived social support on job satisfaction. The practical implications of this study on the Chinese system of policing are discussed.

Keywords

evaluation of performance management police organization job satisfaction social support innovation

Introduction

Performance management is a systematic effort to improve performance through an ongoing process of establishing desired outcomes, which includes setting performance standards, collecting, analyzing, and reporting streams of data to improve individual and collective performance (Whitaker, Mastrofski, Ostrom, Parks, & Percy, 1982). Some practices which were deemed successful in commercial or private sectors were subsequently introduced to public sectors to developed new public management theory. Consequently, performance-oriented and results-driven management started blossoming in public agencies, which was different from traditional process-oriented and rule-driven management (Robert, 2002). Under the influence of this overwhelming trend of performance management, a set of performance management mechanisms have been established worldwide with a new performance culture, performance goals, performance indicators and performance management methods in police organizations. Compstat, first emerged in New York Police Department, is one of the well-known performance management processes within policing system (Moore, 2003). Four primary measures of a system like Compstat are as follows: (a) accurate and timely intelligence, (b) rapid deployment, (c) effective tactics, and (d) relentless follow-up and assessment (Maple, 1999). According to this four principles, crime rate, clearance rates, convictions rates, and the number of arrests were considered as the primary performance measurement indicators.

With the rapid economic development and social transformation, police organizations in China have to face new social environment, encounter new issues, and confront with new challenges. Police departments are complex government agencies that come in various forms with an amalgam of intricate responsibilities (Bayley, 1985). How to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of preventing and combating crime, and the capacity of serving the public is considered as a critical issue for them. Systematic reform and innovation started from the top of the organization to the bottom in Chinese police system at the beginning of the 21st century, including organizational concept, structure, strategies, policies, procedures, and so on. Definitely, performance management is the core content of it. Some Western policing theories, such as community-oriented policing, problem-based policing, intelligence-led policing, and place-based policing have been introduced and implemented in the police system in China.

Where on one hand these mechanisms claim to guarantee the performance management of police organizations smoothly to achieve the purpose of promoting police performance in China (Ning, 2011), on the other, some literature show that the performance management which is implemented in police organizations still has some weakness. First of all, do performance management systems work at organizational level? Do they apply in public agencies? Are the deployed performance management systems accepted by the public service employees? These are some of the questions that are still left unanswered. Perhaps, these systems can reinforce the internal management of the organizations, but there is no strong evidence to conclude that it reduced crime (Weisurd, Mostrofski, McNally, Greenspan, & Willis, 2003). Robert (2002) argued that there are seven psychological barriers to performance management for public agencies which come from different areas of society. When applied at an individual level, some management some policies tend to increase employees’ psychological defensiveness, such as less sharing useful ideas with each other (Delorenzi, Shane, & Amendola, 2006). When conducted in a restrictive environment, performance management can perhaps provide some indication of attained performance at an individual level. Extracting organizational performance indicators from such processes is probably what Frederickson (1992) would call “painting bull’s eyes around bullet holes.”

Scholars point out that performance management should ultimately result in lower employee absence, higher satisfaction, greater willingness to stay with the organization, and higher effort (Adelien, Carine, & Alex, 2013). Research related to human resource management which is closely linked to performance management concluded that HR practices and systems have been positively associated with employee well-being and organizational performance in public sectors (Gould-Williams, 2004). Therefore, evaluation of performance management from employees is very important (Kuvass, 2006). It can help producers or managers know whether the current performance management system is accepted by employees or not, and think about the necessities to improve the performance management system to get expected outcomes.

However, research focusing on evaluation of performance management by employees is rare, especially in Chinese policing system. In the light of this discussion, the objectives of this study are as follows: (a) developing an evaluation questionnaire for performance management from employees’ view, (b) measuring the police officers’ evaluation of performance management, (c) exploring the relationship between evaluation of performance management and job satisfaction; and (d) detecting the mediating effect of social support between evaluation of performance management and job satisfaction.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Evaluation of Performance Management

Research on evaluation of performance management from employee’s view is rare. Despite this, we can get some insights from researches focusing on the outcome of performance management, or aspect of performance management, such as performance appraisal. Jon (2010) argued that Compastat model was not absolutely accepted by line police officers because it mainly was accounted for mid-level managers and command-rank officers, and ignored the line officers who actually delivered services in policing system. The system held a negative perception of scrutinizing and penalizing mid-level managers while completely ignoring the accountability of the line officers. In China, many police agencies have been applying “Satisfaction 110” mechanism as a fundamental strategy for implementing community-oriented policing. The system requires line officers to respond to any call from the public, even if not related to policing responsibility (Songqing, 2014). As a result, many line officers complained the process to be unreasonable (Meilin, Hui, & Jianxin, 2007). A study from Netherlands reported that police officers’ attitudes toward performance management are somewhat “constrained” by the measured targets (Hoogenboezem & Hoogenboezem, 2005). However, some other researchers found that employees’ fairness perception of the performance management system is positively associated with knowledge of the performance management system (Levy, Cawley, & Foti, 1998).

In a similar study, based on a survey on 393 Canadian municipal police officers, Larry and Frank (2003) found that police officers believed that there were deficient in organization’s performance appraisal systems. Performance appraisal process also received widespread dissatisfaction within police organizations in United States (Walsh, 1986) and had a negative impact on the employee–supervisor relationship (Momeyer, 1986).

One cause of dissatisfaction was lack of transparency. The employees felt that they were being measured on the end results without taking into consideration the causes behind less than perfect performance. Factors such as work overload, is regarded as one source of stress in policing (Crank, Culberton, Hewitt, & Regoli, 1993). Job context, including organizational structure, work schedule, facilities could also create tension among police officers (Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Vila & Kenney, 2002).

Some of the factors that could bridge these gaps were reported by Bourne, Neely, Platts, and Mills (2002) who stated that a paternalistic culture with good conversation, less punishing for mistake could achieve successful implementation of performance measure system. Rajnandini and Ethlyn (2004) claimed that transformational leaders could enhance employees’ self-efficacy and cohesiveness, and established committed and high-performing work groups. It implies that leadership style may as well play an important role in performance management by influencing employees’ perception.

The literature discussed can be synthesized to make a hypothesis that evaluation of performance management by police officer should relate to job characteristic, internal operational mechanism of performance management, leadership, or interpersonal relationship, and so on. Therefore, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1: Evaluation of performance management is composed of four dimensions: job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanisms of performance management, and interpersonal relationship.

Evaluation of Performance Management and Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is usually defined as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976, p. 1304), and commonly used as an important variable in the study of organizational behavior. Literature shows that some components of performance management are associated with employees’ job satisfaction. Adelien et al. (2015) carried out a study focusing on nurses group, indicating that performance management planning and evaluation of nurses are associated with attitudinal outcomes. Moreover, performance planning has a negative effect on job satisfaction of nurses. Daily and Kirk (1992) concluded that satisfaction with the performance appraisal process of police officers may influence future performance and job satisfaction, whereas the perceptions of ineffective performance appraisal may relate to job turnover. Job characteristic, such as policies, procedures, working conditions, assignments, has significant effect on perception of job satisfaction among police officers (Kohan & Mazmanian, 2003).

Some researcher reported a link between perception of fairness of the evaluation process and job satisfaction. Chong and Mahfud (2005) reported that the fairness in performance evaluation procedures and trust in supervisor mediated the relationship between nonfinancial measures-based performance evaluation and job satisfaction. The result shows that if subordinates perceived the performance evaluation as fair and their supervisor trustworthy job satisfaction level was high.

Unfortunately, most researches focused predominantly on isolated components of performance management and discussed the relationship of these components to job satisfaction. Little research is available where the researchers examined the relationship between a wide range concept of performance management and job satisfaction. At present, we try to combine various performance management contents together, and then test how the evaluation of performance management by police officer affects his job satisfaction.

Hypothesis 2: Evaluation of performance management of police officer is associated with his job satisfaction.

Evaluation of Performance Management, Perceived Social Support, and Job Satisfaction

Social support, an important social resource, is usually related to positive individual and organizational outcomes. Priyanko, Aysin, and Marry (2014) found the direct effects of perceived supervisor and co-worker support for error management on employee engagement in service recovery performance. Scholars have reported that social support has direct association with job satisfaction, absenteeism, and turnover as well (Perrewe & Carlson, 2002).

Typically, social support includes colleagues, supervisor, family, and friends. Some researchers discussed the relationship between social support and job satisfaction in detail. Paula and Rachael (2004) suggested that support from supervisor was strongly associated with job satisfaction and higher than colleague social support, in their research with New Zealand police officers.

There was also evidence of an existing relationship between performance management and social support. Kacmar, Witt, Zivnuska, and Gully (2003) reported that different aspects of management communication such as introduction of organizational policies, and delivering performance feedback are positively associated with employee’s performance (and related to a temporal change in perceived organizational support as well (Pedro & Robert, 2012).

Based on social exchange theory, perceived social support also has mediating effect on outcome of performance management. For example, perceived organization support is a mediating variable between management communication and employee affective commitment to organization (Allen, 1992). Pedro and Robert (2012) concluded that perceived organizational support mediates the relationship between management communication and both in-role and extra-role performance.

As we know, employee’s performance is a critical outcome of performance management, but the aims of performance management still care about employee’s well-being, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We consider the question whether perceived social support reflected through the performance management process affects employees’ job satisfaction and propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3: The relationship between performance management and job satisfaction is mediated by perceived social support.

Method

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to evaluate the process of performance management from employees’ perspective. In the process of developing the questionnaire, the researchers examined the most appropriate components that should be measured by the questionnaire. Variables such as job satisfaction and perceived social support were taken into consideration.

Sample

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted separately. There were 300 (273 males and seven females) participants in the EFA, and 728 (649 males and 79 females) participants in the CFA.

Within EFA participants, the age of majority of the participants ranged from 30 to 40 (48.3%, n = 145) and from 20 to 30 (27.7%, n = 83). Most participants were public security police officers. Police classifications were public security police (31.3%) and criminal investigation police officers (21.7%).

Another sample of 728 participants joined the second phase (CFA) of the research. Males accounted of 89.1% of the sample while 10.9% were female. Once again the majority of the participants were aged from 30 to 40 (44.0%, n = 320) and from 20 to 30 (27.2%, n = 198). The most police classifications were public security police (33.3%), and criminal investigation police (20.9%). Thus, it could be seen that the sample had a great similarity with the sample for the EFA phase of this study. All participants of this study were line police officers from 11 cities in Zhejiang Province, China.

Procedure

In Step 1, based on literature analysis, in-depth interview, open-ended questionnaire, and preliminary survey, a 56-item instrument was designed for measuring the evaluation of performance management in police agencies. Responses were obtained on a 5-point Likert-type scale from extremely good (1) to extremely bad (5). Then, EFA was conducted and the instrument was revised accordingly.

In Step 2, the data from 728 participants was gathered by distributing and collecting a structured questionnaire. This questionnaire included four parts: (a) evaluation of performance management which was measured by a self-developing questionnaire, (b) job satisfaction which was measured by Cook’s Overall Job Satisfaction (OJS) Scale, (c) perceived social support which was measured by Zimet’s Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), and (d) demographic variables. Evaluation of performance management data was used to conduct CFA. The procedure was similar to the first step.

In Step 3, the data collected in the second step also were then triangulated to obtain a structural model of the relationships of the performance management evaluation, social support, and job satisfaction.

Before the survey, participants had been informed that this survey was anonymous and voluntary. Surveys were operated in local police departments and participants were randomly selected. During two surveys, local police department provided lots of support and encouraged officers to take part in, but no incentives were offered.

Measure

In addition to Evaluation of Performance Management Questionnaire by Police (EPMQ-P), which was a questionnaire developed by us, the other two measures validated in previous research were used here.

OJS Scale

We used a Chinese version of the OJS Scale to survey job satisfaction (Cook, Hepworth, Wall, & Warr, 1981). It is a five-item scale, and each item is rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from completely satisfied (1) to completely unsatisfied (5).

PSSS

The classical multidimensional scale of perceived social support was used in our study (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988), which included 12 items. The items tended to divide into factor groups relating to the source of the social support, namely family (four items), friends (four items), or significant others (four items). Each items was rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from very strongly disagree (1) to very strongly agree (7). The demographic variables included gender, age, service experience, marital status, position, and so on.

Results

Exploratory Factor Analysis

First, we needed to check whether the data were suitable for factor analysis. The KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett’s tests were conducted. The results showed that the value of KMO was 0.957, and Bartlett’s test showed the value of 17609.444 with significance level of .000. Therefore, the data suited for EFA.

The principal factor analyses were performed on evaluation of performance management, which generated four interpretable factors: job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanisms of performance management, and interpersonal relationship (see Table 1). The items with factor loading lower than .40 were deleted, and the items that appeared on two or more factors with loading greater than .40 were also excluded. The accumulative contribution rate of the four factors to total variation accounted for more than 61.80%, with job characteristic accounting for 21.13% of the variances, leadership style for 17.88%, internal operational mechanisms of performance management for 16.80%, and interpersonal relationship for 6.00%. The Cronbach’s alpha of four factors, respectively, were .97, .97, .95, and .93 for job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanisms of performance management, and interpersonal relationship. The results showed a strong consistency among performance management evaluation.

Table 1.

Factors of Performance Management Evaluation.

Items	Factors
Items	1	2	3	4
JC-1	.795 ^**	.170	.258	.130
JC-2	.783 ^**	.148	.201	.102
JC-3	.781 ^**	.233	.129	.015
JC-4	.776 ^**	.176	.228	.139
JC-5	.775 ^**	.171	.275	.066
JC-6	.764 ^**	.250	.242	.083
JC-7	.762 ^**	.187	.244	.105
JC-8	.760 ^**	.171	.187	.040
JC-9	.756 ^**	.155	.217	.009
JC-10	.752 ^**	.164	.273	−.003
JC-11	.745 ^**	.081	.247	−.022
JC-12	.739 ^**	.132	.204	.067
JC-13	.709 ^**	.294	.142	.038
JC-14	.706 ^**	.204	.279	.121
JC-15	.666 ^**	.163	.386	.202
JC-16	.664 ^**	.233	.287	.156
JC-17	.640 ^**	.317	.170	.147
JC-18	.621 ^**	.230	.281	.115
JC-19	.616 ^**	.224	.385	.081
LS-1	.162	.853 ^**	.219	.102
LS-2	.184	.831 ^**	.213	.113
LS-3	.167	.830 ^**	.203	.153
LS-4	.174	.819 ^**	.233	.108
LS-5	.213	.805 ^**	.258	.086
LS-6	.215	.786 ^**	.222	.165
LS-7	.200	.785 ^**	.229	.189
LS-8	.258	.785 ^**	.176	.109
LS-9	.245	.776 ^**	.243	.134
LS-10	.214	.766 ^**	.259	.141
LS-11	.256	.762 ^**	.318	.096
LS-12	.223	.672 ^**	.186	.213
LS-13	.263	.620 ^**	.227	.285
IOMPM-1	.255	.057	.727 ^**	.116
IOMPM-2	.233	.100	.727 ^**	.145
IOMPM-3	.270	−.004	.696 ^**	.211
IOMPM-4	.223	.238	.650 ^**	.078
IOMPM-5	.165	.324	.631 ^**	.123
IOMPM-6	.107	.213	.615 ^**	−.069
IOMPM-7	.115	.270	.615 ^**	.009
IOMPM-8	.295	.248	.614 ^**	.057
IOMPM-9	.295	.282	.604 ^**	.026
IOMPM-10	.173	.186	.588 ^**	.237
IOMPM-11	.243	.103	.584 ^**	.215
IOMPM-12	.201	.316	.577 ^**	.042
IOMPM-13	.190	.230	.575 ^**	−.005
IOMPM-14	.297	.334	.561 ^**	.126
IOMPM-15	.215	.166	.558 ^**	−.118
IOMPM-16	.396	.077	.554 ^**	.149
IOMPM-17	.242	.336	.542 ^**	.105
IOMPM-18	.294	−.021	.533 ^**	.224
IOMPM-19	.181	.296	.521 ^**	.017
IOMPM-20	.203	.278	.509 ^**	.102
IOMPM-21	.282	.252	.484 ^**	.064
IR-1	.126	.323	.153	.832 **
IR-2	.128	.298	.146	.812 ^**
IR-3	.189	.358	.202	.794 ^**
IR-4	.224	.363	.184	.740 ^**
Eigenvalue	12.043	11.223	9.572	3.419
% of variance	21.128	17.879	16.793	5.997
Cronbach’s α	.97	.97	.95	.93

Note. Extraction method: principal components analysis. Four components extracted: JC = job characteristic; LS = leadership style; IOMPM = internal operational mechanisms of performance management; IR = interpersonal relationship.

p < .01.

To explore the factors, a screen plot was performed. The previous findings were supported that identified job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanisms of performance management, and interpersonal relationship as four main factors of performance management evaluation (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Screen plot for factor analysis.

CFA

Based on the findings in the EFA, we collected data from another sample which consisted of 728 participants and conducted a CFA using AMOS to verify the structure of the measurement scale. The fit indices for the structural models were presented in Table 2. It could be seen that the model fit of this model was good, which meant that the theoretical model fit the data.

Table 2.

Main Indices of Goodness of Fit.

Indices	χ²/df	RMSEA	PGFI	PNFI	IFI	NFI	CFI
Standard values	<5	<0.08	>0.50	>0.50	>0.9	>0.9	>0.9
Actual results	2.90	0.05	0.75	0.84	0.92	0.88	0.92

Note. RMSEA = root mean square error approximation; PGFI = parsimony goodness of fit index;

PNFI = parsimony-adjusted normed fit index; IFI = incremental fit index; NFI = normed fit index;

CFI= comparative fit index.

Table 3 displayed the descriptive statistics and correlations of job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanisms of performance management, and interpersonal relationship. The results showed significant correlations among the four factors.

Table 3.

Factors Correlation Matrix.

Components	M	SD	1	2	3	4
Job characteristic	3.625	0.916	—
Leadership style	2.964	1.019	.587**	—
IOMPM	3.457	0.803	.686**	.637**	—
Interpersonal relationship	2.706	1.080	.458**	.616**	.497**	—

Note. IOMPM = internal operational mechanisms of performance management.

p < .01.

Descriptive Statistics Analysis

According to Table 4, the dimensions of evaluation of performance management differed significantly with respect to service experience, marital status and gender by applying MANOVA or t test. We found the effect of the service experience on leadership style was significant, F(4, 722) = 4.855, p < .05, and the effect the service experience on internal operational mechanisms of performance management (IOMPM) was marginally significant, F(4, 722) = 2.346, p = .053. Differences were also noted based on marital status. The effects of the marital status on leadership style and IOMPM were significant, F(2, 721) = 5.145, p < .05, F(2, 721) = 6.437, p < .05, respectively, where married police officers had the highest scores. In addition, gender had statistically significant relationships with job characteristic (p < .05), where male police officers had higher workloads than their female counterparts.

Table 4.

Difference Analysis of the Dimensions of Evaluation of performance management Based on Demographic Variables.

Demographic variables	Levels	Job characteristic		Leadership style		IOMPM		Interpersonal relationship
Demographic variables	Levels	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Service experience	1-5	3.638	0.978	2.795	1.023	3.353	0.891	2.642	1.166
	6-10	3.642	0.913	2.967	1.028	3.444	0.847	2.749	1.122
	11-20	3.617	0.864	3.017	1.011	3.521	0.702	2.692	1.011
	21-30	3.570	0.893	3.138	0.953	3.541	0.689	2.777	0.942
	Above 30	4.038	1.015	4.121	0.787	3.973	1.006	3.286	1.245
	F	0.481		4.855**		2.346		0.892
	p	.750		.001		.053		.468
Marital status	Unmarried	3.515	1.008	2.685	0.999	3.224	0.885	2.682	1.105
	Married	3.650	0.888	3.017	1.009	3.504	0.769	2.696	1.060
	Divorced	3.316	1.304	2.837	1.226	3.162	1.131	3.375	1.598
	F	1.478		5.145**		6.437**		1.599
	p	.229		.006		.002		.203
Gender	Male	3.653	0.912	2.982	1.019	3.475	0.799	2.707	1.073
	Female	3.389	0.918	2.812	1.018	3.310	0.827	2.696	1.140
	t	2.430*		1.400		1.725		0.086
	p	.015		.162		.085		.931

Note. Bold values indicate the variables have passed the significance test. IOMPM = internal operational mechanisms of performance management.

p < .01. ^*p < .05.

Structural Model and the Mediating Effect of Social Support

By theoretical analysis and structural equation modeling, we found two competing models in which the first model (M₁) considered only the direct effects of four factors of performance management evaluation on job satisfaction, and the second model (M₂) considered the indirect and direct effects, which were the mediating effects of social support between four factors of performance management evaluation on job satisfaction (Figure 2). For the second model, the standardized coefficients of the paths between IOMPM (or relationship) and job satisfaction were not significant, which indicated that IOMPM (or relationship) failed to explain any significant variance in job satisfaction. Those paths were deleted. The fit indices of the second model were indicated in Table 5. The results of the structural equation model indicated that Model 2 had more acceptable fit indices.

Figure 2.

Models of the relationships of the performance management evaluation, social support, and job satisfaction.

Table 5.

Fit Indices of Model 1 and Model 2.

Models	Model fit indices
Models	CMIN/df (p value)	NFI	RFI	TLI	CFI	RMSEA
Model 1	20.34 (p = .00)	0.95	0.81	0.82	0.95	0.16
Model 2	1.12 (p = .33)	1.00	0.99	1.00	1.00	0.01

Note. RMSEA = root mean square error approximation; CMIN = Chi square; NFI = normed fit index;

RFI = relative fit index; TLI = tucker-lewis index; CFI = comparative fit index.

Discussion

The present study focused on the evaluation of performance management by police officers in China. We also sought to detect the structure of evaluation of performance management in Chinese police system, and to explore the relationship between evaluation of performance management and job satisfaction, and then tested the mediating effect of perceived social support on job satisfaction.

Through EFA and CFA, we found that job characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanism of performance management, and interpersonal relationship were mainly four factors of evaluation of performance management. This result not only demonstrated the concept of evaluation performance management but also examined its structure. We introduced a new approach to assess the performance management in policing system. Our approach was more focused on the perception, feeling, and attitude of employees. As other researchers discussed before, the knowledge of employees’ evaluation of performance management would help managers understand the effectiveness of the system (Liao, Toya, Lepak & Hong, 2009). In our opinion, it also would be useful for managers to detect the inconsistencies of performance management system, so that the performance management system can be improved.

From this study, the results indicated that the police officers in Zhejiang province evaluated the currently in place performance management system as unsatisfactory. The study revealed that police officers did not completely accept the existing performance management system. Job characteristic including shift schedule arrangement, job assignment, or extra task seriously impacted police officers’ attitude toward performance management. These results were consistent with the reality on policing duty in China. Because of the shortage of police force, work overload still happened frequently. Although local police agencies struggled to change and build a more effective on duty system, lack of resources was still a big challenge for police managers. Internal operational mechanism of performance management was the other factor which did not get high appraisement from police officers. To a certain extent, it represented the whole performance management, including setting organizational goal, designing operation process, implementing performance appraisal, human resource management, professional training, and so on. Influenced by the new public management theory, police agencies concentrated on developing some performance rating instrument, use a variety of rate to evaluate police officers’ performance through the last decade. With the performance management innovation encouraged, police officers complained that such performance appraisal indicators became more and more complex; this result was the same as another research (Hang & Ke, 2014; Ning, 2011) conducted in China. The incentive system was also an important concern for the police officers. They compared the salary and rewards with colleagues, then evaluated the fairness of the system. Furthermore, incentives such as position, facility, equipment, funds, training opportunity, and so on usually had been ignored by their organizations, but it was also valued by individuals.

Leadership style did not matter for the police officers in Zhejiang province. Since innovation of performance management, police agencies stressed managers’ capacity building and organized leadership training for chiefs or managers frequently. Apparently, the leadership style had changed partly from process-oriented management to performance-oriented management in many police agencies. Police chiefs tried to establish a democratic organizational culture. More and more line police officers were invited to join the performance management team in their own agencies. The other reason behind a leadership style agnostic attitude was that police officers were accustomed to the “compliance” culture in police system, and they obeyed all the policy, rules, regulations, verbal orders and written directives within their activities. Interpersonal relationship dimension of evaluation of performance management was not serious as well. It means that police officers accepted the team building strategy, and competition, promotion within the group did not influence them so much.

The results indicated that evaluation of performance management varied between the different police officer groups in the Zhejiang Province. Police officers with more than 30 years of service experience responded more intensely for the four dimensions of evaluation of performance management. Especially, leadership style was significant difference. For this group, most officers were more than 50 years old and had rich field experience. Sometimes, the performance management would put them in dilemma where they needed to execute an order that they did not agree with and felt anxious.

The results of the study also indicated that married officers were significantly negative about evaluation toward performance management in leadership style and IOMPM. The reason was related to the work–family imbalance driven due to work overload. If they had not enough private time, they were exhausted and they would doubt the policy, management system, or the leadership, and reflected negatively while evaluating the performance management system. Male officers did not respond more positively to the performance management than females in job characteristic. The reason was that job assignment usually was not equal between male and female officers. Typically, male officers were usually assigned to attend field operations which is more dangerous, or of higher pressure. Meanwhile, female officers were usually assigned to complete indoor duties which is safer and of less intense. We noted varying feedback about the same performance management system as these factors varied among the police employees. The designer of performance management system should take into consideration the diversity of situations and set the plan cautiously.

The results of this study also revealed the four factors of evaluation of performance management associated with job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is one of work-related attitudes, and influenced by factors which employees regard as important (Sempare, Rieger, & Roodt, 2002). Factors in relation of job satisfaction have been divided into two categories: demographic factors that emphasize individual attributes or characteristics and environmental factors that focus on work itself or work environment (Forsyth & Copes, 1994; Zeffan, 1994). Environmental factors, such as salary, job nature, public perception, organizational policy, organizational strategies, relationship with co-workers, and supervision, are theoretical predictors of satisfaction (Abu Elanain, 2009; Daily & Kirk, 1992; Jassem, Ramdane, & Kamel, 2011). This linkage was verified in this study, especially aim to police officers. Simultaneously, it clarified the cognitive process from evaluation of performance management to job satisfaction. Based on this finding, designers, planners of performance management should understand the variations in the level of job satisfaction, and concentrate on work-related environmental factors rather than individual attributes when developing the performance management system.

Social support was found as a mediator between evaluation of performance management and job satisfaction; this result is in line with previous researches (Kacmar et al., 2003; Pedro & Robert, 2012). In terms of social exchange theory, once employees perceive high social support, they will repay the organization through positive attitudes, such as job satisfaction or organizational commitment (Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990). It implied that social support is one intervention tactic for police officers to cope with negative emotion due to unacceptable performance management, for the organization as well (Paula & Rachael, 2004).

This research may also have implications on improving current performance management system. An innovation of performance management is necessary in Chinese policing system order to suit for the situation of social transformation. Real performance management requires an active strategy (Robert, 2002). A constructive performance management practice may help employees not only achieve higher individual performance but also identify the overall value of their jobs. The following four factors may help decision makers bring about an improvement in the existing performance management system.

First, based on the results of this study, when supervisors at different levels in police agencies decide to reform performance management system, they should consider employees’ perception, attitude, and feeling besides a series of statistical indicators such as crime rate, clearance rate, and arrest rate. The evaluation of performance management from line police officers is an indispensable reference to help them make decision. Performance management should consider the employee perspective more during the development, implementation, and use of performance measurement.

Second, the result shows that characteristic, leadership style, internal operational mechanism of performance management, and interpersonal relationship are four main dimensions which will influence employees’ attitude, like job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and motivation. Compared with ambiguous definition, organization should distinguish main performance functions accurately, for instance, policing activities and nonpolicing activities. Because serious hierarchical structure and compliance organizational culture, and leadership style should make some change to match the new public management tendency, it requires a leader to make a conscious effort to change the behavior of the individuals. One of essential strategy is to establish unimpeded, bidirectional communication between supervisor and line police office. Maintaining fairness in the process of performance management when organization implements performance appraisal, promotion, and incentives is another approach to adjust police officers’ perception and evaluation, which was also discussed in other study. What the line police officers need is to feel affiliated and recognition for their efforts.

Third, performance management designer should pay attention to the individual difference and try to match the demand of individual. Fourth, commanders, managers, and supervisors in police agency should utilize social support skillfully, including from colleagues, supervisor, family, and friends, to improve police officers’ job satisfaction.

The limitation of this study is that the samples are from Zhejiang Province, which is not sufficient to represent the police agencies all over the country. Furthermore, we explore the structure of evaluation of performance management, which only focused on the intern environmental factors, while external ones were ignored. With the development of the new performance management method, public appraisal should be invited in performance management system. Evaluation of public appraisal would be taken into account. Finally, social support from different aspects of society includes colleagues, supervisors, family, and friends. However, this study did not explore the diversity of these dimensions, and it should be discussed in future.

Conclusion

This study provided a new perspective to evaluate performance management in police agencies in China. The developed questionnaire will be helpful to detect the perception, attitude of police officers toward performance management. Moreover, it will be useful to make sure the acceptability of performance management. The model that described the relationship among evaluation of performance management, job satisfaction, and social support provided an intervention approach for police agencies to improve the effectiveness and availability of performance management. In the future, the research will extend to other areas in China to get more general result. Other factors that influence evaluation of performance management will be discussed, such as external factors.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Jingyan Ding is a PhD candidate of Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. She is also an assistant professor of School of International Study, Zhejiang Police College, Hangzhou, China. Her research interests are in the areas of personnel assessment, police education and training, and comparative study of police systems.

Quanquan Zheng, PhD, is a professor of Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. He specializes in managerial psychology and social psychology, and his research interests are management decision-making, human resources development, social cognition, and organizational behavior.

Xiaomei Wang is a PhD candidate of Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Her research interests are mainly in social and management psychology, such as construal-level theory, organizational behavior, and public personnel management.

Hong Zhu is an instructor of international policing, School of International Study, Zhejiang Police College, Hangzhou, China. He got his master’s degree of comparative study of education from Zhejiang University. His research interests are comparative study of police systems, police education and training, and international policing.

Jin Zhang, PhD, is an adjunct professor of Department of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Zhejiang University, China. His research areas are in behavioral analysis, criminal thinking, and criminal personality.

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