Determinants of job satisfaction among Dubai police employees

Job satisfaction is one of the methods used to establish and maintain a healthy organisational structure. It has been frequently investigated in studies that deal with organisational strategies because of its potential impact on work attitudes such as job performance, productivity and organisational commitment. Although researchers have identified many factors that relate to job satisfaction, the majority of these factors can be grouped into two broad categories: (a) personal factors, and (b) environmental factors. Although personal and environmental factors are utilised as distinctly competing models of job satisfaction, researchers argue that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction. Most, if not all, scales used to measure job satisfaction have been developed in Western countries. The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of job satisfaction in one of the largest public sector organisations in the United Arab Emirates, namely, the Dubai Police Force (DPF), and then, to develop a model of job satisfaction linking antecedents and consequences to job satisfaction. The police, like any other public sector organisation, needs to develop and maintain a strong relationship with its human resources in order to effectively perform crime fighting and service provider roles. The issue of job satisfaction, particularly amongst Middle East police force employees, has received only limited research attention. Although some studies have tried to identify the indicators of job satisfaction among police employees, empirical findings on those indicators have generally been sparse and inconclusive. The study employed a mixed method approach to meet its aims and to increase the reliability and validity of the results. The research strategy adopted involved sequential procedures. A qualitative study was conducted first to explore the research issue and to provide in-depth evidence for the research objectives (stage one). The results from the qualitative study were used to develop a scale. The quantitative study was carried out to explore the determinants of job satisfaction among the DPF employees (stage two). Five separate data collections (in-depth interviews, focus group, expert panel, pilot testing, and survey-DPF employees) were conducted, involving a total of 1,075 respondents. The results of this study support the conclusions of previous research that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction than individual demographic variables and that personal factors are of little value to understanding job satisfaction. The results show that 47% of the variance in job satisfaction scores can be explained by eleven environmental and four personal variables (in order of importance): salary and incentives, nature of the work, public perception, organisational policy and strategy, relationships with co-workers, supervision, promotion opportunity, performance appraisal, professional development, communication, job stress, nationality, sex, shift work and public contact. Accordingly, several policy implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.