Assessment of post-deployment reintegration attitudes among Turkish police peacekeepers and its associations with organizational commitment
Creators: name: Celik, Ahmet
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2010

description: Although policing is a local phenomenon, the relatively new nature of conflicts and interventions in the world has given additional responsibilities and authority to police forces since the 1960s.  In response to international conflicts, police forces have been deployed in foreign countries as peacekeepers (Berkow, 1998). Currently there are total 37 multinational police missions (16 UN, 16 OSCE, and 5 EU) with over 10,000 police peacekeepers from over 100 countries.  After their tour of duty in multinational police missions, police peacekeepers expect to return home immediately and start  normal police work within a couple of days. However, an abrupt return to normal police duty may cause adjustment problems and negative attitudes to work which, ultimately, decrease the level of commitment to one's employers. Further, returning police officers may experience estrangement within the force. They may receive less support from fellow officers and supervisors.  In addition to these difficulties, encountering increased bureaucracy and change in work load and style from that experienced in peacekeeping forces might create some form of psycho-social difficulties.  Most of the studies on civilian police components of peacekeeping missions have examined political and operational aspects of the missions. They have focused on how the mission mandate is implemented and the successes and failures of the mission without giving any consideration to the organizational aspect of the phenomenon. Addressing organizational problems that are likely to emerge in the home country as a result of peacekeeping missions are particularly important for a country like Turkey which significantly contributes to multinational police missions around the world. Therefore, the study is the first to account for not only operational but also the organizational issues related to returning members of peacekeeping police forces. In addition, the study focuses on probable relationships between job satisfaction, workplace victimization, post-deployment reintegration attitudes to work, and organizational commitment.  The results revealed that job satisfaction of TPPs is positively correlated with both negative reintegration attitudes and organizational commitment. Workplace violence experience for TPP is positively correlated with negative reintegration and negatively correlated with organizational commitment. Education level of TPP is negatively correlated with negative reintegration and positively correlated with organizational commitment. Comparison of positions between mission and home country for TPP is negatively correlated with negative reintegration and positively correlated with organizational commitment. Mediating effect test results revealed that post deployment negative reintegration to work has a mediating effect between workplace violence and organizational commitment. However there is no mediating effect between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.