The (In)variance of Police Self-Legitimacy

• In Event: Self-legitimacy in Criminal Justice: A Comparative Approach

Abstract

Research on police self-legitimacy suggests it is associated with numerous beneficial outcomes, but scholars have yet to reach agreement on whether it affects organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in the same manner for all groups of officers. In this study, we draw on survey data from a sample of deputies employed by a sheriff’s department in a southeastern US metropolis (N=636) to explore whether self-legitimacy has an invariant effect on several OCBs. We then consider whether various antecedents of self-legitimacy (e.g., organizational justice) operate in the same manner across individual differences. In this way, our study offers the first test of self-legitimacy invariance.

Authors

• Justin Nix, University of Nebraska Omaha

• Scott E Wolfe, Michigan State University

• Bradley A Campbell, University of Louisville