Does Trust in Citizens Mediate the Relationship Between Internal and External Procedural Justice: A Comparison Between China and Taiwan Police

Abstract

This study investigates the roles of trust in citizens and compliance with agency policies in mediating the direct and indirect relationships between internal procedural justice and external procedural justice among Chinese and Taiwanese police officers. Based on survey data collected from 1,253 police officers, this study comparatively analyzes whether supervisory treatment of officers is predictive of trust in citizens and willingness to follow agency policies, which in turn is linked to their willingness to act fairly and justly toward citizens on the street. The results indicate that officer trust in citizens mediates the relationship between internal and external procedural justice in both China and Taiwan, but compliance with agency policies does not. Internal procedural justice directly predicts external procedural justice among Taiwanese officers, but such a connection is not found among Chinese officers. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens: a comparison of Chinese and Taiwanese police officers

“…(2) Does nation (China v. Taiwan) condition the relationships between individual, occupational, and organizational factors and officers' attitudes toward the important groups? The findings of this study contribute to a thin yet much-needed line of research that compares police officers' job-related attitudes across nations (Bennett, 1997;Chu and Sun, 2007;Harper et al, 1999;K€ a€ ari€ ainen and Sir en, 2012;Sun and Chu, 2008;, including those between China and Taiwan (Sun et al, 2021).…”

“…Similarly, supervisory trustworthiness facilitates officers' compliance with agency policies and cooperation with supervisors (Wang et al, 2020). Finally, officers' views of the citizenry are essential for fostering a strong police-citizen partnership, improving police treatment of citizens, and cultivating citizen cooperation with police (Mourtgos et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2021). Therefore, officers' trust in internal and external groups is vital for advancing democratic governance and fair policing.…”

“…What remains extremely scarce in the literature is assessing police culture, particularly officers' attitudes toward important groups, from a comparative perspective. National context may affect police attitudes and behaviors (K€ a€ ari€ ainen and Sir en, 2012; Sun et al, 2021), as well as the manners in which occupational and organizational factors mold officers' attitudes and behaviors toward important groups. Comparative research, therefore, despite the tremendous challenges of data collection, is highly warranted.…”

Similar or different? When Cross-Strait employees face psychological contract violations

“…Recently, Lin et al (2017) compared the innovation policy of industry 4.0 between mainland China and Taiwan. Sun et al (2021) focused on the comparison of government police policies and citizens' trust on both sides of the strait. However, the research and comparison of cultural differences between Cross-Strait are completely absent.…”

“…The Cross-Strait has similarities and differences in cultural society, ideology and political and economic systems (Lin, 2014). In recent years, there have been some policy comparison studies on Cross-Strait (Lin et al , 2017; Sun et al , 2021).…”