Climate for innovation, performance, and job satisfaction of local police in Spain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which climate for innovation, supportive climate, and rules climate influence job performance and satisfaction of local police (LP) officers in Spain. By integrating multiple climates simultaneously into a single study the authors assess the added value of climate for innovation. Design/methodology/approach – Participants included 175 LP officers who completed a questionnaire including measures of climate (FOCUS-93), job satisfaction, and perceived performance. Findings – Multiple regression analyses showed that developing a climate for innovation has a positive impact on police satisfaction and perceived performance beyond that of well-established climates. Climate for innovation emerges as the main predictor of job satisfaction, while it provides a small, significant increment of explained variance in perceived performance. Practical implications – Policy makers should enable participation of officers in the innovating process, thus improving the quality of change and creating a better work environment. Originality/value – Building on the competing values framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983), this research is a contribution towards understanding how different climate types combine and relate to each other to account for officers’ behaviours and outcomes.