Semantic Differential Scale to Assess the Public Image of Police

1. Introduction

It is well known that human society cannot evolve or exist in the absence of a general and a coherent structure.

In this context, Police plays a central role, operating as a rule of law institution. Thus, as the basic element of the

criminal justice system, Police is responsible for enforcing the law by democratic methods, primarily involving

close cooperation with the public, respect for individual rights and constitutional guarantees, and the resort to

force in as little. Therefore, in a society which has become increasingly more complex, the role of the police tends

to be versatile, so that the outcomes, or in other words, its effectiveness, ultimately depend on a wide range of

factors. Special attention is given to the relationship with the community and to public image of the institution.

Regarding the analysis of an organizational image is improper to talk about a single image, but rather about a

complex and multifaceted one (Halic & Chiciudean, 2004), approachable from different perspectives / groups

(also known as stakeholders or corporate audience).

In practice it‟s difficult to study all of the indicators of an organization's image. Therefore, we focused on the

employees‟ image as a highly relevant imagological component for Police organization, based on the fact that the

image of an institution is largely influenced by the interaction of its members with the outside world (Hatch &

Schultz, 1997).

The image assessment can be performed by several methods, each with various levels of operationalization

and discriminative capacity (Chiciudean & Ţones, 2010). In this area, most frequently were used the public

opinion polls and only few studies resorted to semantic differentiators (de ex. ...

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