Working Paper

IIMK/WPS/235/OB&HR/2017/19

March 2017

Strong Identities in Unexpected Quarters:

Identity Construction by Traffic Police Personnel

Unnikrishnan K Nair 1

Ankita Tandon 2

1Professor, Organizational Behaviour Area, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, IIMK Campus PO,

Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode, Kerala, India – 673 571

Phone: +91 495 2809247 (O), Email: unni@iimk.ac.in 2 Assistant Professor, School of Business, FLAME University,Gat No. 1270, Lavale, Mulshi, District Pune –

412115, Maharashtra, India. Ph: +91 – 9763065146, Email: nikytandon@gmail.com

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IIMK WORKING PAPER

Strong Identities in Unexpected Quarters:

Identity Construction by Traffic Police Personnel

Unnikrishnan K Nair

Professor of OB& HR Area, IIM Kozhikode

Ankita Tandon

Assistant Professor, School of Business, FLAME University, Maharashtra

ABSTRACT

Traffic police is a central yet inconspicuous part of social life. Their role, positioned at the

interface between public services and society, involves multiple challenges for effective

performance. Yet, there is little academic knowledge about this group of professionals. Through

qualitative data collected from 93 traffic police personnel from a south Indian city attending a

motivational session conducted by one of the authors, this study examined their identity

conceptions. Analysis revealed emergence of unexpectedly strong occupational identities in an

otherwise generally routine and mundane job. Traffic police personnel constructed strong

occupational identities rooted in the concept of being in public service by going beyond their

operational roles to focus on the perceived impact of their work on the society. They

strengthened this identity by engaging in behaviours congruent with it, and consequently having

positive job experiences either through direct observation of outcomes or through positive

feedback from relevant stakeholders. They continually sought to strengthen their identity by

seeking appreciation, recognition and support from critical stakeholders. Events which led them

to perceive themselves as ineffective in their duty, and therefore went against their self-image,

threatened their identity. Our study provides theoretical insight into occupational identity

construction and the factors which impact its strength positively and negatively. Inferences can

also be drawn for developing suitable motivational interventions for enhancing work

engagement, performance and effectiveness of traffic police and similar other groups,

particularly working at the interface.

Keywords: Traffic police, occupational identity, public services, qualitative research.

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INTRODUCTION

Traffic police has become an integral and basic part of one’s life today in the modern

world, either as motorists or as pedestrians. They are varyingly seen as law enablers, helping

men and women in uniform, or as corrupt and rude law enforcers callous in performing their

duty. Whatever it be, it is impossible today to think of normal public life without traffic police as

an essential part of it. Still, there is little academic information in the management domain on

this group of professionals. In pursuance of this fact, the study we report here empirically

explored the identity conception of being a traffic police person, with a sample from a south

Indian city.

A closer look at traffic police and the nature of their work reveals that, directly interacting

with people as pedestrians and motorists, and working within a multitude of constraints, the

traffic police person also faces a lot of inconveniences, hardships and professional hazards. For

instance they are often at the risk of being physically assaulted (Mallick, 2017; Shelke, 2016),

suffer injuries or die being hit by vehicles (NDTV, 2016), and have to work for long hours in the

scorching heat and dust of summer without traffic shelters and wearing polyester uniforms

leading to severe health problems such as fluid loss, muscle cramps and loss of concentration

leading to confusion in traffic regulation (Times of India, 2015). They often work for long

durations, much beyond their duty hours (Singh, 2016; Times of India, 2015). In the words of a

New Delhi traffic police constable, “Our work hours often reach a draining 15-16 hours a day

and sometimes we end up working two straight weeks without a break. By the end of our duty,

not even do we suffer headaches but our blackened uniform testify the disturbing pollution levels

in the city” (Mago, 2016).

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Simultaneously, we also see many steps being taken to improve the working conditions of

traffic police, in particular with respect to introduction of new technology (Maheshwari, 2014;

Mathur, 2016; Mohan, 2016); and some isolated efforts at caring for their health and wellbeing

(Singh, 2016; The Times of India, 2016). Further, their work, being in the public limelight during

every moment of the day, also gets scrutinized beyond proportions. For instance, a recent report

following the 2017 New Year celebrations in Bengaluru (earlier Bangalore), popularly known as

the silicon valley of India, had clear pointers to the traffic police:

“If there is one big negative the city brings to the fore in its imagery, it is the rather chaotic

situation on traffic. A recent ground level study indicted that if a Mumbai traffic constable

had a Zero-tolerance attitude of 8 on 10, Bengaluru was rated at 3 on 10. We need to climb

on this matrix. If Bengaluru needs to sort its traffic management image, we need to bring a

lot of respect to the constable on the street. Zero tolerance to issues of lane-discipline, driving

on the wrong side of the road (Salmon-driving as I call it), footpath driving, and honking are

just some of the issues that demand zero-tolerance. Today, everything goes. And that attitude

is just not right when it comes to the traffic police. A focus on minimum inconvenience and

maximum governance is the need of the moment.” [Italics added].

- Bijoor, H., Bangalore Mirror, Jan 03, 2017.

The two sentences that we have emphasized in the above passage highlight the need as

well as the challenge of the task at hand – respect for traffic police personnel doing their duty,

and of ensuring effective traffic policing through a competent and committed set of people. But

are researchers really studying the difficulties, issues and challenges faced by traffic police; the

interface issues at the boundaries between society, the traffic police force and the government;

and the reforms, changes and even transformations needed and possibly happening for them and

in traffic policing?

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We did a brief analysis to explore this. We looked at two standard databases of research

articles, subscribed to by all leading B-Schools across the world, including ours, viz., Business

Source Complete (EBSCO; 8000+ Electronic Full Text Journals) and ABI INFORM Complete

(Thousands of Full-Text Journals, Dissertations, Working papers, etc.). The results do point

towards an alarming paucity of adequate research in the domain of both Police in general, and

Traffic Police in particular (see Table 1).

From Table 1, we find that while there are 12099 items among all publications hosted in

EBSCO that list ‘Traffic Police’ somewhere in the article, only 126 of them (i.e. 1.04%) come

under the ‘scholarly (peer reviewed)’ category. It can be noted that this percentage goes further

down when the search term is limited to article ‘abstract’ and ‘title’ (0.46% and 0.2%

respectively – Table 1, Column ‘c’); and nearly similar is the case with articles hosted by

ABI/INFORM (1.37%, 0.47% and 0.5% in Table 1, Column ‘f’). For comparative purposes, we

did the same kind of search and analysis with some significantly related terms, viz., leadership,

government and military; and the results are noticeably much higher compared to that for traffic

police (Table 1, Columns ‘c’ and ‘f’). Finally, when we looked at just police, the reality of the

situation was seen staring at our face – while it is the lowest in EBSCO listings, it is comparable

to that of traffic police in ABI/Inform.

As a clear illustrative case in point, while an open ‘title’ search of ‘traffic police’ in

EBSCO yielded 2037 items, when limited to ‘scholarly (peer reviewed) journals,’ it came down

to just 4 (Table 1)! The same numbers were 599 and 3 for ABI/Inform; and of the total 7 articles

between the two databases, one was common. A content analysis of ‘titles’ of these 6 scholarly

(peer reviewed) articles pointed to an equal share of two each for aspects related to work stress

(job satisfaction), location/assignment decisions (of vehicles or personnel), and ill effects on

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health of working in polluted environments. While one each of the two studies on stress were

respectively from the cities of Pune and Salem in India, both the location/assignment (operations

research) studies related to northern Israel, and one each of the pollution - ill health studies

related to Hyderabad in India and Milan in Italy respectively.

The data in Table 1 indicates an unmistakable interest in and significance of the theme of

‘traffic police,’ but it is not being supported by much scholarly research work.

Accordingly, in this paper, we present an empirical study that took shape from an

otherwise ordinary motivational interaction that one of the authors had with a group of traffic

police personnel in a large city in south India. The objective was to understand how traffic police

personnel make sense of their profession, and therefore, what kind of tools and approaches could

probably be employed to enhance their motivation and engagement at work. When we started

analysing the data collected in this process, conceptions of a strong work-related identity started

to emerge. We had not really expected this to happen, since the job of traffic police personnel

TABLE 1

Indication of Paucity of Scholarly Research on Traffic Police¥

Sl.

No.

Exact

“Word/Phrase”

Searched

“Field’ Searched

Business Source Complete (EBSCO) ABI/INFORM

In All

Publications

(a)

In Only

“Scholarly”

(Peer Reviewed)

Journals

(b)

%

(c)

(b/a*100)

In All

Publications

(d)

In Only

“Scholarly”

(Peer Reviewed)

Journals

(e)

%

(f)

(e/d*100)

1 Traffic Police Anywhere 12099 126 1.04 16438 225 1.37

Abstract 5898 27 0.46 2960 14 0.47

Title 2037 4 0.20 599 3 0.50

2 Leadership Anywhere 1088505 111457 10.24 30,60,337 1,73,607 5.67

Abstract 451617 68731 15.22 4,64,329 27,028 5.82

Title 186149 27581 14.82 1,29,765 11249 8.67

3 Government Anywhere 76,31,105 5,75,899 7.55 11023078 430923 3.91

Abstract 28,40,360 2,37,046 8.35 2299495 88055 3.83

Title 5,42,550 37,976 7.00 341416 14383 4.21

4 Military Anywhere 18,98,280 53,163 2.80 2619129 88183 3.37

Abstract 7,65,592 30,256 3.95 528776 10185 1.93

Title 2,89,262 6,785 2.35 165961 2576 1.55

5 Police Anywhere 5905349 22398 0.38 32,49,643 51255 1.58

Abstract 1928744 13168 0.68 913969 4436 0.49

Title 1901383 3686 0.19 441579 1299 0.29 ¥ Search updated on 05 Jan 2017. Search was also done on the term Traffic Policing. The numbers were comparatively too small, and hence not

included in this Table.

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was generally seen as repetitive, mundane and routine. This led us to ask the following questions

of our data:

a. What identity conception(s) do personnel of the traffic police hold?

b. Does this identity get reflected in some of their desires and interpretation of their

experiences? If ‘yes’, how?

RESEARCH DESIGN

Research Site and Sample

Data was collected from 100 traffic police personnel belonging to a large south Indian city

attending an interactive motivational session by one of the authors, on the theme of “Traffic

Policing – A Professional Endeavour, and Traffic Police Person – A Professional” (data of only

93 respondents were found usable for final analysis). The city they caters to has a population of

over 425,000 people, population density of over 3300/km2, literacy rate of over 95% and sex

ratio close to 1100. A large number of people visit the city daily from adjoining towns and

districts for medical, educational, tourist, official, commerce and shopping purposes. In the

recent past, this city hosted over 10,000 international and 700,000 domestic tourists during the

year.1

Traffic management became a specific function under this city’s police in the early 1970’s

as a separate sub division under the charge of a senior officer in the rank of Deputy

Superintendent of Police (DySP). Towards the turn of the century, it was expanded with the

creation of a new geographical sub division. The same arrangement continues till date, and

1 From various Official websites of the State and Central Governments; accessed on 05 Jan 2017.

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currently each of the two sub divisions is headed by an Assistant Commissioner of Police

(ACP).2

Data Collection

Data collection followed a pencil and paper process where the traffic police personnel

attending the session were requested to answer five open ended questions candidly, and free of

any inhibitions or apprehensions. In order to make them really feel open and safe to respond

(also as some of their senior officers were present in the session), no aspect of their personal

identification was asked for in the response sheet. After distributing the response sheet, in which

only the question numbers were marked with space for the responses, the questions were read out

and also shown to them on power point presentation, one by one, by the author conducting the

session. That is, while it was possible for any of them to return to their response to an earlier

question, they couldn’t anticipate a future question or look at all the questions together and plan

their answers in any deliberately related manner. Further, only 3 minutes were given for

responding to each question. These aspects of operationalization, we believe, would have

resulted in generating reasonably genuine answers from the participants. The five questions

asked were:

1. How do you see yourself, in your current role, as a Traffic Police Person?

2. If you were to share an instance or a moment of sadness, regret or disappointment,

being a Traffic Police Person, what would you say?

3. If you were to share an instance or a moment of happiness, joy or satisfaction, being a

Traffic Police Person, what would you say?

2 From the Official website of the City Police; accessed on 06 Jan 2017. The head of City Police is titled “City

Police Commissioner.” Hence, the traffic function is headed by two officers, immediately next in rank.

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4. If you are made IG (Inspector General) of traffic for a day, what would be the one

change that you may consider making or bringing about in traffic policing?

5. If you would so expect, desire or like, what would be that one thing that you wish to

have or receive from our society?

Data Analysis

We analysed data by employing systematic qualitative analysis techniques inspired by

grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), and using the data structuring process developed by

Gioia, Corley and Hamilton (2013). Analysis involved constant comparisons (Glaser & Strauss,

1967) between data units as we moved from one participant to the next, and between emerging

categories and themes. This enabled expansion of emerging themes and their delineation from

one another. Following Gioia et. al. (2013), data was first coded to reflect recurrent and

dominant participant expressions. These were aggregated into broad categories. Next, these

categories were infused with researchers’ inferences based on data analysis, and theoretical and

contextual knowledge to develop broader themes reflecting theoretical underpinnings. Combined

together, these themes explained how occupational identity was constructed by traffic police

personnel through anchoring it in the concept of public service, which emerged as the

overarching dimension from this study (see Figure 1 for data structure).

Although data was collected from 100 participants, only 93 of them were usable; and hence

taken for analysis. First, we (the two authors) coded the data independently. This was followed

by some intensive discussions between us on the emergent codes. Agreeing on the dominant

theme that seemed to emerge from the analysis and its connections within the whole data set, we

decided to consider the analysis conducted by one of the authors as the reference, to which the

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analysis conducted by the other was compared and contrasted. This approach enabled us to check

for robustness of the emerging themes by developing a common understanding of the data and

reducing the impact of personal biases on analysis. While certain differences do exist between

the two authors in their analysis and consequent interpretations of the data at a very detailed

level, which we are working further towards resolving (this paper being the first one where we

are presenting this study), we describe below those aspects where consensus exists between the

two authors.

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

Our analysis revealed that traffic police personnel constructed a strong occupational

identity by rooting it in the concept of public service. Below, we discuss the conception of this

identity, and the factors which emerged as relevant in impacting the strength of this identity both

positively and negatively (see Figure 1 for the data structure).

FIGURE 1

Data Structure – Emergence of Public Service as the Dominant Identity Conception of Traffic

Police

• “Public servant”

• “Helper and protector”

• “Protecting life and property of people”

• “Serving society”

• “Being able to reduce accidents on the road.”

• “An opportunity to save a life on the road.”

• “When serving public (school children, old people,

etc.)”

• “Satisfied after doing duty successfully.”

• “Appreciation from public at the time of good

service”.

• “ interruption of politicians/others.”

• “Pressures from superiors and politicians.”

• “Rude behaviour of superior officers.”

• “The aggressive behaviour of people, when trying to

make them recognize law violations they make in

front of my eyes.”

• “React/Respond only after understanding the nature

of Police's duty. Recognize if [when] good things are

done. “

• “Good behaviour from the Public.”

• “A smile from the society.”

• “ [follow] traffic discipline.”

• “Please obey traffic rules”

Self-perception in the job

Seeking positive feedback and

support from critical stakeholders

Factors hindering performance on

the job

Occupational Identity

Construction: Anchoring

identity in the concept of

Public Service

Public servant as the

emergent identity

Strengthening of identity

Threat to identity

Experienced positive feedback:

Observed impact of successful job

performance; feedback from

critical stakeholders

Informant codes First order categories Second-order themesOverarching dimension

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Self-perception as a public servant

When asked how the participants saw themselves in their current job role, most of them

identified themselves as public servants, in exactly these two words or in some related manner.

While 14 out of the 93 respondents exactly stated their identity as “public servant,” 7 others used

the word “servant” alone or in some combination, like “social servant,” “servant and helper to

public” and “servant of the nation.” Another six respondents preferred the verbal form of either

‘serve’ as in “to serve” and “official who serves people,” or ‘serving’ as in “serving public” and

“serving the society.” It may be noted that, put together, this forms close to 30% of the total

respondents.

Importantly and noticeably, the public servant identity got further elaborated in multiple

and different modes in the words used by other respondents. The significant elaboration was

towards describing themselves as doing public service – as primarily being ‘helpers’ or of

‘helping’ to the society; even though as we know, traffic policing does not form part of what is

normally called as a ‘helping profession’ in any sense of this term. We could infer that these

elaborations were anchored mostly in the ‘functional’ interpretation of what it meant to be a

public servant in the context of being a traffic police person. We explain this below.

That is, the composite image of being a public servant, in the minds of our respondents,

encompassed the values of service, helping, guiding and protecting the society, people or public.

Responses varied between ‘helping’ in ‘pure’ form (such as: “as a person to help others” and

[even] “God’s grace to help people”); to ‘helping’ in the ‘context’ (such as: “[a] helping hand in

road” and “I am a person who is earmarked for helping the people on the road”); and ‘helping’ as

forming the ‘operational’ part of one’s job (such as: “helping all persons through traffic

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enforcement,” “helping people within the duty of Traffic Police” and “helping to others, for free

flow of traffic”). It may be noted that ‘helping’ also went in combination with contextual

‘guiding’ (as in “to give help and guidance to the people in traffic”) as well as ‘protecting’ (as in

“helper and protector of human being”). However, we could not clearly discern from the data, if

some of the respondents also considered ‘helping’ as forming a ‘normative’ part or identity of

their job beyond the normally straightforward ‘operational’ or ‘contextual’ one.

A few other responses reflected two other different identities. One was rooted in the

‘functional-operational’ or ‘technical’ role as a person regulating traffic. This included responses

such as: “a person facilitating smooth traffic,” “traffic regulations for a smooth vehicular traffic,”

and “it is for creating smooth traffic flow for people that I have been appointed.” The second was

again ‘functional’ in nature, but more anchored towards a sense of the self as a person having

‘authority and control’ in the context. For instance, responses such as: “as a law initiating and

enforcing person or authority” and “law enforcement person” indicate this identity orientation.

This latter set of identity conceptions enabled us to examine and contrast multiple identity

perceptions. By identifying themselves as public servants, the traffic police personnel, seemed to

go beyond their normal operational identity, recognize the impact of their role on their clients –

the society, and thus root their identity in a stronger, value driven concept.

Once we deciphered the above set of identity conceptions, we could observe and infer in

our data, the ways in which they got strengthened or threatened. We describe these aspects

below.

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Strengthening the identity

When asked about events that made them happy in their jobs, participants described

instances in which they were able to do their job effectively as well as in a manner that gave

them a sense of meaningfulness in engaging with their role; both resulting in a good feeling of

intrinsic satisfaction. It needs to be noted that these two aspects often lay intertwined.

Strengthening of the public servant identity by doing the duty effectively was evident in

the following kind of responses, some of them also specific to the context of work:

“since I am in police, I could rescue/save them from a disaster;” “[easing traffic] block in a

big junction;” “if able to finish duty without accident;” “able to work efficiently when there is

need for help on the road;” “high traffic in city - I will manage the situation, because I have

duty there;” “because of me when an accident was averted;” “when [I] could correctly

implement changes possible for me;” “accept my lawful direction to avoid an accident;”

“being able to reduce accidents on the road;” and “if able to do duty at a very busy time

avoiding any traffic block.”

It can also be inferred from the above that the two most pertinent measures of traffic police

effectiveness or success in the eyes of its own personnel are ‘reducing and avoiding accidents’

and ‘reducing and avoiding traffic blocks,’ and which form the core aspect of their everyday duty

at work. This gets reaffirmed when a respondent said: “satisfied after doing duty successfully.”

And, when we look at the responses: “I am doing duty with all efforts, this gives me

satisfaction,” and “although a difficult job, the service [I] render to the public gives me intrinsic

satisfaction,” they serve to affirm the contribution of one’s role effectiveness in strengthening the

public servant identity, in spite of the hardships involved in the task.

However, the sense of meaningfulness that came from engaging in one’s role, particularly

the ‘helping’ component of it, and that too helping the really needy and deserving, far

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outweighed the contribution of ‘role effectiveness’ towards strengthening the public servant

identity. This is evident from responses such as:

“being able to help the disadvantaged/helpless and old age people;” “each day, I am able to

help people who are coming new to the city;” “help a sick person;” “I am very happy when I

get an opportunity to save a life on the road;” “I guide many people daily and, I save many

lives on road;” “in 2012, while on duty at […], to have been able to physically help a person

without legs to get into a bus, and financially help him,” “on duty time, helping children, old

people, ladies;” “recovered a missing child at bus stand;” “the help I do for others -

particularly for women, children and the elderly;” “intrinsic satisfaction when helping people

with physical disability to cross roads;” “help school children and aged while crossing road;”

“when helping people caught in accidents;” “when helping the public as much as possible;

especially the children, the aged and the disabled;” and “when serving public (school

children, old people, etc.).”

The meaningfulness from ‘helping’ role engagement gets affirmed when we finally look at

responses such as: “when public get huge benefit from my help;” “when able to help people in

those domains where no one else can;” and “[I] help happily, forgetting everything”.

We also noted from analysing the data that, direct observation and experience of outcomes

of effective job execution enabled the participants to get immediate positive feedback on the

impact of their job, thus leading to a sense of meaningfulness and satisfaction, often intrinsic.

While a deeply moving kind of response in this regard is: “when I saw the face of a victim

emerging from a tyre [of a larger vehicle] without any injuries [following an accident];” two

others said: “when a person who we involve with [as part of traffic duty] move on with a smile,

and when children give Ta-ta;” and “when I hear or come to know that, at least one person has

been saved because of my work/action.”

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The positive feedback and reinforcement of public servant identity, we observed was

intimately related to recognition by the public/society for doing their duty. This got expressed in

two opposing ways – either as feeling happy when it was received, or more significantly as a

deep desire for it when it was not received. In support of the former are responses such as:

“appreciation from public at the time of good service” and “good response from the public.” The

latter had two parts to it – first, when the public who benefit from the work of traffic police not

bothering to say a word of gratitude or show a nod of appreciation, or when the good work done

by traffic police went altogether unnoticed and hence unappreciated (e.g.: [desire for] “respect

for job from the society;” “recognition from society;” “a good word, a good opinion, if we do a

good job;” “reasonable recognition for the work done;” “we are also part of the society - a

smile;” and “proud feeling among people that the work of police is good”). Second, when the

public got swayed more by some of the shortcomings or mistakes on the side of traffic police,

not understanding the nature of their work well, or wrongly interpreting some of their actions-

decisions, and then blaming or criticizing them or in this process failing to see and appreciate the

good work done by them. Responses such as: “[public should] react only after understanding the

nature of Police's duty; recognize if [when] good things are done” and “people should understand

police/obey laws [traffic rules]” point towards this aspect.

Importantly, some of the responses from the traffic police personnel in our sample

indicated to us that they had expectations from the society in terms of its knowledge, attitudes

and behaviours as well. They expected the society to follow traffic rules and support them in

doing their duty. These expectations were described as: “recognition and obedience from drivers

and public;” “[I] wish that all drivers follow traffic norms;” and “[we expect] cooperation from

society for road safety;” The significance of these expectations is that, if realised, they would

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provide positive signals of effective job performance, again in turn strengthening their identity as

a public servant.

Threat to identity

As individuals, each of us would encounter experiences which could be perceived as

causing threat to our identity conceptions. Since traffic police personnel almost always work at

the interface – indeed at multiple interfaces – happenings and exchanges at the interface or

boundary can constantly be a test to the identity conceptions of the self as well as of the

collective (i.e. traffic police as a force/entity). While some of the interface experiences can

contribute to strengthening the identity conception(s), as evident from discussion in the previous

section, some others can be felt as adversely affecting or even threatening them.

It is not difficult to recognize that traffic police operate at multiple interfaces continuously,

some of which are:

a) Between the ordinary public (pedestrians/ travellers) - and - the law (i.e. abide by the traffic

rules, enforcing them, on behalf of the Government);

b) Between drivers - both professional drivers as well as individual citizen drivers driving their

own vehicles - and - the law (i.e. abide by the traffic rules, enforcing them, on behalf of the

Government);

c) Law (traffic rules) breaking motorists / accident cases - and - the judicial or quasi-judicial

systems looking into it (all paper work relating to case filing, evidence collection and

preservation, follow up, etc.); and

d) Between critical events happening on the road and the people involved in them - and - the

media that cover and report on those events.

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Needless to add, police personnel posted on traffic duty in the field also have to continuously

manage the interface with their superior officers in a dynamic manner depending on the ground

realities. Hence, what is also important is to note that ‘traffic on the road’ in itself being a

dynamic phenomenon, the interface management demands on the personnel are also dynamic

and evolving in nature. There could also be possibilities of ‘shock’ experiences and which come

with the potential for causing collapse of occupational identity conceptions held by the personnel

– individually and collectively.

Hence, when we asked about the negative experiences faced by the traffic police personnel

in our sample while engaging in their role, the most frequent and dominant responses related to

interference by politicians and their own superiors; rude behaviour of superior officers;

ignorance and total disregard of traffic rules by the public and consequent negligent behaviour on

the road and road crossings; and aggressive, abusive and rude behaviours of traffic defaulters –

both drivers and general public. The following responses illustrate these inferences drawn:

“abuse[ive] language from others [public];” “over political influence [in my duty];” “bad

behaviour from public;” “ignorance of existing laws and procedures by quite a few, also

[their] reluctance to obey law;” “when I [catch] an offender with much struggle, and then

the superior officers ask him to be released;” “attitude of superiors - in not allowing the right

things to be done;” “disobeyal by pedestrians/travellers and vehicle drivers;” “abusive words

from superiors;” “having to hear scolding from boss during duty time for reasons unrelated

to the self/self's work;” ‘illegal interruption [in duty] of politicians/others;” “lack of co-

operative mind of public;” “when I see educated people not following basic traffic rules;”

“people help the law violator, when I caught a no licence man;” “pressures from superiors

and politicians;” “[people] questioning my lawful directions;” “public reaction - when not

obeying lawful instructions;” “aggressive behaviour of people, when trying to make them

17

recognize law violations they make in front of my eyes;” “when people living in high

level/or who think they live in high level, make any traffic violations, and when they are

instructed on that, and they refuse to accept it;” “when people violate rules knowingly;” and

“when superior officer scolds while doing duty properly.”

The above negative, threatening or helpless feeling gets aptly summarized in the

following one response: “yes, duty's struggle and helplessness.”

Examining these responses from the identity lens, we recognized that these negative

experiences hindered effective performance of their duties which reduced the importance or

significance of their (felt) identity. By preventing them from acting in accordance with their

perceived self-image, these factors seemed to threaten their identity as public servants, and

therefore were identified as negative experiences, and negative emotions were attached to them.

Perhaps another possible explanation that emerged while coding this data set was by using

the ‘authority-power’ dimension of identity discussed earlier in this paper, wherein power and

authority associated with the job position were undermined when the above mentioned instances

were experienced. However, when we examined this explanation alongside individual self-

perceptions of identity, this experience seemed to be distributed somewhat evenly across

participants with self-perceptions of public service, operational work related perception, and

perception of themselves as authority figures and controllers. Indeed if these negative

experiences were related only with power dynamics, then they shouldn’t have been expressed by

participants who had a public service self-image, and should have been expressed very strongly

by participants with authority oriented self-image. However there was no correlation between the

identity perceptions and the feeling of power being undermined. A more robust inference

resulted from the examination of how these negative experiences impacted the identity of public

service.

18

DISCUSSION: MAKING SENSE OF THE SELF AT WORK

Identity theorists define identity as “parts of a self-composed of the meanings that persons

attach to the multiple roles they typically play in highly differentiated contemporary societies”

(Stryker & Burke, 2000: 284). Identity research has a strong body of knowledge emerging from

the psychology-sociology domain. However, the examination of individual identity construction

from work, or occupational identity, is a relatively new area of exploration in both the domains

of occupational science (Phelan & Kinsella, 2009) and management literature (Ashcraft, 2013).

Skorikov and Vondracek (2011) define occupational identity as one’s perception of the

self, derived from their job, and identify it as a critical component of the overall sense of self of

an individual. While there is significant research in identity constructed through membership of

social groups such as organizations, research examining how the individual constructs his

personal identity from the occupation and how the occupation relates to a collective development

of identity is fragmented and sparse (Ashcraft, 2013). Our study is a step in this direction as we

examine and bring out how individuals construct strong occupational identities by reflecting on

who they are, what they do and what are the implications of their work. Thus, this study aligns

with Pratt, Rockmann and Kaufmann (2006), and reinforces the need to examine identity at work

as emerging from not only how a person sees himself as at work but also what he/she does at

work, and the relevance of the work’s perceived consequences/outcomes.

Deriving broader inferences from our analysis, we suggest that factors which provide

external cues congruent with the traffic police personnel’s occupational identity would positively

impact and strengthen the identity. Factors which provide external cues inconsistent with their

19

occupational identity would have a negative impact on the strength of the identity. Figure 2

represents these proposed relationships.

When there is congruence between identity and external feedback which sustains this

identity, people are likely to act in ways which will further maintain the identity (Burke &

Reitzes, 1991). This implies that a strong positive occupational identity can have implications for

commitment and performance. Similar propositions have also been made for related

conceptualizations of identity: social identity as having implications for work motivation

(Ellemers, Gilder & Haslam, 2004) and the relationship of individual, collective and relational

identity to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and various type of organizational commitment

(Johnson, Chang and Yan, 2010).

FIGURE 2

Proposed Relationships between Occupational Identity and Factors Impacting Its Strength

C

I am a Public Servant

(Occupational Identity)

Observed and experienced

positive feedback from

events occurring on the job

Factors hindering effective

job performance

Recognition by relevant

stakeholders

+

+

-

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CLOSURE

When we think of traffic police, our normal tendency is to imagine a set of uniformed

people engaged in a routine, repetitive and mundane activity, which is not likely to have any

strong identity components or conceptions. However our data clearly indicate otherwise.

We found that traffic police personnel constructed strong occupational identity by rooting

it in the perceived impact of the role they performed – at a deeper and broader level. They saw

themselves as public servants, guides, helpers and protectors of the society. They strengthened

this identity by behaving consistent with their identity and in turn getting positive job

experiences for work performance, which were either directly observed outcomes or through

recognition or through positive feedback from the relevant stakeholders (in this case the

society/public). They also constantly sought supporting information to strengthen this identity

and therefore expected appreciation and recognition from critical stakeholders, such as the

society and their supervising officials, and knowledge and compliance of traffic rules by the

society. Any event which led them to perceive themselves as ineffective in doing their duty, and

thus went against their self-images, threatened their identity, and evoked negative emotions.

Some inferences can also be drawn from this study for developing suitable motivational

interventions for enhancing work engagement, performance and effectiveness of traffic police

and similar other groups, particularly working at the interface. Finally, as pointed out at the

beginning, scholarly research in the domain of police, and traffic police in particular, has been

very scanty. The research reported in this paper, hence has the potential to add its small bit

towards a better understanding of traffic police, who indeed work in challenging conditions and

contexts, and endlessly managing multiple and dynamic interfaces. As one of our respondents

puts it: “I’m the face of the police, because people see first us.”

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