The present study enhances our understanding of police officers' work motivation in the context of Turkey. An extensive literature review was devoted in order to develop a revised model for examining the antecedents of the police officers' work motivation. The model was developed based on the existing literature and previous empirical evidence regarding Locke & Latham's (1990) goal-setting theory. The model not only helps us to have a better understanding about antecedents of the work motivation but also portrays the relationship between work motivation and related independent variables, including goal content, goal commitment, self-efficacy, feedback, rewards, and participatively-set goals.The data for this study was collected using a self-administrated survey of police officers who are assigned to formal police duties and as well as guarding the airport security under the command of the Security Directorate of Istanbul. Each of the study items was measured and multiple items were derived from previously validated studies. The survey was administered to the police officers who work at Ataturk Airport, plain clothes, and the public order department. Multivariate Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesized relationships between the independent and dependent variables. The results of the study were mainly consistent with the goal-setting model. The results indicated that goal difficulty, goal specificity, task significance, commitment, self-efficacy, and rewards were related to police officers' sense of motivation. Finally, recommendations for policy implications and for future research were suggested based on the result of the study.
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