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This study aims examine to what extent four variable categories of individual ethical ideology, organizational ethical culture, superior's ethical quality and job satisfaction (JS) are causally linked to personal (un)ethical behaviors among South Korean police officers.

With a stratified sampling technique, 687 surveys were collected from 16 major local police headquarters across the nation. The reliability and validity of the variables were checked. The structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypotheses.

Idealism, principlism, utilitarianism and JS have a negative influence on unethical behaviors, whereas superior's unethical standards are positively associated with unethical behaviors.

The findings can be applied as a reference to improve ethical framework to promote behaviors by enriching the higher level of personal ethical ideology, superior's ethical quality and principlism and utilitarianism by adding an ethics training course to the continuing education program for all officers and developing further education programs for police leadership to raise ethical awareness and quality.

To the authors' knowledge, the study is among the first studies with four comprehensive categories of relevant variables and adds understanding to (un)ethical behaviors of police officers.

In spite of the importance of officers' perception of organizational justice and its influence on organizational commitment, the policing literature lacks information about the relationship between the factors. Using job satisfaction as a mediator, this study aims to examine an indirect influence of organizational justice on police officers' commitment to their organization.

This study employed a survey of 418 police officers in South Korea while on in‐service training. In exploring the complex relationship among organizational justice (i.e. distributive, procedural, and interactional), job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, the researchers utilized structural equation modeling to overcome the weaknesses of linear regression models.

Officers' perception of organizational justice was positively related with their level of organizational commitment. In addition, perception of procedural and interactional justice had an indirect impact on the officers' organizational commitment through distributive justice. Lastly, perception of organizational justice showed an indirect influence on organizational commitment through job satisfaction.

Due to its cross‐sectional design, the findings do not confirm any causal relationship among the variables. In addition, the current study used a purposive sample of police officers in South Korea, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

This study contributes to the literature by examining organizational commitment in light of officers' perception of organizational justice and job satisfaction using structural equation modeling to explore the complex relationship among the organizational factors.