Brita Bjørkelo

Verified

Brita verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Brita verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD, Clinical psychologist and Professor
• Professor at Norwegian Police University College

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the experiences and perceived effects of the dialogue-based primary-level bystander intervention “Intervene: Sexual Harassment” in preventing work-related gender-based violence and harassment within a Danish public organisation. Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal mixed method approach was used across six...

Digitalisation and the use of technology are at the core of knowledge production in policing. This paper presents various ways in which perspectives from the diverse field of science and technology studies (STS) can provide new insights into studies of policing. In detail, we suggest ways in which STS, with its broad and open perspectives, can be e...

This issue of the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology (NJSTS) is edited by the members of the research project ‘A Matter of Facts: Flows of Knowledge through Digitalized Police Practices’. The project is carried out at the Norwegian Police University College and is funded by the Research Council of Norway (grant 301762). The aim of the project...

Police leadership is an essential part of policing, as is the education of police leaders. Our study responds to the call for research on how to transform police leadership education into practice. In this longitudinal mixed-methods single case study we investigate two research questions: 1) How do the digital didactics of the digital police leader...

Does being a sexual minority member heighten the risk of sexual harassment to the same extent for women and men? We compare two perspectives on the interaction between gender and sexual minority status in predicting exposure to sexual harassment: gender and sexual minority status as independent risk factors (additive effects) versus sexual minority...

Purpose: According to the work environment hypothesis, and as documented by empirical evidence, organizational factors play a crucial role in the development of workplace bullying. However, to better understand and prevent bullying at work and establish sustainable, responsible and ethical workplaces, it is crucial to understand which organizationa...

Objectives Policing is recognized as a highly stressful occupation, encompassing stressors not commonly encountered in other fields. In response, police-specific stress scales have been developed and used when studying police work. Despite changes in the composition of police personnel, most studies examining police working conditions focus on swor...

Working conditions in the control room (WCCR) aims at increasing knowledge on working conditions and health challenges in the control room. The study invitation was sent to all current and previous employees at the control room in East police district, Norway.

Assuming that society is better off if the harm caused by crime-including the costs entailed by the investigation, prosecution and punishment-can be avoided, the proactive approach of preventive policing (PP) is generally promoted and understood as a good and effective solution. In this article, we unpack the concept of PP by analysing how it has b...

Police officers, like other professionals, need to develop their competence and skills in correspondence with society. Peer feedback has been proven to significantly affect learning in the educational setting, and colleagues are seen as significant for the learning process in organizations. However, there seems to be little systematic knowledge con...

Police investigative interviewers in special victims’ units have particularly stressing work conditions. Being few in numbers, with highly specialised competence, the health and well-being of this workgroup are key. This study explores the prevalence of muscular lower and upper back pain and stress and associations with physical activity and organi...

Purpose: A central focus of research and literature on workplace bullying is the importance of explanatory factors such as individual dispositions (i.e., the vulnerability hypothesis) and work environment factors (i.e., the work environment hypothesis). Although several studies address the importance of the two approaches, as well as their individu...

The Norwegian police is increasingly focusing on knowledge-based policing. It is intended that knowledge should steer practice, but the becoming of this knowledge rarely comes under scrutiny. The article uses a case from a police control room to explore the role technology plays in knowledge production, using perspectives from science and technolog...

Skolens oppgave er ikke bare å sikre elever et målbart læringsutbytte. Skolen er også et sted der mennesker skal leve sammen og utvikle seg. Ett av fire kompetanseområder som er lagt til grunn for Fagfornyelsen er kompetanse i å kommunisere, samhandle og å delta. Det relasjonelle aspektet inngår som en sentral del i dette. I en årrekke har profes...

Despite a growing body of research, there is no systematic body of evidence that establishes the rigour of existing measures of stress among police. The aim of this scoping review was to investigate (1) the diversity of stress measures used in police research and (2) the psychometric properties of such measures and the ways in which they are utilis...

Teachers are role models when it comes to ethics both on- and offline. Teacher education on- and offline situations and issues that may be of ethical concernThis study first investigates perceived adequacy of ethics education. Second, it investigates how perceived usefulness of ethics education relates to how aware preservice teachers’ report to be...

Varsling i arbeidslivet - arbeidsgivers og leders roller og ansvar tar for seg hvordan varsler om kritikkverdige forhold tas imot og håndteres, og hvordan de som er involvert blir ivaretatt. Boken retter søkelyset mot arbeidsgiverens og lederens rolle. Det er disse som har myndighet til å håndtere mottatte varsler, ivareta arbeidstakeren som varsl...

This chapter discusses the role of leaders in regard to whistleblowing and workplace bullying with some examples from clinical practice. In whistleblowing research, the role of leaders has been described from the earliest literature, yet the focus on the dual role of leaders as both complaint recipients and whistleblowers themselves is rather new....

Previous studies indicate that social exclusion causes aggression and reduction in pro-social behavior. However, ostracized participants tend to be more susceptible to social influence attempts. The current studies examined the effect of exclusion on agreeing with other people’s requests. In line with the need threat model of ostracism, the results...

Funding is not always essential for performing good and relevant research, but it helps. Funding frees additional time and resources, as well as co-production and co-creational processes that may not be available to individual researchers alone but may grow from larger research collaboration. In 2019, we were both involved in an application for fun...

Police agencies implement a variety of strategies for recruiting, promoting and retaining police officers with diverse backgrounds. Changes have however been difficult to attain. We expand research on representative bureaucracy by investigating diversity perspectives in a case study of the Norwegian Police Service (NPS). Using mixed-methods we inve...

Police work has become increasingly demanding and complex. Beside heightened pressure for efficiency employees in the police service need to handle a wide array of operational and organisational challenges in their profession (Shane, 2010; Berg et al., 2005). The impact of work stressors on employees in the police is well documented and some tasks...

The purpose of this study was to investigate external whistleblowers’ experiences of workplace bullying by superiors and colleagues, and to analyze how the bullying was influenced by factors such as the support they received from government or NGOs, and whether colleagues understood the reasons for the whistleblower’s actions. For bullying by colle...

Bullying at work is a long-standing area of research interest that requires investigation of the role of the individual exposed to systematic negative behaviour. Studies using cross-sectional samples and broad personality measures have found some distinguishing personal characteristics of employees who are bullied compared to others. Few, however h...

Since 2015, the Norwegian Police University College (NPUC) twice has received funding from the Research Council of Norway and its programme on gender balance in research. The projects have aimed at increasing the proportion of Professors in general and female Professors in particular, and to strengthen police science as a discipline.

Potential sources of strain at work are often divided into operational and organisational demands (Berg et al., 2005; Shane, 2010). In the police service the former, job-specific conditions, may include traumatic events and threats to physical and mental health, shift work, and overtime. The latter, organisational demands, affects all organisationa...

The aim of this Norwegian study is to focus on challenges and possibilities concerning professional digital competence (PDC) for teacher education encountering students in transition between the position as private and professionals. Students need to gain a self-understanding of who they are and how to react in a profession where there few correct...

The project focuses on specific differences in working conditions that are of importance for mental and musculoskeletal health and for work engagement and mastery of work at the Norwegian Police Service

Welcome to this Special Issue of the Nordic Journal of Studies in Policing (NJSP), which is specifically aimed at methodological challenges, limits, and possibilities for future research on policing and the police! The aim of the issue is to explore the conditions under which research on policing is facilitated and regulated by the research commu...

Since 2015, the Norwegian Police University College (NPUC) has received funding from the Research Council of Norway and the Balance programme (Work Programme 2013-2017, RCN, 2013) to work on gender balance in research through the FIX project (RCN, 2015). The aim has been to increase the proportion of professors in general, especially female profess...

Leading interaction under risk is one of the aspects of being a leader in the police. After the 22 nd of July 2011 Norwegian terror attacks it has been pointed out that the main explanatory factors as to why interaction under risk turned out as it did not necessarily was due to the lack of resources, previous evaluations or government plans but rat...

Varsling er når en ansatt sier ifra om kritikkverdige handlinger på arbeidsplassen til noen som er i stand til å gjøre noe med det. Studier gjennomført i rene varslerutvalg finner at andelen av ansatte som opplever negative reaksjoner etter varslingen, er høy. Studier som har benyttet mer tilfeldige utvalg (bekvemmelighets- eller tilfeldig trukne u...

his in-depth study investigates and discusses how police leaders lead and handle learning from experience. This is done by going into actual cases where police employees are suspected of committing criminal offences on duty and the Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs (the Bureau) decides not to prosecute, but still requests of...

The article concerns coping strategies of workers subjected to workplace bullying. Firstly, bullying process development is compared with various models of conflict escalation. Secondly, the review of literature on employees’ exposed to bullying at work responses to negative workplace activities is presented. Finally, the results of studies compari...

Purpose – Through state-of-the-art insights on whistleblowing in India, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of sociocultural dynamics in whistleblowing. Design/methodology/approach – A review of literature on wrongdoing and whistleblowing in India revealed various aspects of the national context pertinent to different stages of the...

The Norwegian Police Service (NPS) have been heavily criticized after the 22 July 2011 terror attacks at Utøya and in Oslo. One of the evaluation reports stated three shortcomings in the NPS: culture, attitudes and leadership. Management and leadership in the NPS needs to be improved and strengthened, and this shall take place among other things, w...

Reformer i offentlig forvaltning tar ofte utgangspunkt i å endre atferd via formelle strukturer og formaliserte prosedyrer og rutiner (Røvik 2007). Likevel viser forsk­ning at formell struktur og faktisk atferd i organisasjonen sjeldent samsvarer (Jacobsen og Thorsvik 2013). Å påvirke atferd gjennom formaliserte styringsinstrumenter kan dermed by p...

The police are perceived as being one of the most interesting and challenging organizations in which to study diversity because of the police’s symbolic meaning, visible role in society, legitimate power, and contact with all citizens. Even though many reports and studies have addressed diversity within the police, few have investigated recruitment...

The aim of this paper is to explore to what extent and for what purposes pre-service teachers (Study 1, n = 474) and upper secondary pupils (Study 2, n = 324) use social networking sites (SNS), and how the Government’s recommendations correspond to the two groups’ understanding of their educational institutions’ SNS guidelines. Results show that th...

Purpose This paper aims to present directions for future research by linking the academic fields of workplace bullying and whistleblowing together. This article also suggests implications as to how to deal with the health consequences that can develop after such workplace experiences. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes empirical resea...

I alle yrker som har med mennesker å gjøre spiller emosjoner en viktig rolle. Til tross for at den emosjonelle siden av ulike yrker kan ha hatt fokus i forskning, har temaet tilsynelatende vært betraktet som lite sentralt i profesjonsutdanninger, som eksempelvis lærerutdanningen. Artikkelen beskriver mulige begrep og perspektiv på hvordan emosjoner...

The reigning global market ideology, frequently referred to as neoliberalism, inherently strives for fewer economic regulations in order to create greater wealth for humanity. Whistleblowing, on the other hand, is an action that aims at preserving the conditions and values of the greater common good. Therefore, economic considerations, and human an...

The stigma of reporting wrongdoing at work: When doing right is perceived as wrong The act of reporting unethical, illegal and illegitimate practices at work, whistleblowing, can be associated with a stigma for the individual in question (Banja, 1985). This article presents the stigmatizing position of reporting wrongdoing at work, types of wrongdo...

Whistleblowing is when an employee or worker reports misconduct, such as fraud or the harassment of a colleague, to someone who is able to do something about it inside or outside his or her workplace (cf. Near & Miceli, 1985). While many studies on whistleblowing have been conducted in North America and other parts of the world (see e.g., Bjørkelo,...

http://www.psykologtidsskriftet.no/index.php?seks_id=149162&a=2 Denne artikkelen er rettet mot behandlere som møter arbeidstakere som har blitt mobbet på arbeidsplassen generelt og mobbet etter varsling spesielt i sin kliniske hverdag. Studier har vist at det å bli utsatt for mobbing på arbeidsplassen kan henge sammen med svært alvorlige helsekons...

This study investigates the characteristics of whistleblowers, the prevalence and nature of whistleblowing, and the occurrence of retaliation after whistleblowing using a randomly selected and representative sample of Norwegian employees. The results showed that 12 per cent self-reported as whistleblowers according to an operational definition. Bei...

http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-lewis-and-wim-vandekerckhove/whistleblowing-and-democratic-values/ebook/product-18732590.html;jsessionid=D065A93ACBCE34E20F02FC45382C0C85 In 2001, Sherron Watkins, an employee in the American gas and energy company Enron, notified her chief executive officer Kenneth Lay about a perceived accounting scandal. Watkins d...

This paper reports on the role of personality as an antecedent of proactive behaviour at work in the form of whistleblowing. In the interest of triangulation, two studies were used, along with two personality measures. The results of Study 1, conducted among 503 municipality employees, show that the NEO Five-Factor Inventory dimensions of extravers...

This study investigates gender differences in prevalence and effects of sexual harassment using three different estimation methods. In a representative sample of 2,349 Norwegian employees, 1.1% self-labeled as targets of sexual harassment, whereas 18.4% reported exposure to sexually harassing behaviors during the last six months. When employing lat...

Flere store IKT-prosjekter har fått mer eller mindre ønsket mediedekning som følge av forsinkelser, budsjettoverskridelser og feil ved systemenes funksjonalitet. En mulig grunn til at gjennomføringen av slike store prosjekter halter eller mislykkes, er at ledelsen ikke får tak i beslutningskritisk informasjon. Det kan skyldes at ansatte vegrer seg...

This study investigates whistleblowing and its consequences with an actual whistleblowing case which is assessed using mixed methods (interview, archival documentation, and two psychological tests) and analysed with a proposed model of the whistleblowing process (Soeken, 1986). The whistleblower blew the whistle internally on unethical coercive tre...