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Responding to reforms: resilience through rule-bending and workarounds in the police force
Public Management Review
Abstract
When they shape expectations about professional behaviours, reforms can threaten professional identities. Using an ethnographic study of police investigators, we reveal how threats to professional identity trigger two collective processes of resilience: working the legal boundaries and securing elitism and cohesion. These processes reveal two types of relationship to compliance: apparent compliance and peer-induced compliance, which manifest through rule-bending and workarounds. At the team level, these forms of compliance fostered resilience by helping police officers to maintain their preferred identity. This study also finds that these manifestations of resilience have mixed consequences for both officers and their institution.
... Within universities themselves, they may be used at a strategic level but can also inform action at a more localised scale, within particular initiatives or departments. In the light of our discussion of the rule-setting and rule-following roles of institutions, they can be viewed as resources for rule-bending, a process of carving out a niche for action within an institutional context (Canales, 2011;Monties & Gagnon, 2022). ...
The 21st century has witnessed an increasing focus on universities' civic role and their impacts on the social and economic wellbeing of their communities. Recent work in the UK has emphasised the multifaceted character of universities' potential impacts in a context of global and local challenges, but also the persistent difficulties they face in realising such potential at a time when universities' own financial position is increasingly precarious. Drawing on findings from an action learning program involving 14 university-led partnerships, this article introduces a set of resources developed to support 'civic' universities and considers their utility and limitations in the context of the challenges identified by participants. These resources include definitions of civic activity, a framework for assessing impact and a theory of civic change. The article contextualises this material within the wider history of civic universities and draws on insights from institutional theory to reflect on the gaps between aspiration and implementation.
... Given the challenges identified by Monties and Gagnon (2022) regarding the acceptance of change following periods of police reform, any variations in performance management processes within public sector bodies must also consider human factors, such as organizational culture (Collier 2004), and their impact on the potential resistance to change inherent in evolutions to complex systems. One of the key challenges faced by the police throughout our period of study was the conflict between providing high-quality services to local communities, while at the same time, adapting to shifting priorities in how this service delivery is measured and managed, leading to a potential resistance to the way in which performance management processes are operationalized. ...
... A final stand of this research expands the scope of policy innovation to include creativity in frontline organizations (Houtgraaf 2022;Monties & Gagnon 2022;Houtgraaf et al 2021). Masood and Nisar (2022) for example argue that SLBs, especially in resource scarce conditions, use creativity and innovation to "repair" administrative processes. ...
Using qualitative data from frontline police organizations in Punjab, Pakistan, this article investigates the role of street level management on creativity and improvisation in the frontline. Our findings show that the professional identities and attitudes of the street level managers play an important role in mediating creativity by the frontline workers, especially in the hierarchal organizational structure. If the managers adopted rule-following attitude, frontline workers often faced hindrances in the use of creativity, leading to alienation. In contrast, if managers adopted a defiant attitude, frontline workers engaged in moderated creativity as they assumed the risk of rule breaking. This shows that creativity and innovation in organizations with no formal mandate to improvise is a messy and political process. Our study indicates the need to extend the research on policy innovation to hierarchal bureaucracies and organisational contexts where team work is not encouraged.
... It also conveys that the behaviors of (some of) its members can cause real harm to others. These behaviors could be attributed to self-interested desires or a wish to carry out the organizational work efficiently though rule-bending (Monties and Gagnon 2022). In both cases, this pattern of attribution indicates that the organization is actually held accountable and that changes are expected. ...
How do public employees respond to organizational identity threats? The present study investigates how public employees make sense of and react to threatening events that may call into question organization's core attributes and status. Using social identity theory and the appraisal theory of emotions, we develop a model in which organizational identity induced by negative media coverage threat provokes shame that results in exemplification. We further explain the role of public service motivation as a moderator of the proposed mediated relationships. Predictions are tested in an experimental study and a field study involving French police officers. Our results show that shame mediated the positive effect of organizational identity threat on police officers’ exemplification behaviors. When public service motivation is high, police officers are more likely to engage in exemplification to cope with organizational identity threat than when it's low. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are discussed.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... It also conveys that the behaviors of (some of) its members can cause real harm to others. These behaviors could be attributed to self-interested desires or a wish to carry out the organizational work efficiently though rule-bending (Monties and Gagnon 2022). In both cases, this pattern of attribution indicates that the organization is actually held accountable and that changes are expected. ...
How do public employees respond to organizational identity threats? The present study investigates how public employees make sense of and react to threatening events that may call into question organization’s core attributes and status. Using social identity theory and the appraisal theory of emotions, we develop a model in which organizational identity induced by negative media coverage threat provokes shame that results in exemplification. We further explain the role of public service motivation as a moderator of the proposed mediated relationships. Predictions are tested in an experimental study and a field study involving French police officers. Our results show that shame mediated the positive effect of organizational identity threat on police officers’ exemplification behaviors. When public service motivation is high, police officers are more likely to engage in exemplification to cope with organizational identity threat than when it’s low. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are discussed.
This study examines rule non-compliance from police officers and managers who decide not to enforce certain public health edicts and decrees. It examines rule non-compliance from police officers and managers who decide not to enforce certain public health edicts and decrees. The locus of our study is the severity of the consequences for rule non-compliance for citizens. We test to see whether rules with severe punishments for citizens are broken, bent, or worked around by the police more often than expected in Bozeman observations. Thirty-seven police chiefs and managers were interviewed. Sixteen focus groups totaling 149 police officers were held in 15 municipalities in a Canadian province. Non-compliance related to police officers not enforcing 1556 Canadian dollars (US$1260; 1082€) fines was high. This study provides credence that workaround is a flexible concept explaining how discretion is used on the frontlines of public service.
When facing a disobedient client, caseworkers are often required to impose sanctions. Even when sanctions are explicitly required by law, however, research shows that caseworkers may turn a blind eye. Why so? This study asks how certain clients can merit themselves to avoid sanctioning. Theorizing from the notion of client deservingness, we develop a theoretical account of how certain client attributes cause frontline workers to bend the rules. Drawing from a novel conjoint experiment among Danish unemployment caseworkers (n = 407 with 1,210 observations), we show how caseworkers tend to favor stronger clients when bending the rules in clients’ favor. Clients who appear motivated, who have not been sanctioned in the past, and who have more past job experience are all less likely to be sanctioned. Our findings reveal a paradox: Although welfare usually targets clients in need, avoiding welfare sanctions seems based on client resources. Consequently, caseworker rule-bending can have unintended distributional consequences since stronger clients are those who can get away with disobedience.
As with other parts of the public sector, policing has had to confront the principles and processes attached to new public management. This paper examines the impact of police performance management on the ‘occupational professionalism’ of British policing actors with a particular focus on organisational units concerned with criminal investigation. Based on qualitative empirical research on two major police forces in England and Wales, the paper arrives at three main conclusions. First, there appears to be a clear impact of police performance management, with its instruments of standardised operational procedures, performance monitoring and strengthened internal accountability, on the professional autonomy given to police actors. This takes the form of what others have seen as a shift from ‘occupational professionalism’ to ‘organisational professionalism’. Second, despite this overall trend, tensions and professional rivalries remain between police frontline officers, supervisors and middle managers around the perceived virtues and practices of performance management. In particular concerns are expressed at various levels over the dangers of ‘short-termism’ in police decision-making. Third, and building on this finding, varied modes of professional adaptation to the police performance regime have occurred in which some sectors, notably those involved with high profile serious criminal investigations, have worked to win professional space and exploit a hierarchy of prestige in order to actively interpret and shape agendas. We conclude that this situation is akin to the ‘managed professionalism’ found amongst many other public service professions.
Is resilience always adaptive and functional, or can resilience be maladaptive in contexts where it masks vulnerability or prevents effective action to address risk? In this paper, we propose a new reading of resilience research which challenges the prevailing positive perspective and instead proposes that negative aspects of resilience are common. We focus on studying resilience on a spectrum, distinguishing between degrees of functionality by asking three questions: (1) Is there a wrong degree of resilience? (2) Is there a wrong context for resilience? and (3) Is there a wrong type of resilience? We conclude with reflections on the dark side of resilience by differentiating between functional and less functional adaptation in relation to contexts, degrees of risk, and types of resilience shown.
According to public management literature, trust has a positive influence on behavior. Why, then, do street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) appear to favor clients whom they do not trust, and give less attention to those they do trust? Do organizational conditions play a role in this dynamic? We investigate these issues as they affect Israeli social services providers. Our study improves our understanding of trust as a factor in public service delivery. When SLBs operate in an unsupportive environment, they prioritize clients whom they distrust, bending or breaking rules for them, yet ration services to clients whom they trust.
The article examines administrative workarounds in the context of university research administration. The empirical results from 116 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers with active National Science Foundation awards are framed by a “Rules Response” model positing relationships among rules compliance requests, administrative burden, red tape, and response choices, including compliance, appeal, rule bending, rule breaking, and workaround behaviors. Propositions are presented and reviewed in light of empirical results. The article concludes the implications of empirical results for improving the Rules Response model and a more general discussion of research needed to improve the understanding of both rules compliance and workarounds.
Reputational threats are key to understanding public services’ behaviour. Previous research has viewed external performance assessments as an unwelcome imposition on public managers and a threat to organizational identity. Analysing the adoption of a self-imposed process of peer-led assessment by public managers in UK local government we show how the absence of performance assessment was seen as a reputational threat. Engaging proactively with the new voluntary assessments becomes an essential tool for active reputation management. We find that reputation does not only shape the responses to external performance assessment but the external performance assessment itself.
In today’s turbulent business environments, work teams frequently face a variety of adverse conditions and, as a result, can experience process breakdowns and performance declines. Despite existing research on team effectiveness, we know very little about what enables teams to “bounce back” from adversity-induced setbacks. This is problematic because such negative experiences can lead to team failure. In response to this, we draw from conservation of resources theory to develop a comprehensive theoretical model of work team resilience that clarifies the meaning of the work team resilience construct and illustrates both how it emerges in an interdependent fashion via critical team-level resources and how it unfolds over time through team processes. In doing so we highlight the compelling phenomenon in which energetic, interdependent team member activity leads to goal attainment during challenging circumstances. We
further theorize that work team resilience strengthens over time through mastery experiences, functioning as a self-reinforcing gain spiral. We contribute to the management literature by highlighting the key antecedents and processes that distinguish resilient work teams from brittle ones, including those teams that are merely adaptable
and those that excel in stable environments but falter under adversity. We inform practitioners about how to build and sustain resilient work teams.
This paper briefly reviews the changing usage of the concept of police culture in studies of policing. It argues that what are regarded as the early classic studies in the field (which hardly used the term culture itself) analyzed the world-views of police officers are primarily shaped in a dialectical interaction with structural factors stemming from the police role. Some of these factors are intrinsic to policing in any circumstances, others vary between political economies, social and organizational forms, and general cultures.
Organization scholarship has seen an escalation of interest in research into extremes. Comprising several interconnected domains, this growing body of research is decidedly fragmented. This fragmentation risks limiting its potential for advancing management and organization studies. Drawing on 138 articles published in top-tier journals between 1980 and 2015, the purpose of this review is to resolve some of this fragmentation by sharpening definitions and by developing a context-specific typology to help differentiate between contributions from research into risky contexts, emergency contexts, and disrupted contexts. Doing so allows us to let the various literatures speak to each other and to outline ways to enhance the cumulative potential of extreme context research.
Resilience, the ability to adapt to adversity and endure job demands, is growing in prominence in the management literature with limited regard to occupational influences. Often examined at the individual level with fragmented conceptualizations, it can be a trait, capacity, or a process. We conduct a review of (1) management studies and (2) content from O*NET for 11 occupations and disciplinary studies taking a grounded approach to synthesize themes to develop an integrated occupational resilience framework. Our review suggests that resilience is individually and occupationally determined as part of a multi-level system. Our review shows that specific occupational tasks and contextual demands imply different connotations of what exactly “resilience” means and how contexts may constrain or foster resiliency. Occupational resilience involves (1) multiple conceptual strands related to accessing resources (trait, capacity, and processes); (2) positive and negative triggers that are occupationally distinguished; (3) different resilience types (cognitive, emotional, and physical) that vary in need, breadth, and importance across occupations; (4) a dynamic phenomenon that occurs within and across career stages; (5) both content-general, and job-specific occupational tensions; and (6) work and nonwork domains. Multi-level occupational-specific and comparative studies, adaptive performance and risk taking across the work–nonwork interface are highlighted areas for future research.
In this research article, we discuss the social construction of public services within the conceptual and theoretical framework provided by Lipsky. We are interested in what it means if/when street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) have an active role in the construction of a service system. We argue that there are multiple realities in terms of the construction of public services and we approach the question by deploying Lipsky’s notion on SLBs by empirically analysing middle managers’ views on how SLBs act and their role in this construction process. This paper is based on empirical interviews (N=100) collated in 2012 from Barcelona, Den Bosch, Glasgow, Melbourne, Toronto, Vancouver, the Greater London area, and the US state of Vermont. The research collation strategy was to include reform-oriented cities and countries in terms of developing and delivering public services. We found that SLBs have three different kinds of strategies in the construction process: policy-making, working practices, and professionalism. We found that there are no conflicts arising from SLBs’ beliefs, organisational demands, and rules and regulations. Instead, SLBs try to solve conflicts or bridge gaps between policy-making and practical work in the boundaries between SLBs and service users. Based on this research, the role of SLBs and the built-in flexibility and agility of public service leadership and organisations must be addressed and developed further. The role of organisational learning and changing organisational cultures must also be scrutinized in the context of public service systems. The analysis of professional resilience in the context of public services planning needs more theoretical and empirical attention. The resilience of organisations and the capacities of SLBs need to be researched more. Finally, there is the need for better cultivation of the role of the SLBs and service users with regard to accountability aspects (horizontal and vertical).
Resilience, the ability to adapt to adversity and endure job demands, is growing in prominence in the management literature with limited regard to occupational influences. Often examined at the individual level with fragmented conceptualizations, it can be a trait, capacity, or a process. We conduct a review of (1) management studies and (2) content from O*NET for 11 occupations and disciplinary studies taking a grounded approach to synthesize themes to develop an integrated occupational resilience framework. Our review suggests that resilience is individually and occupationally determined as part of a multi-level system. Our review shows that specific occupational tasks and contextual demands imply different connotations of what exactly “resilience” means and how contexts may constrain or foster resiliency. Occupational resilience involves (1) multiple conceptual strands related to accessing resources (trait, capacity, and processes); (2) positive and negative triggers that are occupationally distinguished; (3) different resilience types (cognitive, emotional, and physical) that vary in need, breadth, and importance across occupations; (4) a dynamic phenomenon that occurs within and across career stages; (5) both content-general, and job-specific occupational tensions; and (6) work and nonwork domains. Multi-level occupational-specific and comparative studies, adaptive performance and risk taking across the work–nonwork interface are highlighted areas for future research.
There is an increasing interest in the public management literature in questions related to street-level bureaucrats' (SLBs) behaviors and attitudes and how these can be influenced. Complex and ambiguous working environments require SLBs to exercise discretion, and thereby bend rules to perform their daily tasks. This study identifies factors influencing SLBs' rule-bending behaviors for procedural improvements. The concept of unbureaucratic behavior, defined as a rule-bending behavior for procedural improvements, serves as a theoretical basis. Relying on data of 1,003 enforcement officers from the German state police, this study's findings indicate that SLBs' unbureaucratic behavior can be influenced by stimulating employees' voice behavior and their readiness for strategy. Surprisingly, SLBs' access to resources does not significantly affect their exercise of unbureaucratic behavior.
The identity literature suggests that the stigma of "dirty work" threatens the ability of occupational members to construct an esteem-enhancing social identity. However, research indicates much the opposite, creating a puzzle we attempt to answer. We argue that the stigma of dirty work fosters development of a strong occupational or workgroup culture, which fosters (1) ideological reframing, recalibrating, and refocusing and (2) selective social comparisons and differential weighting of outsiders' views. These defense mechanisms transform the meaning of "dirt" and moderate the impact of social perceptions of dirtiness.
Performance management in some form is now a global feature of policing in both developed and developing countries. Under the steer of ‘new public management’, cultures of performance and the instruments of performance management are increasingly a part of the landscape of twenty-first century policing. However, there has been little by way of comparative analysis of the different regimes of police performance management, despite the wider expansion of scholarship on comparative policing. This article seeks to address this gap by comparing police performance management in Britain and France. It examines the relationship between the rise of police performance management and the wider politicisation of ‘law and order’ in both contexts. It then discusses police performance management in the two states in terms of comparisons of performance regimes around the themes of ‘centralisation’ and ‘localism’, the dimensions of policing which form measurements of police performance, the role of ‘transparency’ and exposure of data in performance management and the role of ‘consumerism’ the police performance regimes. It also considers the extent to which senior police representative bodies have shaped or resisted the performance agenda. In conclusion, the article locates variance in police performance management between the two states within the fundamental differences in governance, structure and ethos between the two policing systems.
Frontline workers, such as teachers and social workers, often experience stress when delivering public services to clients, for instance because of high workloads. They adapt by coping, using such practices as breaking or bending rules for clients, or rationing services. Although coping is recognized as an important response to the problems of frontline work, the public administration field lacks a comprehensive view of coping. The first contribution of this article is therefore theoretical: conceptualizing coping during public service delivery and developing a coherent classification of coping. This is done via a systematic review of the literature from 1981 to 2014. The second contribution is empirical: via a systematic review of the literature from 1981–2014 this article provides a framework and analytical account of how coping during public service delivery has been studied since 1980. It highlights the importance of the type of profession (such as being a teacher or a police officer), the amount of workload, and the degree of discretion for understanding how frontline workers cope with stress. It also reveals that frontline workers often draw on the coping family “moving towards clients” revealing a strong tendency to provide meaningful public service to clients, even under stressful conditions. We conclude with an agenda for future studies, examining new theoretical, methodological and empirical opportunities to advance understanding of coping during public service delivery.
This systematic review presents findings from a conceptual and methodological review of resilience measures using an interactionist theoretical framework. The review is also intended to update findings from previous systematic reviews. Two databases (EBSCOHost and Scopus) were searched to retrieve empirical studies published up until 2013, with no lower time limit. All articles had to meet specific inclusion criteria, which resulted in 17 resilience measures selected for full review. Measures were conceptually evaluated against an interactionist framework and methodologically reviewed using Skinner's (1981) validity evidence framework. We conclude that inconsistencies associated with the definition and operationalization of resilience warrant further conceptual development to explain resilience as a dynamic and interactive phenomenon. In particular, measures of resilience may benefit from a greater focus on within-person variance typically associated with behavioral consistency across situations. The use of alternative measurement modalities to self-report scales, such as situational judgment tests, is proposed as a way of advancing knowledge in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
For all its richness and potential for discovery, qualitative research has been critiqued as too often lacking in scholarly rigor. The authors summarize a systematic approach to new concept development and grounded theory articulation that is designed to bring “qualitative rigor” to the conduct and presentation of inductive research.
The primary purpose of this study was to compare and contrast an organization's official culture and its subcultures. The proposition that soft bureaucracies project a rigid exterior appearance, symbolizing what key stakeholders expect, while masking a loosely-coupled set of interior practices, guided this analysis of a police organization. The official culture (crime-fighting command bureaucracy) was examined as an arbitrary set of symbols and meaning structures arranged according to top management preferences. Using qualitative and quantitative data, the organization's subcultures were profiled. It was demonstrated that top management was unable to impose organization-wide conformance with the official culture. There was close conformance to the official culture in only one of five distinct clusters of officers ("crime-fighting commandoes," 21 percent of the sample). Officers in the other clusters ("crime-fighting street professionals," "peace-keeping moral entrepreneurs," "ass-covering legalists," and "anti-military social workers") substantially modified or rejected top management's dictates. They represented resistance subcultures, similar in their opposition to official culture, but unique in form. It was concluded that other organizations, not known for their monolithic image and solidarity, also encompass subcultures.
The concept of ‘dirty work’ has much potential to offer insights into processes related to the construction of organizational identities and work-group cultures. In this article, I use a social constructionist framework, to argue that ‘dirty workers’ perform their identities in two conceptually distinct contexts: ‘front regions’ and ‘back regions’ (Goffman, 1959), each producing its own subjective challenges. I use a critical discourse analysis to explore how, within the research interview setting, police officers deal with the moral dilemma of their use of coercive authority. I argue that what is designated as ‘dirty’ within any specific role differs according to the perspective of the observer, revealing the boundaries and landscape of different moral and social orders and how these overlap and compete. It is further argued that, within specific interactional contexts, occupational identity comprises a site of contestation for these different moral and social orders. The utility of the dirty work concept is explored in relation to its ability to illuminate the dynamics of ideological reproduction and transformation.
This is the perfect book for any student new to qualitative research. In this exciting and major updating of his bestselling, benchmark text, David Silverman walks the reader through the basics of gathering and analysing qualitative data. David Silverman offers beginners unrivalled hands-on guidance necessary to get the best out of a research methods course or an undergraduate research project. New to the fourth edition: - A new chapter on data analysis dealing with grounded theory, discourse analysis and narrative analysis - Further worked-through examples of different kinds of data and how to interpret them - A separate section on focus groups and interpreting focus group data - An expanded ethics chapter - More coverage of digital media and photographs as data - A companion website with additional case studies and examples, links to SAGE journals online, and links to useful websites, podcasts and Youtube videos. This fourth edition is also accompanied with its own group page on www.methodspace.com where users can give feedback and discuss research issues.Visit www.methodspace.com/group/silverman
A resource-building group intervention was developed to enhance career management, mental health, and job retention in work organizations. The in-company training program provided employees with better preparedness to manage their own careers. The program activities were universally implemented using an organization-level, 2-trainer model with trainers from the human resources management and occupational health services. The study was a within-organizations, randomly assigned field experimental study; it investigated the impacts of the intervention on immediate career management preparedness and later mental health and intentions to retire early. A total of 718 eligible individuals returned a questionnaire in 17 organizations and became voluntary participants. The respondents were randomly assigned to either an intervention (N = 369) or a comparison group (N = 349). Those in the intervention group were invited to group intervention workshops, whereas those in the comparison group received printed information about career and health-related issues. The 7-month follow-up results showed that the program significantly decreased depressive symptoms and intentions to retire early and increased mental resources among the group participants compared to the others. The mediation analyses demonstrated that the increase in career management preparedness as a proximal impact of the intervention mediated the longer term mental health effects. Those who benefited most from the intervention as regards their mental health were employees with elevated levels of depression or exhaustion and younger employees, implying additional benefits of a more targeted use of the intervention. The results demonstrated the benefits of the enhancement of individual-level career management and resilience resources as career and health promotion practice in work organizations.
This paper has been accepted for publication in Public Administration Review. After sixty years of scholarship on the rule-bound bureaucratic personality, this article turns attention to the unbureaucratic personality. Identified by a willingness to bend rules, the unbureaucratic personality is thought to be influenced by individual and workplace attributes, each which shed light on the nature of rule-bending. Individual attributes investigated include nonconformity, risk propensity, and public service commitment, all expected to stimulate the unbureaucratic personality. Workplace attributes include formalization and centralization, which are expected to suppress the unbureaucratic personality, and red tape, which is expected to trigger it. These hypotheses are tested using mail survey data collected from employees of four cities in a Midwestern state. The results of ordered probit modeling of the data suggest that nonconformity and risk taking increase the unbureaucratic personality, as do red tape and centralized workplaces. By contrast, the unbureaucratic personality appears to be lowered by public service commitment and workplace formalization. The implications of these results for the normative aspects of rule-bending are discussed. Data used in this paper were collected and analyzed with the support of a fellowship from the American Association of University Women; a new faculty grant from the University of Kansas; and research assistant support from the Institute for Policy and Social Research at University of Kansas. This support does not imply endorsement of the paper’s analyses or opinions.
It is becoming increasingly important for employees to be able to cope with change in the workplace. This longitudinal study examined a set of individual differences and context-specific predictors of employee openness (i.e., change acceptance and positive view of changes) toward a set of workplace changes. Personal resilience (a composite of self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control) was related to higher levels of change acceptance. Three context-specific variables (information received about the changes, self-efficacy for coping with the changes, and participation in the change decision process) were predictive of higher levels of employee openness to the changes. Lower levels of change acceptance were associated with less job satisfaction, more work irritation, and stronger intentions to quit.
Research on street-level bureaucrats has identified their role as policy entrepreneurs through the adoption and advocacy of policy innovations. This article adds to this research by underscoring how street-level bureaucrats use creativity and improvisation to find contextual solutions for emergent local policy problems in response to scarcity. We suggest that these practices of policy repair allow frontline bureaucracies to deal with personnel, process, and material scarcity and maintain public service delivery even in resource-scarce environments. Using ethnographic data from Punjab, Pakistan, we show that this repair work is collaborative, client-centered, and motivated by compassion and kindness. Our research indicates that emergent and improvised policy repair allows frontline bureaucracies to be resilient and responsive to scarcity and changing service demands. Our findings further suggest that inclusion of street-level bureaucrats in formal policy decisions can help develop context-specific solutions to emergent problems of public service delivery.
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In an increasingly dynamic business environment, the concept of resilience is fundamental to understanding how employees successfully handle adversity. Yet, the operationalization of the concept, the factors which lead to its development, and how and why it influences outcomes of interest to organizations are issues still under debate in the literature. In this article, we address these debates by undertaking a critical review of research on resilience in the workplace at both the individual and team levels. We pinpoint different conceptualizations of resilience and highlight how resilience has been measured in extant quantitative work. Further, we provide a systematic literature review of empirical work on the antecedents and outcomes of resilience at the individual and team levels, as well as conduct a review of work that has introduced resilience as a moderator or mediator. In doing so, we highlight theoretical approaches that have been adopted to study resilience in the workplace. Based on our review of the extant empirical work on resilience, we develop a roadmap for future research. In particular, we pinpoint relevant theoretical approaches that help us understand the mechanisms underlying the development and outcomes of resilience and highlight opportunities for empirical advancement of the literature.
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Workforce development is central to public management theory and practice. However, little is known about the impact that organizations have on public workforce development. This paper contributes by examining the attitudes, identities, and motivations of an entering cohort of police officers over a 10-year period. Analysing survey responses, the paper shows little evidence that the department radically remade entrants or that the fit between entrants and the department was a key determinant of attrition. Because police socialization is particularly intense, these findings suggest that public workforce development may be more determined by pre-entry selection and recruitment than by post-entry influences.
The turn to collaborative governance is a key feature of the New Public Governance environment in many Western economies. Within the UK, successive governments have mandated policing organizations to engage in public service partnerships and collaborate with communities. This paper examines one such collaborative arrangement, namely, neighbourhood public meetings. Drawing on a theoretical framing of the dynamic relationship between identities, agency and power, we critically explore how individuals seek to persuade, defend and legitimate their values, beliefs and practices in collaborative situations. The paper provides a nuanced exploration of the challenges of collaboration for both public servants and community members.
Rules help ensure consistent employee behaviour, yet rule bending occurs in public organizations every day. Previous research indicates that rule bending is influenced by organizational structure and personal characteristics (DeHart-Davis 2007). This present study considers the influence of organizational norms on rule bending by exploring the impact of ethical climate, which signals to employees the best course of action when faced with situations that are ethical in nature (Victor and Cullen 1987, 1988). To investigate this relationship, survey data from employees of a large American local government are analysed. Results from a structural equation model show that three ethical climates – ‘organization interest’, ‘team interest’, and ‘rules/SOP’ – significantly influence rule bending. Findings suggest that organizational norms play a critical role for employee behaviour and public managers can consider rule bending and ethical climate as impetuses for organizational change.
Most studies on identity work have overlooked the corporeal quality of occupational life. Despite calls to attempt such engagement, little is known about the role of the body in occupations for which corporeal elements are central in the affirmation of identity. This study aims to answer such calls by providing a detailed ethnography of police work. Focusing on four bodily practices, we demonstrate how fitness, intimidation, cleanliness, and toughness are central elements to the officers' construction of self. We thereby highlight the notion of physical selfhood as a way to understand the body/identity nexus among police officers and their capacity to resist new work requirements. We view bodies through a lens of resistance, rather than docility and compliance as much previous research has done. We aim to contribute to scholarship on identity work by portraying the politicization of bodies as a powerful component, thereby helping professionals to deflect some important institutional pressures affecting their work. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The establishment of Police Scotland: An analysis of the reform
In September 2011, the Scottish Justice Secretary announced that in order to address significant reductions in government appropriations, the eight local police forces would be replaced on 1 April 2013 with a single national Police Scotland. The statement heralded the most significant changes in the history of policing in Scotland, sharply contrasting with the current emphasis placed on community policing and localism in police services in other western democratic countries. This article presents an examination into the planning and the development of the Scottish police merger 12 months after the establishment of Police Scotland. Based on a number of semi-structured interviews with policy and decision makers, the research found that the Scottish Government decision to reform policing in Scotland does not appear to have been based on best evidence or best practice and that the implementation process has been mechanical by primarily relying on the introduction of legislation.
This book seeks to give a comprehensive theory of policing. To set out the background for such a theory, the diverse types of agencies involved in policing, the history of policing, and the representations of policing in the press and in police literature are examined. The police are then defined by their use of a wide array of means, including violence, which are prohibited as legal violations for all other citizens. This definition is tested in the subsequent chapters bearing on the main components of the police web. First, the public police working in uniform are described in respect of who they are, what part of their activities are devoted to crime control, and the ways in which they operate. Second, criminal investigators are put in focus and empirical findings on how they clear up cases are discussed. The security and intelligence services are the subject of the next chapter, which develops a model that contrasts "high policing" (intelligence services) with "low policing" (public constabularies). The following chapter addresses the crucial issues that relate to private security, stressing the uncertainty of our current knowledge, and proposes a fully developed model integrating public and private security. The last chapter is devoted to military policing in its democratic and undemocratic variants, and to the extra-legal social control exercised by criminal organizations such as the Mafia. In conclusion, the book tries to link the theoretical issues raised throughout the book and make his position explicit with respect to all of them.
First published in 1980, Street-Level Bureaucracy received critical acclaim for its insightful study of how public service workers, in effect, function as policy decision makers, as they wield their considerable discretion in the day-to-day implementation of public programs. Three decades later, the need to bolster the availability and effectiveness of healthcare, social services, education, and law enforcement is as urgent as ever. In this thirtieth anniversary expanded edition, Michael Lipsky revisits the territory he mapped out in the first edition to reflect on significant policy developments over the last several decades. Despite the difficulties of managing these front-line workers, he shows how street-level bureaucracies can be and regularly are brought into line with public purposes. Street-level bureaucrats-from teachers and police officers to social workers and legal-aid lawyers-interact directly with the public and so represent the frontlines of government policy. In Street-Level Bureaucracy, Lipsky argues that these relatively low-level public service employees labor under huge caseloads, ambiguous agency goals, and inadequate resources. When combined with substantial discretionary authority and the requirement to interpret policy on a case-by-case basis, the difference between government policy in theory and policy in practice can be substantial and troubling. The core dilemma of street-level bureaucrats is that they are supposed to help people or make decisions about them on the basis of individual cases, yet the structure of their jobs makes this impossible. Instead, they are forced to adopt practices such as rationing resources, screening applicants for qualities their organizations favor, "rubberstamping" applications, and routinizing client interactions by imposing the uniformities of mass processing on situations requiring human responsiveness. Occasionally, such strategies work out in favor of the client. But the cumulative effect of street-level decisions made on the basis of routines and simplifications about clients can reroute the intended direction of policy, undermining citizens' expectations of evenhanded treatment. This seminal, award-winning study tells a cautionary tale of how decisions made by overburdened workers translate into ad-hoc policy adaptations that impact peoples' lives and life opportunities. Lipsky maintains, however, that these problems are not insurmountable. Over the years, public managers have developed ways to bring street-level performance more in line with agency goals. This expanded edition of Street-Level Bureaucracy underscores that, despite its challenging nature, street-level work can be made to conform to higher expectations of public service.
The Measurement of Crime in France since the 1970s. Between Expertise and Publicity
This paper describes the different statistical measures of criminality that have been used in France since the 1970s and the policies for which they have been used. They first bore on the police activity, then on the fear of crime and on security preoccupation with security, then on victimization of citizens. Finally, in the 2000s, these data have been used as performance measures of the police staff which entails many problems, that they denounce. We explain them by questioning the articulation between expertise and publicity.
I review and reconceptualize identity threat, defining it as an experience appraised as indicating potential harm to the value, meanings, or enactment of an identity. I also develop a theoretical model and propositions that generate insights into how individuals respond to identity threats originating from a range of sources. I use this theory to explore individual and organizational consequences of different identity threat responses and their implications for research on identity dynamics within organizations.
In both the academic and popular press, the related concepts of risk, protection, and resilience have emerged as constructs
for conceptualizing social and health problems. The idea of “risk” is ubiquitous in social work. In everyday use, the term
conveys the notion that an individual, family, group, school, neighborhood, or organization is likely to experience a negative
outcome. Although the ideas of protection and resilience conjure up images of extraordinary feats in overcoming adversity,
they are elusive. In light of the growing salience of what some call the “risk-and-resilience” perspective, this special issue
of Social Work Research highlights social work research that uses the concepts of risk, protection, and resilience. In this introductory article,
the authors define key terms, discuss methodological issues, and explore implications for the profession.
With increased pressure to perform, fewer resources, and more regulation, employees may justify a lack of compliance by calling it rule-bending rather than rule-breaking. The present study addresses this concern by analyzing situations where personnel decide to bend the rules, including an examination of motives, prudential judgment, and perceived threat to the organization. Qualitative analysis shows that when rule-bending was considered necessary, the perceived threat of this behavior to the organization was reduced, except when officials applied prudential judgment in their decision-making. Implications and future research are discussed.
This study examined the influence of psychological capital on job search among displaced employees. On the basis of a sample of 179 retrenched professionals, managers, executives, and technicians, we found that psychological capital (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience) was positively related with displaced employees' level of perceived employability, a coping resource. Perceived employability was positively related with problem-focused and symptom-focused coping strategies. Whereas problem-focused coping was positively related with preparatory and active job search, symptom-focused coping strategy was not. The relationship between psychological capital and preparatory and active job search was mediated by perceived employability and problem-focused coping. Implications of our findings are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This essay draws from the emerging positive psychology movement and the author's recent articles on the need for and meaning of a positive approach to organizational behavior. Specifically, the argument is made that at this time, the OB field needs a proactive, positive approach emphasizing strengths, rather than continuing in the downward spiral of negativity trying to fix weaknesses. However, to avoid the surface positivity represented by the non-sustainable best-sellers, the case is made for positive organizational behavior (POB) to take advantage of the OB field's strength of being theory and research driven. Additional criteria for this version of POB are to identify unique, state-like psychological capacities that can not only be validly measured, but also be open to development and performance management. Confidence, hope, and resiliency are offered as meeting such POB inclusion criteria. The overall intent of the essay is to generate some positive thinking and excitement for the OB field and ‘hopefully’ stimulate some new theory building, research, and effective application. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies-from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.
This article examines positive organizational behavior in the work environment. Particular focus is given to the impact and effects of optimism, resilience and hope. The authors, implement the foundation of positive psychology and organizational behavior, investigate the impact of positive behavior on desired work-related outcomes, such as employee performance and job satisfaction. The results support the hypotheses that an employee's positive psychological resource capacity impacts the outcomes; however, resilience, hope, and optimism contribute differently to various outcomes.
Career motivation is viewed as a multidimensional construct. Components consist of individual characteristics (career identity, career insight, and career resilience domains) and corresponding career decisions and behaviors. Relationships among these components and relevant situational conditions are proposed in a model based on prospective and retrospective rationality. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Academy of Management Review is the property of Academy of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts)
Why do people keep fighting for social causes in the face of consistent failure? Why do they risk their physical, emotional, and financial safety on behalf of strangers? How do these groups survive high turnover and emotional burnout? To explore these questions, Erika Summers Effler undertook three years of ethnographic fieldwork with two groups: antiâdeath penalty activists STOP and the Catholic Workers, who strive to alleviate poverty. In both communities, members must contend with problems that range from the broad to the intimately personal. Adverse political conditions, internal conflict, and fluctuations in financial resources create a backdrop of daily frustrationâbut watching an addict relapse or an inmateâs execution are much more devastating setbacks. Summers Effler finds that overcoming these obstacles, recovering from failure, and maintaining the integrity of the group require a constant process of emotional fine-tuning, and she demonstrates how activists do this through thoughtful analysis and a lucid rendering of their deeply affecting stories.
Whether on a patrol beat, in social service offices, or in public school classrooms, street-level workers continually confront rules in relation to their own beliefs about the people they encounter. Cops, Teachers, Counselors is the first major study of street-level bureaucracy to rely on storytelling. Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno collect the stories told by these workers in order to analyze the ways that they ascribe identities to the people they encounter and use these identities to account for their own decisions and actions. The authors show us how the world of street-level work is defined by the competing tensions of law abidance and cultural abidance in a unique study that finally allows cops, teachers, and counselors to voice their own views of their work. Steven Maynard-Moody is Director of the Policy Research Institute and Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas. Michael Musheno is Professor of Justice and Policy Studies at Lycoming College and Professor Emeritus of Justice Studies, Arizona State University.
The Functions of the Police in Modern Society: A Review of Background Factors, Current Practices, and Possible Role Models
- E Bittner
- Bittner E.
Bittner, E. 1970. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society: A Review of Background Factors,
Current Practices, and Possible Role Models. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Public Managers in Integrated Services Collaboratives : What Works Is Workarounds
- D Campbell
Campbell, D. 2012. "Public Managers in Integrated Services Collaboratives : What Works Is
Workarounds." Public Administration Review 72 (5): 721-730. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02545.x.
The Case Study Anthology
- R K Yin
- Yin R. K
Yin, R. K. 2004. The Case Study Anthology. Thousand Oaks: Sage.