Gabriele Jacobs

A theoretical framework of organizational change

Purpose – Organizational change is a risky endeavour. Most change initiatives fall short on their goals and produce high opportunity and process costs, which at times outweigh the content benefits of organizational change. This paper seeks to develop a framework, offering a theoretical toolbox to analyze context‐dependent barriers and enablers of organizational change. Starting from an organizational identity perspective, it aims to link contingency‐based approaches, such as environmental scan, SWOT and stakeholder analysis, with insights from organizational behaviour research, such as knowledge sharing and leadership.Design/methodology/approach – The framework is informed by long‐lasting field research into organizational change in an international policing environment. The theories in the framework are selected from the perspective of field validity in two ways; they were chosen because the topics covered by these theories emerged as relevant during the field research and therefore it can be expected th...

Survivors and Victims, a Meta‐analytical Review of Fairness and Organizational Commitment after Downsizing

There is a lack of consistent evidence that downsizing leads to improved financial performance. Lowered commitment after painful downsizing periods is identified as an important reason why downsizing does not show the intended long-term effects. This paper provides a meta-analytical overview of the impact of fairness on organizational commitment for survivors and victims after a downsizing operation. Among 37 samples (11,256 persons), a positive relationship was found between fairness and affective organizational commitment (ρ=0.40) for both survivors and victims. Three moderators of the fairness–commitment relationship were identified: (1) for survivors, procedural justice matters more than distributive justice; (2) the impact of fairness is stronger in countries with an individualistic (versus collectivistic) culture; (3) fairness matters more when mass layoff is initiated for profit maximization (versus economic necessity).

The fatal smirk: Insider accounts of organizational change processes in a police organization

Purpose – The key to success and failure in change projects may lie not in groundbreaking events or heroic gestures but in the many seemingly meaningless acts and events that occur throughout all change projects. In order to gain a better understanding of factors leading to success in change projects, the purpose of this paper is to examine insider accounts of successful and unsuccessful change projects in a non‐business public context, namely the German police.Design/methodology/approach – The research can be located in the exploratory, inductive research tradition and consistent with that we used in‐depth semi‐structured interviews to elicit the views of 92 high potential future managers as to what constitutes a(n) (un)successful project, and what factors lead to (un)successful project outcomes.Findings – The qualitative approach adopted allows for the tracing of a range social behavioural issues identified by members of the organization as criteria to evaluate the success of projects – commitment of pe...

Perspectives on the police profession: an international investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the diversity of professional perspectives on police culture in an international context. Design/methodology/approach – In a first step the authors developed a standardized instrument of 45 occupational features for comparative analysis of police professional views. This set was inductively created from 3,441 descriptors of the police profession from a highly diverse sample of 166 police officers across eight European countries. Using this standardized instrument, Q-methodological interviews with another 100 police officers in six European countries were conducted. Findings – The authors identified five perspectives on the police profession suggesting disparities in officers’ outlooks and understanding of their occupation. Yet, the findings also outline considerable overlaps in specific features considered important or unimportant across perspectives. Research limitations/implications – The study emphasizes that police culture needs to be described beyond ...

Can we learn from Herodotus

Assembling a group of researchers having different theoretical backgrounds, academic fields and cultural origins or nationalities is a complex matrix. This paper discusses the conditions and strategies that can make complex research groups work together in a productive way. The authors refer to the distinction between explaining and understanding as a useful illustration of the kinds of differences found within similar groups. Different basic purposes of international research projects are also taken into account. The authors also argue that developing a research instrument that produces data useful to the different theoretical frameworks might be a better procedure than coming to terms with complex issues such as whether paradigms are compatible or not. Finally, the authors discuss the kind of learning which can be extracted from the experience of working in an international research team.

Policing opportunities and threats in Europe

Purpose: This paper aims to take stock and to increase understanding of the opportunities and threats for policing in ten European countries in the Political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legal (PESTL) environment. Design/methodology/approach: This study is part of the large EU-funded COMPOSITE project into organisational change. A PESTL analysis was executed to produce the environmental scan that will serve as a platform for further research into change management within the police. The findings are based on structured interviews with police officers of 17 different police forces and knowledgeable externals in ten European countries. The sampling strategy was optimized for representativeness under the binding capacity constraints defined by the COMPOSITE research budget. Findings: European police forces face a long list of environmental changes that can be grouped in the five PESTL clusters with a common denominator. There is also quite some overlap as to both the importance and nature of the key PESTL trends across the ten countries, suggesting convergence in Europe. Originality/value: A study of this magnitude has not been seen before in Europe, which brings new insights to the target population of police forces across Europe. Moreover, policing is an interesting field to study from the perspective of organisational change, featuring a high incidence of change in combination with a wide variety of change challenges, such as those related to identity and leadership.

Feedback, Emotionen und Handlungstendenzen: Emotionale Konsequenzen von Feedback durch den Vorgesetzten

Die vorliegende Studie untersucht emotionale Reaktionen von Mitarbeitern auf positives versus negatives Leistungsfeedback von ihrem Vorgesetzten sowie daraus resultierende Handlungstendenzen. Der Fokus liegt auf Extra-Rollen-Verhalten (positiv: Organizational Citizenship Behaviors; negativ: Kontraproduktives Arbeitsverhalten, Kundigungsabsicht). Es wurde eine Studie unter 101 Arbeitnehmern durchgefuhrt. Teilnehmern wurde ein Szenario vorgelegt, in dem sie von ihrem Vorgesetzten fur ihre Arbeitsleistung gelobt oder getadelt wurden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Feedback Emotionen beim Empfanger hervorruft, die die Beziehung zwischen Feedback und Extra-Rollen-Verhalten mediieren. Positives Leistungsfeedback durch den Vorgesetzten fuhrt zu positiven Emotionen, die zu positivem Extra-Rollen-Verhalten ermutigen. Negatives Leistungsfeedback fuhrt zu negativen Emotionen, die negatives Extra-Rollen-Verhalten stimulieren.

Community Policing: The Relevance of Social Contexts

In this chapter, we conceptualize Community Policing (CP) as a partnership between police and communities, which is largely driven by the specific social contexts in which it occurs. We review the different perspectives and meanings of Community Policing across historical and geographical contexts to illustrate our core argument—that there is no one-size-fits-all-approach to CP. By stressing the relevance of legitimacy and trust, we develop a model for Community Policing that accounts for the complex dynamics between police and their communities. We argue that trust and legitimacy is a mutual process between police and communities where Community Policing can only be successful if the police also trusts their communities and considers the involvement of communities in local safety issues as legitimate. We summarize our model in practical recommendations.

ACCOUNTING FOR CULTURAL INFLUENCES IN BIG DATA ANALYTICS

Questions of national security are typically internationally oriented. This implies that Big Datasets often contain traces from multiple cultural contexts, but also that the cultural contexts of data production and interpretation may differ. We argue that this multicultural element produces specific complexities for Big Data analytics. In this chapter we outline the challenges of the cultural dependence of Big Data analytics for the validity of interpretations and national security decisions. In this analysis we differentiate between the supply side and the demand side of Big Data. The former refers to the production of Big Data (e.g., by Internet users) and the latter to the collection and interpretation of traces to support decisions. We discuss six forms of cultural (in)equality and their impact on Big Data characteristics, including volume, variety, velocity, and validity (or veracity), as well as the potential consequences of mismatches between production/producer and interpretation/interpreter contexts. We close with some recommendations for the consideration of cultural dependence in Big Data analytics.

Plädoyer für die Kooperation zwischen Polizei und Managementwissenschaften

Zwischen Polizei und Forschung besteht seit ehedem eine schwierige Beziehung, die durch Vorurteile, Angste und schlechte Erfahrungen auf beiden Seiten gekennzeichnet ist. Dennoch gibt es vielversprechende Annaherungen, die sich zunachst im angelsachsischen Bereich durchgesetzt haben und zunehmend auch in Deutschland Wiederklang finden. Die Polizei hat viele Charakteristika eines international operierenden Grosunternehmens, deshalb ist es gerade in Zeiten hoher Komplexitat und internationaler Kooperation wichtig, dass die Polizei sich die Erkenntnisse aus den Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu eigen macht, um Managemententscheidungen effizienter und effektiver zu gestalten. Auch die Managementwissenschaften konnen von dieser Beziehung profitieren und die Relevanz und Generalisierbarkeit ihrer Theorien vergrosern. Interdisziplinaritat, Kooperation, die gegenseitige Entzauberung von Wissenschaft und Polizei und eine Ausweitung der Polizeiausbildung sind Bausteine auf dem Weg zu einem gesellschaftlich gewinnbringenden evidence-based Polizeimanagement.