Organizational Change Outcomes: Success & Failure in Changing Police Organizations

• In Event: Police Chiefs: Stress, Tasks, Leadership, Change, and Environment

Abstract

Though it is frequently lamented that police officers and organizations frequently resist efforts to change, in reality police agencies are in continual states of change in response to shifting legal, social, cultural, political, and economic demands. Understanding the pathways that help facilitate achieving successful outcomes, as well as avoiding pitfalls linked with failed change, is of great importance. Scholars and police leaders often develop laudable ideas that perish when poorly implemented. Survey data from 500 mid-career police supervisors attending the FBI National Academy are used to examine the successful and unsuccessful organizational change outcomes within policing. In particular, the presentation considers the actors and actions that shape the outcomes of change efforts.

Authors

• Joseph Schafer, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

• Sean Varano, Roger Williams University