Research Practitioner Partnerships as Pathways to Understanding Culture and Improving Reform Implementation

• In Event: Policy Panel: The Real Reform in Community Corrections: Changing Organizational Culture

Abstract

Organizational culture is an important yet significantly understudied and misunderstood facilitator and/or barrier to organizational reform in community corrections settings. This presentation discusses ways researchers and community corrections administrators, managers and staff can partner together to overcome this knowledge gap by teaching each other about their roles and work. The researchers specifically discuss qualitative methods as a way of getting at the often hidden, yet complex, cultural dynamics that interfere with adoption/adaptation, implementation and sustainability of reforms.

Authors

• Danielle S. Rudes, George Mason University

• Jill Viglione, University of Texas at San Antonio