Becoming a learning organization: The espoused values of police managers from two Norwegian districts

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which espoused values among police managers in the Norwegian police force are compatible with those of a learning organization.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was developed and administered to police managers in two police districts in Norway. A set of values was developed to measure police culture and their significant correlation with those of a learning organization. All values were believed to represent cultural dimensions of potential importance to law enforcement performance.Findings – It was found that police managers espoused values of informality and empowerment rather than authority and hierarchical order. These values are the only police values that are found to be significantly correlated with those of a learning organization. Moreover, these findings contradict the previous literature within policing, which describes a police culture of hierarchy, authority and closeness. Also, these values only represent two of the...

[1]  Yehuda Baruch,et al.  Creating learning organizations: a systems perspective , 2010 .

[2]  Collectivism versus individualism in police cultures , 2010 .

[3]  J. Schafer.  Developing effective leadership in policing: perils, pitfalls, and paths forward , 2009 .

[4]  Petter Gottschalk,et al.  Police personnel cultures: a comparative study of counter terrorist and criminal investigation units , 2009 .

[5]  J. Grieves.  Why we should abandon the idea of the learning organization , 2008 .

[6]  J. Alegre,et al.  Assessing the impact of organizational learning capability on product innovation performance: an empirical test , 2008 .

[7]  Teresa Rebelo,et al.  Organizational learning and the learning organization: Reviewing evolution for prospecting the future , 2008 .

[8]  B. Steinheider,et al.  From the bottom‐up: sharing leadership in a police agency , 2008 .

[9]  Milan Pagon,et al.  Perspectives of police science in Europe : final report , 2007 .

[10]  Geralyn M. Miller,et al.  Maybe Wilson Was Right: Espoused Values and Their Relationship to Enacted Values , 2006 .

[11]  Martin Kornberger,et al.  Learning/Becoming/Organizing , 2005 .

[12]  S. Høyrup,et al.  Learning, working and living: Mapping the terrain of working life learning , 2005 .

[13]  Erik K. Laursen.  Knowledge, Progression and the Understanding of Workplace Learning , 2005 .

[14]  Bente Elkjaer,et al.  Organizational Learning and Workplace Learning — Similarities and Differences , 2005 .

[15]  Harry Barton.  Cultural reformation: a case for intervention within the police service , 2004 .

[16]  Anders Örtenblad.  The learning organization : towards an integrated model , 2004 .

[17]  S. Ivković,et al.  Ethics and the police: Studying police integrity in Austria , 2004 .

[18]  James G. Clawson,et al.  Creating a Learning Culture , 2004 .

[19]  Robert Chia,et al.  On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[20]  Boris Kabanoff,et al.  Espoused Values of Organisations , 2002 .

[21]  J. Kiely,et al.  The Culture of the British Police: Views of Police Officers , 2002 .

[22]  Preparing for the Real Knowledge Organization , 2001 .

[23]  Wendy Christensen,et al.  Police Work and Culture in a Nonurban Setting: An Ethnographic Analysis , 2001 .

[24]  A. Kouzmin,et al.  New managerialism and Australian police organizations: A cautionary research note , 2001 .

[25]  Mark Easterby-Smith,et al.  Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization , 2001 .

[26]  Davide Nicolini,et al.  To Transfer is to Transform: The Circulation of Safety Knowledge , 2000 .

[27]  M. Lubatkin,et al.  Research Note Measuring Organizational Culture Clashes: A Two-Nation Post-Hoc Analysis of a Cultural Compatibility Index , 2000 .

[28]  P. C. Wright,et al.  Predictors of learning organizations: a human resource development practitioner’s perspective , 2000 .

[29]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Organizational Learning: Affirming an Oxymoron , 1999 .

[30]  Robert Chia,et al.  From Complexity Science to Complex Thinking: Organization as Simple Location , 1998 .

[31]  Scott I. Tannenbaum,et al.  Enhancing continuous learning: Diagnostic findings from multiple companies , 1997 .

[32]  Peter C. Whiting,et al.  Success factors in learning organizations: an empirical study , 1997 .

[33]  Eric W. K. Tsang.  Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization: A Dichotomy Between Descriptive and Prescriptive Research , 1997 .

[34]  B. Mark.  Organizational culture. , 1996, Annual review of nursing research.

[35]  P. Senge.  The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization , 2014 .

[36]  Fred Kofman,et al.  Communities of commitment: The heart of learning organizations , 1993 .

[37]  Victoria J. Marsick,et al.  Building the learning organisation: a new role for human resource developers , 1992 .

[38]  Peter W. Moir,et al.  Policing Australia : old issues, new perspectives , 1992 .

[39]  P. Senge.  The fifth discipline : the art and practice of the learning organization/ Peter M. Senge , 1991 .

[40]  E. Schein.  Organizational Culture and Leadership , 1991 .

[41]  P. Senge.  THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE , 1997 .

[42]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. , 1990 .

[43]  J. Burgoyne,et al.  Towards the Learning Company , 1989 .

[44]  D. Schoen.  Educating the reflective practitioner , 1987 .

[45]  Nigel Fielding,et al.  Police socialization and police competence , 1984 .

[46]  Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni,et al.  Two Cultures of Policing: Street Cops and Management Cops , 1982 .