Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:A:American Journal of Police:Vol14.Issue3-4.1995:
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
151
MOVING TOWARD COMMUNITY POLICING: THE
ROLE OF POSTMATERIALIST VALUES IN A
CHANGING POLICE PROFESSION
Jihong Zhao
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Nicholas P. Lovrich
Washington State University
Kelsey Gray
Washington State University-Spokane
INTRODUCTION: INDIVIDUAL AND
ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES IN TRANSITION IN
CONTEMPORARY AMERICA
Many of the goals and structural arrangements of public
organizations are, to a significant degree, determined by a set of values
and beliefs underlying them – values and beliefs found in enabling
statutes, budget authorizations, administrative rules and regulations, and
related forms of legal provisions. Such formally and officially expressed
values provide an underlying philosophical framework justifying the
agency’s existence and enabling it to select the specific forms of standard
operating procedures and practices it adopts (Brown, 1984; Ott, 1989). To
a highly significant degree, however, organizational values are also
affected by the values held by the organization’s employees. Two
comparable public organizations may share formal and official values
(e.g. two police agencies, two local schools, two post-office substations),
but behave and operate in significantly different ways owing to the
distinctive values of the persons in those organizations.
Individual managers and employees bring their own personal
beliefs, policy preferences, and attitudes to bear on organizational roles in
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
153
“professionalism” has reinforced the adoption of the Weberian “ideal
type” as the preferred organizational form for most police organizations.
This model entailed:
...police being apolitical ... advocating centralized control, tight
organization, pinpointed responsibility, strong discipline,
efficient use of personnel and technology, and high standards of
recruitment and training … Thus, for several decades (especially
1940s through 1970s), a concern with developing techniques to
increase the control and efficiency of the police agency occupied
those in the forefront of policing (Goldstein, 1990:7).
In such a strongly paramilitary and highly centralized
organizational structure, strict obedience to supervisory rank by police
officers and the predominance of downward communications in the form
of orders constitute highly valued patterns of rank-and-file and
administrative behavior. Furthermore, the primary organizational goal of
the police organization was taken to be the achievement of maximum
efficiency in dealing with crime and disorder; behaviors such as the swift
apprehension and arrest of criminals and the frequent issuance of
citations to traffic offenders by officers are seen as direct evidence of
effective policing (Goldstein, 1990:7; Sandler and Mintz, 1974).
Beginning in the 1970s, police organizations across the nation
began a remarkable process of reform of basic organizational values and
police practices – much in the spirit of the paradigm-shifting innovation
advocated by the “reinventing government” enthusiasts in contemporary
public administration (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). Two of the most
commonly identifiable reforms along these lines are community-oriented
policing (Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux, 1990) and team-policing
(Goldstein, 1990; Sandler and Mintz, 1974; Walker, 1983). Common to
these new forms of policing is the placement of a high priority on the
assumption that police organizational structures ought to change from a
paramilitary and hierarchical model to a much more decentralized and
participatory (“employee empowerment”) form.
A belief, also widely shared by police reformers today, is that the
primary orientation of police agencies should shift from that of being a
narrowly focused “crime fighter” to that of being an approachable and
trusted partner in the community effort to maintain the general quality of
life in a local jurisdiction (Winkel, 1988). Such a broadened role would
entail finding a variety of means for reducing the fear of crime (Moore
and Trojanowicz, 1988) and the fear of disorder (Kelling et al., 1988). In
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
155
consequence of well-articulated and detailed demands for change made
externally.
Although a considerable literature exists on the nature of
contemporary police reform (e.g. Goldstein, 1987, 1990; Kelling and
Moore, 1988; Sparrow, 1988; Spelman and Eck, 1987; Trojanowicz and
Bucqueroux, 1990), there is relatively little empirical research available
at present regarding the interaction between the values of individual
officers and police managers and their support for (or opposition to) this
“new paradigm” type of police organizational reform. In particular, it is
not clear whether the contemporary reforms evident in American policing
are primarily a reflection of changing values among the rank-and-file
officers or, more a reflection of management preferences about how
external pressures for change should be accommodated (Brown, 1984).
The purpose of this paper is to make use of Ronald Inglehart’s
theory of societal value change in postindustrial societies from materialist
to “postmaterialist” concerns as a theoretical framework to evaluate an
ongoing experiment in organizational reform in a progressive police
agency – the Washington State Patrol (WSP). A primary aim of this
analysis is to assess the utility of Inglehart’s theory of societal value
change, for understanding the reciprocal relationship which exists
between individual employee values and organizational reform in
contemporary police organizations.
INGLEHART’S THEORY OF VALUE CHANGE
One of the most highly regarded theories offered to explain the
course of cultural change in contemporary postindustrial societies is the
theory of “value shift” developed by Ronald Inglehart. In brief, Inglehart
argues that in advanced industrial societies, individual values have
gradually changed from reflecting an emphasis on economic and physical
security (materialist values) to placing greater emphasis on freedom, selfexpression, and the quality of life (postmaterialist values) (Inglehart,
1990:5). This value shift is held to be particularly true of post-war
generations in America, Western Europe and Japan where a large number
of empirical studies conducted over the course of some 20 years, have
documented the salience of the “postmaterial” quality of values in
ascendance among younger age cohorts (Inglehart, 1989).
In addition, Inglehart proposes the use of a specific survey
instrument scale for assessing the postmaterialist vs. materialist-value
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
157
environmental protection, favor gay rights, support gender and minority
equity, and pay considerable attention to political affairs). In addition, if
individuals choose postmaterialist values at the macro level, they are
more than twice as likely as materialists to manifest postmaterialist
values at the micro level (Inglehart, 1990:169).
THE INTRODUCTION OF “TEAMS” IN THE WSP
The Washington State Patrol (WSP) was established in 1921 with
a mandate restricted to the enforcement of traffic laws on state highways
(Gray et al., 1991). In 1933, however, the WSP was mandated to exercise
full state police powers. In 1975, the strengthened WSP had a statewide
field workforce of 812 commissioned officers, with an organizational
structure which was strictly hierarchical and an organizational culture
which was decidedly paramilitary. Upper level managers generally
exercised rather complete control over operational decisions, and any
significant deviations from standard and accepted practices on the part of
line officers were strictly forbidden (Beckley, 1987).
Beckley (1987) suggests that a combination of conditions –
primary among them being dissatisfaction among line officers, the
unionization of troopers, and the advent of new management with a new
chief – led the WSP to reconsider rather thoroughly its organizational
values, goals and administrative structure. This reconsideration resulted
in the organization embarking on a systematic reform of its
organizational structure and operational norms by means of the
implementation of a program designated TEAMS in January, 1986. This
program achieved considerable recognition across the country inasmuch
as it was selected in 1986 as one of the 25 finalists (from 1,000+
applicants) in the annual Innovation in State and Local Government
Competition underwritten by the Ford Foundation and operated by the
John F. Kennedy School of Public Affairs at Harvard University.
According to Beckley (1987), the program implemented in the
WSP introduced the following changes to the traditional patrol approach.
First, operational decision-making moved from a paramilitary, centrallydirected format to a more decentralized, participatory system.
Considerable decision-making authority in field police work was
transferred to the patrol units organized into detachments of eight to ten
troopers. Detachments are encouraged to exercise considerable discretion
over how to accomplish their jobs, and to set their own goals for traffic
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
159
respondents also match the population surveyed. These characteristics of
the respondent pool indicate that, together with the high rate of response,
we have a sizeable and likely quite representative cross-section of the
WSP in our dataset. The survey contained a number of questions
designed to assess officer attitudes about the TEAMS program and
participative management as an appropriate management philosophy for
the WSP. The survey also contained Inglehart’s measure of
postmaterialist vs. materialist values.
As noted above, Inglehart proposes the use of value indicators
designed to tap personal values at both macro (societal) and micro
(workplace) levels. With regard to macro level value orientation, WSP
employees were asked which of the following four national goals was
most important to emphasize as a national priority, and which was their
second choice:
(1)
Maintaining order in the nation.
(2)
Giving people more to say in important government decisions.
(3)
Fighting rising prices.
(4)
Protecting freedom of speech.
Respondents who chose the second and fourth choices are
classified as possessing postmaterialist values, and those who chose the
first and third responses are labeled materialists. Any other combination
is designated as having “mixed” values.
The same survey format is employed for the designation of micro
level value orientations. Respondents were asked which of the following
four items were first and second most important in his or her working
environment:
(1)
A good salary so that you do not have any worries about money.
(2)
A safe job with no risk of closing down or unemployment.
(3)
Working with people you like.
(4)
Doing an important job which gives you a feeling of
accomplishment.
Among these four items, the third and fourth are scored as
postmaterialist responses and the first and second are viewed as
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
161
Table 1
DISTRIBUTION OF POSTMATERIALIST VS. MATERIALIST VALUES IN THE
WASHINGTON STATE PATROL (MACRO LEVEL) IN 1988
Inglehart
Value Scale
Troopers
%
n
Materialist
113
21.6
Mixed
337
70.6
Postmaterialist
85
7.8
Total
100
Sergeants
%
n
Washington
Command Staff
Public
%
n
%
n
136
20.2
23
12.7
9
21.1
113
445
64.9
74
70.4
50
63.0
337
49
630
14.9
100
17
114
16.9
100
12
71
15.9
100
85
535a
a
Findings from the first statewide survey conducted by the WSP in 1992 as part of an annual
assessment of citizen perceptions of agency performance.
Figure 1:
RATIOS OF POSTMATERIALISTS
Percent
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Troopers
Key
Sergeants
Command
staff
Washington
public
Materialist
Mixed
Postmaterialist
postmaterialist value indicators to the analysis of the support of the
TEAMS program, then, it would be expected that respondents with
postmaterialist values would be more likely to support TEAMS than
would either materialists or those with “mixed” values. If this line of
thought applies to the TEAMS settings, it seems clear that the WSP
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
163
Figure 2:
MICRO LEVEL VALUES
Percent
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Troopers
Key
Sergeants
Command
staff
Materialist
Mixed
Postmaterialist
TEAMS program constitutes an “élite-mediated”, as opposed to bottomup, modification in the organizational life of the WSP.
Connection Between Macro and Micro Level Values
Based on his numerous cross-national surveys, Inglehart
(1990:169) observes that if a respondent chooses postmaterialist value
alternatives at the macro level he/she would be twice as likely as others to
select the same value at the micro level. Our findings indicate that this
generalization does not apply to the state police personnel studied here.
The results displayed in Table 3 indicate that WSP commissioned officers
demonstrate little evidence of Inglehart’s predicted pattern of value
coincidence. Macro level postmaterialists are only marginally more likely
than materialists to express postmaterialist values at the micro level. This
result is a likely consequence of the uniqueness of police personnel vis-àvis the general citizenry studied by Inglehart and his associates and
replicators.
This disparity between Inglehart’s findings and the results of the
WSP survey likely stems from an artefact of the macro level measure
developed by Inglehart and used here. In the case of the WSP, the police
constitute a particular occupational group which is quite different from
other professions in the society. As the primary guardians of public safety,
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
165
The survey results displayed in Table 4 lend considerable support
to our arguments. More than three out of four troopers and sergeants
indicate “maintain order in the nation” as either their first or second
choice among the four items of choice provided. It is clear that this
particular value choice has distinctive meaning for police professionals,
and consequently the macro level indicator developed by Inglehart for
general citizenries has only limited utility for use among police
personnel. Given these findings, we shall rely on the micro level values
indicator for the analysis of the degree to which postmaterialist values
might be associated with support for organizational reform or –
alternatively – might be associated with “élite-challenging suspicion”
among rank-and-file troopers.
Postmaterialist Values and Support for Organizational
Reform
It is clear that postmaterialist values are related to sentiments
about community policing in systematic ways, both for the troopers and
the sergeants of the WSP (Table 5). With respect to initial reactions
(“expectations” held for reform or change), postmaterialists tend to hold
slightly higher hopes for movement toward community problem solving
and employee empowerment than others not sharing that value
orientation. It is interesting to note, moreover, that the sergeants as a
group were significantly more inclined to hold high expectations for
change toward community policing than the troopers. Whereas
something over a third of the troopers indicated that their initial reaction
to the TEAMS program was positive, over two-thirds of the
postmaterialist sergeants and over 60 percent of the nonpostmaterialist
(mixed and materialist value types) sergeants felt positive regard for the
idea. This finding adds further evidence to the surmise that planned
organizational change in the WSP was more a result of élite-mediation
than a response to “bottom up” demands.
Even more dramatic than this evidence, however, are the findings
relating to the assessment of the outcomes attributable to three years of
effort to promote the TEAMS program. There is again a difference in
sentiments tied to postmaterialist values, but in this case that difference is
not consistent across trooper and sergeant ranks. In the case of the
troopers, the postmaterialists are somewhat less inclined to ascribe failure
to achieve improvements to the TEAMS program than their
nonpostmaterialist colleagues. As for WSP sergeants, however, this
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
167
group composed of representatives from across the ranks and divisions of
the WSP whose charge is to identify specific organizational barriers to
progress toward fuller implementation of the goals of the TEAMS program
and to make specific recommendations for action following their analyses.
The VERTEAM has been in operation over the course of the past five years,
and its many recommendations for action have been responsible for a
number of positive steps toward community policing goals. Most important,
perhaps, has been the creation of a forum wherein the cynical sergeant, the
hopeful but suspicious trooper, and the well-intentioned but distrusted
captain can all meet and share their concerns, doubts, and hopes in a context
of considerate attention to all observations. This process has often lead to
the building of greater trust across ranks and divisions and the formulation
of some creative approaches to organizational problems.
CONCLUSION
This first attempt to apply Inglehart’s theory of societal value
change to assess a police organizational reform has produced useful
findings. A focus on the “value dimension” does reveal some insight into the
extent and dynamics of organizational change (Hooijberg and Petrock,
1993). The analyses presented here suggest that the initiation and support of
the TEAMS program in the WSP came mainly from the command staff and
the middle management/first-line supervisors rather than the rank-and-file
officers. Our findings are similar to those presented in the work of Scott and
Hart (1989). They speculate, from their analyses of private organizations,
that rank-and-file members of a formal organization are not likely to be the
initiators and major supporters of any significant organizational reform
(1989:152). Further, they suggest that professional people who are in the
upper level of an organization should be, for a number of reasons stemming
from their “boundary scanning” roles, the major parties responsible for an
organizational reform. William Bergquist has arrived at very much the same
conclusion from his analysis of the “postmodern” organization
phenomenon (1993:149-170).
The use of Inglehart’s value measure in the analysis brought to our
attention the likelihood of the emergence of cynicism among the ranks of the
middle managers – cynicism among those holding the highest expectations
of what organizational reform might mean for the agency. It would appear
that, while these critical actors are inclined to be prepared to experiment
with employee empowerment and responsible risktaking for the sake of
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
169
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151
MOVING TOWARD COMMUNITY POLICING: THE
ROLE OF POSTMATERIALIST VALUES IN A
CHANGING POLICE PROFESSION
Jihong Zhao
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Nicholas P. Lovrich
Washington State University
Kelsey Gray
Washington State University-Spokane
INTRODUCTION: INDIVIDUAL AND
ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES IN TRANSITION IN
CONTEMPORARY AMERICA
Many of the goals and structural arrangements of public
organizations are, to a significant degree, determined by a set of values
and beliefs underlying them – values and beliefs found in enabling
statutes, budget authorizations, administrative rules and regulations, and
related forms of legal provisions. Such formally and officially expressed
values provide an underlying philosophical framework justifying the
agency’s existence and enabling it to select the specific forms of standard
operating procedures and practices it adopts (Brown, 1984; Ott, 1989). To
a highly significant degree, however, organizational values are also
affected by the values held by the organization’s employees. Two
comparable public organizations may share formal and official values
(e.g. two police agencies, two local schools, two post-office substations),
but behave and operate in significantly different ways owing to the
distinctive values of the persons in those organizations.
Individual managers and employees bring their own personal
beliefs, policy preferences, and attitudes to bear on organizational roles in
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
153
“professionalism” has reinforced the adoption of the Weberian “ideal
type” as the preferred organizational form for most police organizations.
This model entailed:
...police being apolitical ... advocating centralized control, tight
organization, pinpointed responsibility, strong discipline,
efficient use of personnel and technology, and high standards of
recruitment and training … Thus, for several decades (especially
1940s through 1970s), a concern with developing techniques to
increase the control and efficiency of the police agency occupied
those in the forefront of policing (Goldstein, 1990:7).
In such a strongly paramilitary and highly centralized
organizational structure, strict obedience to supervisory rank by police
officers and the predominance of downward communications in the form
of orders constitute highly valued patterns of rank-and-file and
administrative behavior. Furthermore, the primary organizational goal of
the police organization was taken to be the achievement of maximum
efficiency in dealing with crime and disorder; behaviors such as the swift
apprehension and arrest of criminals and the frequent issuance of
citations to traffic offenders by officers are seen as direct evidence of
effective policing (Goldstein, 1990:7; Sandler and Mintz, 1974).
Beginning in the 1970s, police organizations across the nation
began a remarkable process of reform of basic organizational values and
police practices – much in the spirit of the paradigm-shifting innovation
advocated by the “reinventing government” enthusiasts in contemporary
public administration (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). Two of the most
commonly identifiable reforms along these lines are community-oriented
policing (Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux, 1990) and team-policing
(Goldstein, 1990; Sandler and Mintz, 1974; Walker, 1983). Common to
these new forms of policing is the placement of a high priority on the
assumption that police organizational structures ought to change from a
paramilitary and hierarchical model to a much more decentralized and
participatory (“employee empowerment”) form.
A belief, also widely shared by police reformers today, is that the
primary orientation of police agencies should shift from that of being a
narrowly focused “crime fighter” to that of being an approachable and
trusted partner in the community effort to maintain the general quality of
life in a local jurisdiction (Winkel, 1988). Such a broadened role would
entail finding a variety of means for reducing the fear of crime (Moore
and Trojanowicz, 1988) and the fear of disorder (Kelling et al., 1988). In
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
155
consequence of well-articulated and detailed demands for change made
externally.
Although a considerable literature exists on the nature of
contemporary police reform (e.g. Goldstein, 1987, 1990; Kelling and
Moore, 1988; Sparrow, 1988; Spelman and Eck, 1987; Trojanowicz and
Bucqueroux, 1990), there is relatively little empirical research available
at present regarding the interaction between the values of individual
officers and police managers and their support for (or opposition to) this
“new paradigm” type of police organizational reform. In particular, it is
not clear whether the contemporary reforms evident in American policing
are primarily a reflection of changing values among the rank-and-file
officers or, more a reflection of management preferences about how
external pressures for change should be accommodated (Brown, 1984).
The purpose of this paper is to make use of Ronald Inglehart’s
theory of societal value change in postindustrial societies from materialist
to “postmaterialist” concerns as a theoretical framework to evaluate an
ongoing experiment in organizational reform in a progressive police
agency – the Washington State Patrol (WSP). A primary aim of this
analysis is to assess the utility of Inglehart’s theory of societal value
change, for understanding the reciprocal relationship which exists
between individual employee values and organizational reform in
contemporary police organizations.
INGLEHART’S THEORY OF VALUE CHANGE
One of the most highly regarded theories offered to explain the
course of cultural change in contemporary postindustrial societies is the
theory of “value shift” developed by Ronald Inglehart. In brief, Inglehart
argues that in advanced industrial societies, individual values have
gradually changed from reflecting an emphasis on economic and physical
security (materialist values) to placing greater emphasis on freedom, selfexpression, and the quality of life (postmaterialist values) (Inglehart,
1990:5). This value shift is held to be particularly true of post-war
generations in America, Western Europe and Japan where a large number
of empirical studies conducted over the course of some 20 years, have
documented the salience of the “postmaterial” quality of values in
ascendance among younger age cohorts (Inglehart, 1989).
In addition, Inglehart proposes the use of a specific survey
instrument scale for assessing the postmaterialist vs. materialist-value
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
157
environmental protection, favor gay rights, support gender and minority
equity, and pay considerable attention to political affairs). In addition, if
individuals choose postmaterialist values at the macro level, they are
more than twice as likely as materialists to manifest postmaterialist
values at the micro level (Inglehart, 1990:169).
THE INTRODUCTION OF “TEAMS” IN THE WSP
The Washington State Patrol (WSP) was established in 1921 with
a mandate restricted to the enforcement of traffic laws on state highways
(Gray et al., 1991). In 1933, however, the WSP was mandated to exercise
full state police powers. In 1975, the strengthened WSP had a statewide
field workforce of 812 commissioned officers, with an organizational
structure which was strictly hierarchical and an organizational culture
which was decidedly paramilitary. Upper level managers generally
exercised rather complete control over operational decisions, and any
significant deviations from standard and accepted practices on the part of
line officers were strictly forbidden (Beckley, 1987).
Beckley (1987) suggests that a combination of conditions –
primary among them being dissatisfaction among line officers, the
unionization of troopers, and the advent of new management with a new
chief – led the WSP to reconsider rather thoroughly its organizational
values, goals and administrative structure. This reconsideration resulted
in the organization embarking on a systematic reform of its
organizational structure and operational norms by means of the
implementation of a program designated TEAMS in January, 1986. This
program achieved considerable recognition across the country inasmuch
as it was selected in 1986 as one of the 25 finalists (from 1,000+
applicants) in the annual Innovation in State and Local Government
Competition underwritten by the Ford Foundation and operated by the
John F. Kennedy School of Public Affairs at Harvard University.
According to Beckley (1987), the program implemented in the
WSP introduced the following changes to the traditional patrol approach.
First, operational decision-making moved from a paramilitary, centrallydirected format to a more decentralized, participatory system.
Considerable decision-making authority in field police work was
transferred to the patrol units organized into detachments of eight to ten
troopers. Detachments are encouraged to exercise considerable discretion
over how to accomplish their jobs, and to set their own goals for traffic
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
159
respondents also match the population surveyed. These characteristics of
the respondent pool indicate that, together with the high rate of response,
we have a sizeable and likely quite representative cross-section of the
WSP in our dataset. The survey contained a number of questions
designed to assess officer attitudes about the TEAMS program and
participative management as an appropriate management philosophy for
the WSP. The survey also contained Inglehart’s measure of
postmaterialist vs. materialist values.
As noted above, Inglehart proposes the use of value indicators
designed to tap personal values at both macro (societal) and micro
(workplace) levels. With regard to macro level value orientation, WSP
employees were asked which of the following four national goals was
most important to emphasize as a national priority, and which was their
second choice:
(1)
Maintaining order in the nation.
(2)
Giving people more to say in important government decisions.
(3)
Fighting rising prices.
(4)
Protecting freedom of speech.
Respondents who chose the second and fourth choices are
classified as possessing postmaterialist values, and those who chose the
first and third responses are labeled materialists. Any other combination
is designated as having “mixed” values.
The same survey format is employed for the designation of micro
level value orientations. Respondents were asked which of the following
four items were first and second most important in his or her working
environment:
(1)
A good salary so that you do not have any worries about money.
(2)
A safe job with no risk of closing down or unemployment.
(3)
Working with people you like.
(4)
Doing an important job which gives you a feeling of
accomplishment.
Among these four items, the third and fourth are scored as
postmaterialist responses and the first and second are viewed as
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
161
Table 1
DISTRIBUTION OF POSTMATERIALIST VS. MATERIALIST VALUES IN THE
WASHINGTON STATE PATROL (MACRO LEVEL) IN 1988
Inglehart
Value Scale
Troopers
%
n
Materialist
113
21.6
Mixed
337
70.6
Postmaterialist
85
7.8
Total
100
Sergeants
%
n
Washington
Command Staff
Public
%
n
%
n
136
20.2
23
12.7
9
21.1
113
445
64.9
74
70.4
50
63.0
337
49
630
14.9
100
17
114
16.9
100
12
71
15.9
100
85
535a
a
Findings from the first statewide survey conducted by the WSP in 1992 as part of an annual
assessment of citizen perceptions of agency performance.
Figure 1:
RATIOS OF POSTMATERIALISTS
Percent
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Troopers
Key
Sergeants
Command
staff
Washington
public
Materialist
Mixed
Postmaterialist
postmaterialist value indicators to the analysis of the support of the
TEAMS program, then, it would be expected that respondents with
postmaterialist values would be more likely to support TEAMS than
would either materialists or those with “mixed” values. If this line of
thought applies to the TEAMS settings, it seems clear that the WSP
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
163
Figure 2:
MICRO LEVEL VALUES
Percent
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Troopers
Key
Sergeants
Command
staff
Materialist
Mixed
Postmaterialist
TEAMS program constitutes an “élite-mediated”, as opposed to bottomup, modification in the organizational life of the WSP.
Connection Between Macro and Micro Level Values
Based on his numerous cross-national surveys, Inglehart
(1990:169) observes that if a respondent chooses postmaterialist value
alternatives at the macro level he/she would be twice as likely as others to
select the same value at the micro level. Our findings indicate that this
generalization does not apply to the state police personnel studied here.
The results displayed in Table 3 indicate that WSP commissioned officers
demonstrate little evidence of Inglehart’s predicted pattern of value
coincidence. Macro level postmaterialists are only marginally more likely
than materialists to express postmaterialist values at the micro level. This
result is a likely consequence of the uniqueness of police personnel vis-àvis the general citizenry studied by Inglehart and his associates and
replicators.
This disparity between Inglehart’s findings and the results of the
WSP survey likely stems from an artefact of the macro level measure
developed by Inglehart and used here. In the case of the WSP, the police
constitute a particular occupational group which is quite different from
other professions in the society. As the primary guardians of public safety,
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
165
The survey results displayed in Table 4 lend considerable support
to our arguments. More than three out of four troopers and sergeants
indicate “maintain order in the nation” as either their first or second
choice among the four items of choice provided. It is clear that this
particular value choice has distinctive meaning for police professionals,
and consequently the macro level indicator developed by Inglehart for
general citizenries has only limited utility for use among police
personnel. Given these findings, we shall rely on the micro level values
indicator for the analysis of the degree to which postmaterialist values
might be associated with support for organizational reform or –
alternatively – might be associated with “élite-challenging suspicion”
among rank-and-file troopers.
Postmaterialist Values and Support for Organizational
Reform
It is clear that postmaterialist values are related to sentiments
about community policing in systematic ways, both for the troopers and
the sergeants of the WSP (Table 5). With respect to initial reactions
(“expectations” held for reform or change), postmaterialists tend to hold
slightly higher hopes for movement toward community problem solving
and employee empowerment than others not sharing that value
orientation. It is interesting to note, moreover, that the sergeants as a
group were significantly more inclined to hold high expectations for
change toward community policing than the troopers. Whereas
something over a third of the troopers indicated that their initial reaction
to the TEAMS program was positive, over two-thirds of the
postmaterialist sergeants and over 60 percent of the nonpostmaterialist
(mixed and materialist value types) sergeants felt positive regard for the
idea. This finding adds further evidence to the surmise that planned
organizational change in the WSP was more a result of élite-mediation
than a response to “bottom up” demands.
Even more dramatic than this evidence, however, are the findings
relating to the assessment of the outcomes attributable to three years of
effort to promote the TEAMS program. There is again a difference in
sentiments tied to postmaterialist values, but in this case that difference is
not consistent across trooper and sergeant ranks. In the case of the
troopers, the postmaterialists are somewhat less inclined to ascribe failure
to achieve improvements to the TEAMS program than their
nonpostmaterialist colleagues. As for WSP sergeants, however, this
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
167
group composed of representatives from across the ranks and divisions of
the WSP whose charge is to identify specific organizational barriers to
progress toward fuller implementation of the goals of the TEAMS program
and to make specific recommendations for action following their analyses.
The VERTEAM has been in operation over the course of the past five years,
and its many recommendations for action have been responsible for a
number of positive steps toward community policing goals. Most important,
perhaps, has been the creation of a forum wherein the cynical sergeant, the
hopeful but suspicious trooper, and the well-intentioned but distrusted
captain can all meet and share their concerns, doubts, and hopes in a context
of considerate attention to all observations. This process has often lead to
the building of greater trust across ranks and divisions and the formulation
of some creative approaches to organizational problems.
CONCLUSION
This first attempt to apply Inglehart’s theory of societal value
change to assess a police organizational reform has produced useful
findings. A focus on the “value dimension” does reveal some insight into the
extent and dynamics of organizational change (Hooijberg and Petrock,
1993). The analyses presented here suggest that the initiation and support of
the TEAMS program in the WSP came mainly from the command staff and
the middle management/first-line supervisors rather than the rank-and-file
officers. Our findings are similar to those presented in the work of Scott and
Hart (1989). They speculate, from their analyses of private organizations,
that rank-and-file members of a formal organization are not likely to be the
initiators and major supporters of any significant organizational reform
(1989:152). Further, they suggest that professional people who are in the
upper level of an organization should be, for a number of reasons stemming
from their “boundary scanning” roles, the major parties responsible for an
organizational reform. William Bergquist has arrived at very much the same
conclusion from his analysis of the “postmodern” organization
phenomenon (1993:149-170).
The use of Inglehart’s value measure in the analysis brought to our
attention the likelihood of the emergence of cynicism among the ranks of the
middle managers – cynicism among those holding the highest expectations
of what organizational reform might mean for the agency. It would appear
that, while these critical actors are inclined to be prepared to experiment
with employee empowerment and responsible risktaking for the sake of
American Journal of Police, Vol. XIV, No. 3/4 1995
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