Organizational Culture and Values - NSW Police Force - Coursework Example

Organizational Culture and Values Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) The NSW Police Force is one of the oldest, largest and also biggest police organizations of Australia’s police among all over English speaking nations serving seven million people in the area of New South Wales. Organization carries on their operations from land, sea and from air and also provides community servicing to 500 police stations covering all the ethnic communities speaking more than 30 languages. Above all, it also involves its services into “traffic control, communications, intelligence analysis and anti-terrorist negotiations.” (New South Wales Police Force (A), Online) The structure of the police force has been determined under the section 33 (1) of the police Act 1990, and got into effect from 4 February 2008. (Campbell, Online) As one of the largest unit with the biggest responsibility of maintaining law and order situation, and especially in the sensitive areas, the structure of the organization has been set in the way that every person employed in each hierarchal level follows basic organizational core values and ethics while successfully implementing polices and procedures laid down under the legislative rules and procedures. NSW Police force has also to follow its operations under the Code of Practice for Crime (Custody, Rights, Investigation, Management and Evidence). (New South Wales Police Force (B), Online) This Code of Practice reinforces to the officials ethical framework while dealing with suspects reinforcing among the officers to act with great determination, honesty and integrity while pursuing the investigative policies and also maintain rule of law, give importance to the rights and freedom to individuals, improve the quality of life, try to exercise authority with responsibility. The code of ethics are implied to maintain cordial relationship with the citizens and for ensuring their services and duty towards them, but for its successful implementation, each police personnel should abide by the values necessary within the organization structure. These values are Excellence, Trust, Honour, Impartiality, Commitment, Accountability and Leadership qualities. (New South Wales Police Force (C), 3) These values enable the police force to retain its integrity and duty towards the nation and society. Several researchers have documented on the various failures on the part of the police force while adhering towards their duty according to the values. Numerous allegations have been cited regarding the way police were resorting to the corrupt practices and inefficiency in their working environment, which had become a feature in the policing practice of NSW. Keeping these concepts in mind, The Wood Royal Commission was appointed in 1997 for initiating the investigations for alleged corrupt practices and if necessary give recommendations. The investigations revealed several problems in the police practices like adoption of narrow minded approach towards police education and training, finding incapability in implementing change process, inadequate leadership, deviation in process of direction, lack of openness and lack of management care on the staff. (Gillies, 2) To bring adequacy in the police force, there is a need of bringing more changes in the police management and leadership that would bring in complete transparency in the functioning of the police force. Ethics and social responsibilities are the two key values of leadership, which the NSW must have. (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 160) Social responsibility goes much beyond making profits and as police organization is non-profit so it has to adapt to the social responsibilities even more than any other commercial undertakings. But hereby it also meant that police officers at the seniority level also have social responsibilities towards their subordinates. Officer’s in-charge must also increase their interests towards their subordinates. This involves leadership qualities including capability to motivate subordinates, take caring of all their needs, judging their performances on regular basis, and over and above equipping police force with the new technologically upgraded equipments and weapons making them the force to reckon. Ethics can also be understood in the four perspectives: the first one is ‘utilitarian view of ethics’ whereby decisions are taken on the basis of the results or consequences of the actions. It is based on the quantitative method for making decisions based on ethics by looking at the ways to provide the best for the greatest number of people. The second is ‘rights view of ethics’, which is more related to the respect and protection to the individuals right to freedom, privacy and free speech, life and safety. Thirdly is ‘theory of justice view of ethics’ whereby managers, leaders and police officers at the senior level must implement the rules justly and impartially. Fourthly is the ‘integration of the social contracts theory’, which suggests that ethics is based on integration of two contracts: one is the social contract allowing persons in a managerial level to operate on the ground rules and secondly to accept the ways of behaving. (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 174-175) This is also quite true in the organizational structure of the police force. It is truly said that leadership in the law enforcement has always been very challenging but with the added social environment of the international level, it has become comparatively easy to confront any challenges. There is no doubt of the fact that globalization has produced many challenges than before in context to trying to balance the local culture to what post modernists term as tribal integrity with the economic and environment issues. This trend began to take on great importance and the interest on the notion of community development also increased. People view community development, as a solution to withdraw from the excessive greed and self interest and on the other hand it is seen as the avenue to impart social values. (Denhardt, Online) The leadership has to be looked from the new perspective, in the form of development process. Several changes in the political set up, technological and security changes means that police organizations must adopt themselves to face these challenges. Areas like Forensics, Counter Terrorism and Internet / Computer Crime all need to provide specialized service delivery in a changing environment. The combination of functions typical of critical operations and formulating of special teams to capitalize skill and experience has become the most essential component for today police force. (Scipione, Online) Social responsibility on the part of the organizations should also maintain that leaders and managers must involve in practical decision making process because they have to meet certain social needs and adhere themselves to make society a better place to live. As a socially responsible police officer, there is a need to capitalize on the human talents and harness the skill of the present employees to make them deal with the most difficult situations. All in all, leaders should adopt the traits that involve teamwork, problem solving procedures, cooperative efforts and decision-making process in the complete mixed cultural settings. Leaders also must adhere themselves to the good communication skills like written, oral, graphical and technological, must be committed towards the psychological and emotional wellness, and among others should appreciate efforts of his subordinates. (Denhardt, Online) Another concept having greatest value in the organization structure is the knowledge of ‘value based management’-an approach managers and organizational leaders must adopt to retain shared values of the organization. (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 171) Its working atmosphere must reflect on the values which organization stands for and cherishes. These values serve as a guidepost for the decision-making services of the managers as well as actions taken so far and besides others give shape to the employment behaviour. Shared values also help in building up the team spirit of the organization. It is also seen that when staff and police personnel adopt the shared values, they form much personal commitment at the deepest level and can feel obliged taking responsibility of their actions. These shared values also infuse among persons to deal with more complicated cases with ease. As said by Vince Lombardi, “The challenge for every organisation is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another because the question is usually not how well each person works, but how well they work together.” (Scipione, Online) In all functioning of the police department, this concept is especially true because the culture and the work of the police force is such that they have to be dependent on the maximum number of police personnel in solving many critical issues. Hereby it also very necessary for the leader or manager to identify various issues being faced by the police personnel in their particular areas of operations and help them in resolving these issues, keep records of the same and recognize and reward their efforts. The public administrators are making way for the democratic form of management and organization setup, and adopt the empowerment as a means to give practical shape to the shared values in the overall organizational culture. (Denhardt, Online) In this environment, there are also chances for bringing free decision making a reality, whereby the police officers posted at the middle or frontline post must be encouraged to make decisions on their own and absolutely free. It is very true that in every organization setup be it private or public must adhere to all the professional ethics and values. These ethics bring in transparency, create good image in the society and get better performance from the staff. Though the values, rules keep on changing with the change in the technologies and latest developments, but the basic principles of honesty, integrity, dedication, workmanship etc remain the same which bring unity and discipline in the work place especially among the police force who has the biggest responsibility of maintaining law and order. Works Cited Campbell, David. “Determination under section 33 (1) of the Police Act 1990.” Internet (2007) Available: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:SkTApAtOvT8J:www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0011/120503/ses_list.doc+Pursuant+to+section+33(1)+of+the+police+Act+1990,+and+effective+from+4+February+2008,+the+following+positions+are+determined+to+be+executive+positions+within+the+Police+Force+Senior+executive+Service:&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=in, February 25, 2009. Denhardt, R.B. “The Future of Public Administration - Challenges to Democracy, Citizenship and Ethics.” Public Administration and Management: An Interactive Journal. Internet (1999) Available: http://pamij.com/99_4_2_Denhardt.htm, February 25, 2009. Gillies, Don. “Perception of change in education, training and development in the NSW Police Service, post the Wood Royal Commission.” Internet (2007) Available: http://www.avetra.org.au/AVETRA%20WORK%2011.04.08/CS6.1%20-%20Don%20Gillies.pdf, February 25, 2009. New South Wales Police Force (A). “About Us”. Internet (2008) Available: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us February 25, 2009. New South Wales Police Force (B). “Code of Practice for CRIME (Custody, Rights, Investigation, Management and Evidence).” Internet (2008) Available: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/about_us/acts_and_legislations/legislation_list/code_of_practice_for_crime February 25, 2009. New South Wales Police Force (C). “Standards of Professional Conduct” Internet. Available: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/87993/SPC_Conduct_2008_INTRANET_230608.pdf February 25, 2009. Robbins, S., Bergman R., Stagg, I. and Coulter M. “Management.” Pearson Education Australia, 2006. Scipione, Andrew. “98th Police Management Development Program Opening Address”. Internet (2006) Available: http://www.aipm.gov.au/news/archived/news06_1.html February 25, 2009. Read More