Elements of Organizational Culture - WA Police - Case Study Example

Student Name Professor Name Course Name Date of submission Case Study Analysis Report: WA Police Case Scenario Introduction For this case study, it is observed that the WA Police has been facing immense levels of employee turnover due to many reasons. The service has continuously faced issues related to poor organizational change and culture. Accordingly, there are numerous issues being mentioned by those police leaving work and they vary depending on employee personal perceptions. For instance, the case establishes that the police are considering leaving the WA Police unit due to such reasons as bullying, corruption, racial discrimination, poor pay, limited career opportunities, and misappropriation of the service’s resource facilities among others. Thus, the case sets to establish the different ways through which recommendations can be made in order to minimize the level of turnover and promote elements of both organizational change and culture. In regard, the key purpose of this case study paper is to try to provide a deeper analysis into the aforementioned issues and recommend the most favorable strategies to be used for conducting effective processes. It should be noted that the case analysis will adopt two strategies that are: organizational culture and organizational change in order to ascertain the privities of recommendations developed as a whole. Analysis of the Case Study in respect to Elements of Organizational Culture According to Doina, Mirela and Constantin (559-561), organizational culture is the collection of traditions, certain values and beliefs, perceptions and immense levels of attitudes that helps to develop unique activities within organizational environments. Organizational cultures help employees, like the WA Police, to adapt to the fundamental systems within and also foster positive elements of behavior. Notwithstanding, most of the issues related to the WA Police case can be vehemently linked to informal forms of organizational cultures. This is because the informal section of the organizational culture deals with elements of employee relationships and human interactions in that matter. Thus, understanding the dynamic ability of informal organizational culture of the WA Police unit will help to minimize possible levels of tensions given that it is closely knit to such elements as affiliation and friendship capabilities. In the course of analyzing WA Police organizational culture capacities, three levels should be evident: first, there should be a culture that is governed by immense beliefs and convictions. This is especially associated with the police personnel that are not necessary aware of their duties. A good example being the police personnel that believes in participating in illegal activities using the departments’ resources. Second, there is the organizational level that is governed with such aspects as notable values and attitudes (Kandula 350). It should be noted that this level of organizational culture is made evident through personnel that embarks on displaying and conducting immense selection. For instance, within the WA police unit, the top-level management tends to display elements of bullying and corruption. These are activities that are associated with personal values and attitudes. Third, within the WA Police unit there should be evident a culture that is expounded in terms of either individual or group based behaviors (Kandula 355-357). For the case under study, the aforementioned level of organizational culture is evidenced by the survey results. For instance, the results indicated that there were corrupt and illegal behaviors that were perceived within each of the forces ranks. It should be assumed that the police within the organization engaged in different forms of corruption and illegal activities in accordance with the position held in the force. Possible Control Mechanisms that Can Be Deployed to Curb the Issue The issue at hand within the WA Police is connected to greater levels of employee turnover due to different reasons. The level of turnover within the WA Police has intensively caused greater risks of ever attracting newer personnel thus a possibility of immense security. It should be understood that the force needs sufficient personnel in order to conduct its security functions effectively. In regards, the most suitable option that can be instituted in order to guarantee effective functioning is the element of control. In the WA Police force, the element of control should be administered throughout the different levels of culture in order to minimize the levels of risks present (Cavalluzzo and Ittner 244-256). The police personnel should be made to adopt the aspect of controlled environment. This, in turn will help them identify any forms of misunderstanding that should be reported immediately through communication relevant authorities. It should be mentioned that the longer impeding issue goes unnoticed and unreported in that matter there is the possibility of catapulted losses and organizational reputational damage (Verbeeten 428-435). The case of the junior WA Police being bullied and prevented from engaging in career development activities indicates that the organization does not practice element control and open communication platforms (Cavalluzzo and Ittner 258). The aspect of control mechanism and culture should be implemented within the force in order to distribute power. This can be done by developing and implementing check and balance system that ensures power is assigned to different police personnel within the force (Cavalluzzo and Ittner 260-267). The current behaviors of the top-notch management towards their junior staff are alarming and discouraging indeed. This situation can be offset by promoting strong leadership cultures. For instance, the force should embark on deploying a business culture form of leaders that should develop and create healthy work environment (Mujeeb and Ahmad 52-55). This can be achieved by having them lead by example and thus set a formidable tone. Business managers are not only known for setting stringent control-based adherence policies but also promote great levels of integrity and ethical behaviors. For this case, the WA Police top-level management should cease from promoting activities of corruption and illegal behaviors within the staff. The top-level management can develop systems that reward positive behaviors and punish those behaviors that are deemed unethical (Mujeeb and Ahmad 56-57). Consequently, effective communication platforms should be established within the force in order to establish risks whenever they occur and thus eliminate them. Efficient communication channels should be attained by developing and maintaining a positive work partnership between the top-level police personnel and the field officers. In cases of possible challenges, the top-notch police officers should communicate the matter to the junior employees in order to conduct accumulative plan of action (Verbeeten 444-450). The top-notch police should be made to understand that each member of the force provides valuable support to the success of the unit hence should work together without bullying. In respect to the issue of lack of training for police officers within the WA Police unit should be discouraged and the training activity introduced with immediate effect. It should be noted that in the current economy, employee training tools serves to facilitate effective controlled cultures and awareness. Training programs should be formulated in order to equip junior police force with knowledge and flexibility skills needed in conducting their duties. Notably, the training program should be made long-term in nature in order to maintain a skilled force (Verbeeten 454). On a general basis, the WA Police unit should deploy the Denison’s framework of organizational culture that promotes cohesion and effective work environment through numerous facets. First, the framework stresses the need for intensive involvement (Rothman and Martin 11). For this case, involvement of the entire workforce into such organizational activities as team-building and decision-making phenomenon should be promoted and upheld at all times. It is established that by engaging all levels of workers in achieving the overall organizational goals is useful for promoting motivation amongst workers. Second, the framework advocates for consistency in the course of conducting activities. Corporate cultures are deemed effective and strong in case they are consistent and promote elements of coordination and integration (Rothman and Martin 7-10). The top-notch WA Police should embark on developing activities that foster positive key values and leadership skills. This, in turn, minimizes possible elements of disagreement that is deemed contributory to the higher levels of police turnover. Third, the framework encourages the development of a company’s mission. For the WA Police case, the mission should be used to determine the efficient direction and purpose to be assumed in order to meet the organizational goals and strategic-based objectives. Since a greater percentage of the police turnover is caused by the lack of morale and career development opportunities. Thus, by deploying a mission for the organization ensures a positive future for the operation of the organization. Thus, the junior police personnel are guaranteed of possible appraisals in the future of the organization. Possible Ways to Ensure Effective Management of Change by the Commissioner The Commissioner of Police should understand that any form of change that occurs within any given organization does not come easy but on progress. This is associated with the assumption that changes within such organization as the WA Police unit does not only involve individual police officers but also the entire force altogether. The Commissioner should also be aware that change occurs in accordance with the magnitude and duration put in place (Geery 28-36). However, before embarking on the aspect of constituting change, the Commissioner should understand that there are areas where changes should not be affected. Such areas include the WA Police force mission, overall vision and core values. The fundamental challenge that the Commissioner can expect in the course of managing change is attributed to the catapulted restrictive policies and bureaucracy that is practiced by the top-notch officers. The assumption that corruption activities are embarked on depending on the ranks of the police officers is likely to minimize processes of identification and implementation of creative technologies to curb the situation at hand. In case of cultural embeddedness, the Commissioner should be able to comprehend to the assumption that not all members of an organization possess the fundamental capacity to foster and facilitate organizational culture (Moskovich and Achouch 21-40). This is because the WA Police force tends to be influenced by aspects of seniority complex and charisma. This is depicted by the fact that there is evident bullying by senior officers. The fairer way that can be adopted to manage change is through practicing human change models whereby the Commissioner will be forced to rotate top-notch officers from their positions. This will ensure that effective checks and balances are outlaid to ensure efficient internal audit processes. Given that the corruption index is practiced in accordance with the rank, the Commissioner should rotate personnel especially by those who have held a position for such a long time (Awal, Klinger, Rongione and Stumpf 79-96). Since most public organizations are politically instigated including the WA Police, the Commissioner should comprehend that there are different levels of trade-offs between distinctive groups that should be addressed. For this cause, it might prove difficult for the Commissioner to derive optimal based strategies in order to maintain optimal goals and objectives of the WA Police in that matter. Therefore, the Commissioner should institute strategies that compromise the situation at hand in order to allow the police unit move forward (Munich 126-144). The Commissioner should develop newer strategies and ideas that must be tested. Commitments should be encouraged in order to maintain low scale and effective changes. The notion of building up on rational handling strategies to espouse changes ensures that the challenges of the WA Police are tackled and a long-term direction to the operations of the unit established altogether. The process of affecting strategic management change within the WA Police should be established in order to link organizational culture to the process of the change. The Commissioner should ensure that immense levels of guidance is provided in order ascertain strategy developments and decisions. It should also be made clear that the application of fashionable change is guaranteed through aspects of applying effective managerial charisma. This is done in order to distinguish between internal and external change stimulus that foster a politicized setting within the WA Police. The assumption that can be formidably made within the WA Police rests with the fact that there is constant bullying and corruption regardless of their positions. The level of the aforementioned activity is based on the assumption that different organizational culture levels assume similar beliefs and values. This, in turn, can be difficult to change since it is perceived that the managers assume the beliefs to be governing their way of conducting activities. A strategic change in relation to a cultural perspective should be adopted by the Commissioner. This is likely to catapult the levels of interpretation and formulas for actions pertaining to the issue of corruption and illegal behaviors amongst the junior staff. In case a cultural perspective platform is adopted to ensure that change is managed effectively, possible encapsulation of unique and distinctive competencies will be triggered. This, in turn, will assist in ensuring that WA Police achieves its goals and objectives fairly. Possible Challenges to Managing Change within the WA Police Unit There are numerous challenges that the Commissioner is likely to face while engaging in the activity of developing change within the WA Police. First, possible resistance to change is likely to be evident in the course of the process (Pettigrew 570-579). Given that the top-notch officers are used to bullying lowly placed officers and even engaging in higher levels of corruption activities in comparison to the junior officers, there is the chance that they are going to put in effort to resist such change elements as rotation. There is likelihood of the top-notch officers practicing selective analysis and thus embark on adopting those strategies deemed favorable to maintain their resultant status quo. Accordingly, in case the top-officers perceive the paradigm change to be non-conforming to their way of operations they are likely to engage in adopting familiar policies within the whole change strategy. Evolutionary levels of change might be caused intensively with the fundamental assumption that the levels of corruption and bullying are affected in relation to the complexity of ranks within the WA Police unit. Thus, the roles of those officers associated with political instigations are likely to create intentional barricades to the implementation of the strategic change. The Commissioner should thus ensure that the strategy is implemented holistically in order to ascertain success. Strategic changes should also be adopted by way of compromises so that the whole WA Police unit is able to move forward altogether. Second, possible strategic change drifts are likely to take effect on the operational activities of the WA Police. This, in turn, might affect the way operations are conducted throughout the organization. However, like it was mentioned before, the Commissioner should allow fashionable changes to take course. This is can be achieved through participation of tests and experiments that might involve rotation of officers from one unit to another prior to final implementation. Notably, in this entire phenomenon, the Commissioner should be focused on developing climate that is deemed necessary for change. This might include putting place efficient models within the WA Police unit that challenge officers conduct while conducting their duties. In regards, the aspect of status quo or race amongst the officers will not be used in determining performance. Rather, officers will be gauged on their abilities and skills. Conclusion As it can be perceived from the discussion above, it is fair to assume that the aspect of both organizational culture and change go hand in hand in bring about results. The Commissioner should adhere to numerous philosophies while undertaking the activity of instituting change. The Commissioner should be able to understand the scope of the WA Police unit and devise unique strategies that will be used to affect positive working environments. The Commissioner should also be made familiar to the different challenges accorded with the aspect of managing and implementing change. First, The Commissioner should learn that there might be significant levels of resistance from the top-notch WA Police officers. Second, The Commissioner should also learn that there might be possible drifts in respect to the operational environment of the organization as a whole. However, despite of all the challenges, he should adopt a strategic change model that allows for compromise. Thus, making sure that the activities of the organizations move forward and such vices as corruption, bullying and engaging in illegal activities by police officers is eliminated holistically. Works Cited Awal, D., Klinger, J., Rongione, N and Stumpf, S.A. Issues in organizational culture, change: A case study. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict, (2006), 10(1): 79-97 Cavalluzzo, K. S and Ittner, C. D. Implementing performance measurement innovations: Evidence from government, Accounting, Organizations and Society, (2004), 29, 243-267 Doina, R, Mirela, S and Constantin, R. The organizational culture and the factors of its formation, 559-562 Geery, J. Managing strategic change-strategy, culture and action, Long Range Planning, (1992), 25(1):28-36 Kandula, S. R. Performance management, (2006), New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India private Limited McShane, C. Organizational behavior on the Pacific RIM, 3rd Ed. (2009).Prentice Hall Moskovich, Y and Achouch, Y. Cultural change in the Kibbutz factory “Bereshit” (Genesis): An Israeli case study, Journal of Organizational Transformation & Social Change, (2013), 10(1):21–41 Mujeeb, E and Ahmad, S, M. Impact of organizational culture on performance management Practices in Pakistan, International Management Review, (2011), 7 (2):52-57 Munich, R.L. Transplanting an organization: How does culture matter. Transplanting an Organization, (2011), 75: 126–144 Pettigrew, A.M, On studying organizational cultures. Administrative Science Quarterly, (1979) 24: 570–581 Rothman, P and Martin, B. Building a culture of control awareness, Bank Accounting & Finance, (2005), 7-12 Verbeeten, F. H. M. Performance management practices in public sector organizations: Impact on performance. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, (2008), 21(3), 427-454 Read More