MODELING A DECADE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN MUNICIPAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF TECHNICAL, ADMINISTRATIVE, AND PROGRAMMATIC INNOVATIONS

Abstract

In efforts to facilitate reforms in American Law Enforcement agencies, there has been an increasing interest among practitioners and scholars alike to better understand the causes and conditions of police organization innovation and change. There are a number of gaps in the organizational innovation research literature and existing studies have produced inconsistent and mixed findings. Most studies of police organizational change are limited due to their cross-sectional designs, and longitudinal analysis of change is lacking. This study endeavors to contribute to our understanding of police organizational change using a panel of data compiled from several principle data sources which include the 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2007 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics surveys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) 1996, 1999, 2002, and 2006 Uniform Crime reports, and the RAND Center for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD) Data Core Series. These principal data sources are used in a longitudinal research design (panel-data analysis) to test how well a variety of hypothesized factors explain three important dimensions of police organization change: technical, administrative, and programmatic innovations. These data sources are also used to test two competing perspectives of police organization innovation and change; contingency theory and organizational design theory. Contingency theory predicts that the external environment is the principal driving force behind organizational change, whereas organizational design theory predicts that police organization change and innovation is principally influenced by organizational structures and administrative processes that are largely independent of the external environment.