Mary Frances Agnello, David R. White and Wesley Fryer
Drawing from three areas of research, the authors propose a model for twenty-first century international teacher education. Through literacy, technology, and global citizenship…
Abstract
Drawing from three areas of research, the authors propose a model for twenty-first century international teacher education. Through literacy, technology, and global citizenship education, future teachers can learn the interrelatedness of promoting human acceptance across national/political borders and global economic exigencies. As the movement of ideas, commerce, and people through means of improved transportation and computer technologies transform the notion of the nation state, diversity education will embrace international citizenship while remaining important in local and national contexts. Through focused teacher education, all of the academic disciplines hold promise for rich teaching and learning through critical literacy for an ecologically sound environment that ultimately will sustain global economical and political interrelations.
David R. White and Joseph Schafer
Policing scholars have largely ignored the workgroup dynamics of police command staffs. These officers work closely at the top of police organizations, promoting strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
Policing scholars have largely ignored the workgroup dynamics of police command staffs. These officers work closely at the top of police organizations, promoting strategic objectives and overseeing significant changes. As leaders, emotional regulation is critical to the maintenance of internal and external relationships. Only a few research studies address emotional intelligence (EI) among police leaders. The current study combines these two issues to examine whether emotionally intelligent leaders report better perceptions of workgroup fit with their respective command staffs.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a survey of 304 United States (US) command staff officers attending the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Academy (NA), the authors apply person-environment fit theory and test several hypotheses using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Command staff officers with better EI report significantly better perceptions of workgroup fit, suggesting that they may be better equipped to navigate the command staff workgroup dynamics in this complex environment that demands high emotional regulation. Workgroup fit was also significantly higher among higher ranking officers and among officers racialized as White.
Originality/value
Few studies have addressed perceptions of workgroup fit among command staff officers, and little attention has been given to the concept of EI. The authors add to these two important areas of research and provide evidence that emotional intelligence is an important characteristic for leaders when considering how well command staffs work together. This finding may have implications for the efficacy of agencies to facilitate change efforts or to carry out daily operations.
Details
Keywords
Rhiannon Roberts, Isabella E. Castillo, David R. White and Joseph Schafer
The level of cynicism officers experience can directly impact their day-to-day decisions, especially in policing’s currently strained climate. This paper provides an updated…
Abstract
Purpose
The level of cynicism officers experience can directly impact their day-to-day decisions, especially in policing’s currently strained climate. This paper provides an updated systematic review of the predictors, outcomes and conceptualizations of police cynicism within the relevant literature.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review was conducted utilizing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach. Results from the 56 articles published after Langworthy’s 1987 systematic review are included. It was hypothesized that due to the current climate, police cynicism may be more discussed within the literature, especially when examined with the “Ferguson Effect.”
Findings
Researchers conceptualize police cynicism in various ways outside the traditional measures. Officers who were more cynical were more likely to maintain tougher law enforcement orientations and may have been more likely to engage in problem behaviors. Lack of internal support was related to organizational cynicism. Support for the Ferguson effect and demographic-related variables (tenure, racial identity and gender) on police cynicism yielded mixed findings despite the field’s inclination of their augmenting impact.
Research limitations/implications
More research needs to be conducted on operationalizing and conceptualizing police cynicism. Researchers should establish standardized measures of police cynicism to help disaggregate results, as well as recruit from multiple agencies to increase generalizability.
Originality/value
This review is the first literature review conducted on police cynicism since Langworthy’s 1987 review. Exploring data post-1987 illustrates contemporary conceptualizations of police cynicism and related significant findings.
Details
Keywords
David R. White, Michael J. Kyle and Joseph Schafer
Police officer perceptions of their own legitimacy can be important in shaping aspects of their performance and other organizational outcomes. The current study uses…
Abstract
Purpose
Police officer perceptions of their own legitimacy can be important in shaping aspects of their performance and other organizational outcomes. The current study uses person-environment fit theory to assess the effects of value congruence with top managers, immediate supervisors and coworkers on officers' perceptions of self-legitimacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a cross-sectional survey of nearly 250 front-line police officers from seven municipal police departments in Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky to examine the effects of perceived value congruence on officers’ self-legitimacy. A hierarchical model of fit is assessed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that value congruence positively relates to officers’ reported self-legitimacy, suggesting that officers who perceive greater similarity in values with others in the organization will express more confidence in their authority.
Originality/value
Our findings add to research on police officers’ self-legitimacy, and the use of a hierarchical model of person-environment fit might offer implications for future research on police culture.
Details
Keywords
Bernard M. Kitheka, Elizabeth D. Baldwin, David L. White and Daniel N. Harding
The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the process of community building that helped transform the City of Chattanooga to become one of the greenest cities in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the process of community building that helped transform the City of Chattanooga to become one of the greenest cities in the country and why the sustainability program worked for Chattanooga.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 30 key informants, identified through snowball sampling, were interviewed. To corroborate the interview data, numerous documents were reviewed and repeat field visits to Chattanooga and surrounding area conducted over a period of three-and-a-half years. Interview data were analyzed using MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software.
Findings
Findings show that the transformation process from “the dirtiest city in America” to “green city” was mainly a community agenda. Led by concerned private citizens and visionaries, Chattanooga went through aggressive community mobilization, citizen empowerment and participation in environmental improvement, building of social capital and economic revitalization.
Research limitations/implications
Research limitations include under coverage and researcher bias.
Practical implications
Lessons for cities that share the same industrial history as Chattanooga.
Social implications
Community-building and community participation can work in a collectivist culture.
Originality/value
The lead author collected the data, conducted analysis and did all the writing with mentoring from the co-authors.
Details
Keywords
David R. White, Joseph Schafer and Michael Kyle
The purpose of this study is to explore the impacts coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had on US police academies’ production of police recruits.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the impacts coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had on US police academies’ production of police recruits.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a national online survey of police academy directors in the USA, followed by purposive, semi-structured interviews of select academy directors. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data is combined in a mixed methods approach.
Findings
The findings suggest that academies experienced a range of impacts related to COVID-19. These impacts lead to more questions concerning how academies and state-level governing boards responded not only to pandemic-related challenges, but also to their willingness to accept more online and alternative curriculum delivery strategies.
Originality/value
Police academies are a required step in the production of new police recruits in the USA, but researchers have paid little attention to how academies operate. While exploratory, this study provides some insights into how this aspect of policing weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, and offers suggestions for future research, as well as policy implications.
Details
Keywords
By informing their children that Black women, Black men and Black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this…
Abstract
By informing their children that Black women, Black men and Black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of Black people, they debased and defamed themselves. And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. Because they think they are white, they do not dare confront the ravage and the lie of their history. Because they think they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers. Because they think they are white, they are looking for, or bombing into existence, stable populations, cheerful natives and cheap labor. Because they think they are white, they believe, as even no child believes, in the dream of safety. Because they think they are white, however vociferous they may be and however multitudinous, they are as speechless as Lot’s wife – looking backward, changed into a pillar of salt…It is a terrible paradox, but those who believed that they could control and define Black people divested themselves of the power to control and define themselves. – On Being “White”…and Other Lies, James Baldwin (1984), Essence in Black on White edited by David Roediger. To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group – a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of “blackness,” “maleness,” “femaleness,” or “whiteness.” – Race Matters, Cornel West (2001).“Since you’ve gone liberal I was going to get that book by that O’Reilly character, thought that would be real funny. We watch him almost every night.” My grandma laughs at her joke. I laugh along and say, “I’m glad you didn’t waste your money.” It’s her phrasing that catches me. I’ve gone somewhere? If so I’ve been there a while, why is everyone just now noticing? Maybe post September 11th America has highlighted my refusals to wave the flag, and they can no longer ignore me in their own “good” conscience. Or maybe in this post September 11th America I have become more adamant to be heard. The more I think about it, the more appropriate it seems. I feel like I have gone somewhere and keep getting farther away.
David Farmerʼs work is too often misunderstood, perhaps because of the truly imaginative metaphors that he employs for expressing it, and the seemingly paradoxical prescriptions…
Abstract
David Farmerʼs work is too often misunderstood, perhaps because of the truly imaginative metaphors that he employs for expressing it, and the seemingly paradoxical prescriptions that it leads to at the level of practical action. This problem is helped by elaborating the grounding in which his work is at least implicitly set (namely, Traditionalism in American public administration) and by considering its congruence and compatibilities with the best of such contemporary organization theory as Demingʼs approach to organizational and management practice. With such clarified understanding, it becomes obvious that his work opens the way to a truly new 21st century model of public administration both in theory and in application.
This case encourages students to consider how they would communicate and support the implementation of a company’s policy for annual performance reviews. Analysis may include…
Abstract
Synopsis
This case encourages students to consider how they would communicate and support the implementation of a company’s policy for annual performance reviews. Analysis may include considering how to build commitment from line management for the process and practice of colleague performance reviews and an exploration of the relationship between appraisals and performance management, human resources (HR) strategy and business strategy. Managers may perceive that performance reviews are taking them away from the more important and pressing tasks that directly relate to their own performance on the job – and not appreciate the strategic significance of the appraisal process.
Research methodology
Topics were identified as case preferences and a shopping list of questions were generated for field interviews. Two field interviews were completed. The company involved was not disguised, however the HR Director’s name (David White) is a pseudonym.
Relevant courses and levels
This case is suitable for third or fourth year undergraduate or postgraduate studies in hospitality management, human resource management or a human resource management course that specializes in strategic HRM, performance management, performance appraisal or employee engagement.
Theoretical bases
There has been a gradual shift from performance appraisal to performance management to reflect a more strategic approach to human resource management practice (Bach, 2005). A performance management system typically includes the following components: regular performance appraisal, mission statement and values statement, individual objectives, performance standards or competencies, unit objectives, company-wide objectives, performance-related pay, training and reward or recognition system (Armstrong, 2002). Collectively these components have a strategic focus and connect individual, team and organizational performance.