Building a Bigger Room: Creating Equity by Demystifying the Journey to Full Professor

“Have an international reputation.”

“This will look good on your CV, so you should do this work.”

“My son should want to take a class from you. That’s how I decide who becomes a full professor.”

In the United States (US), there seems to be a distinct discourse surrounding promotion to full professor, most of which we heard on our journeys toward this rank. While we recognize our privilege as two cis-gender white women full professors at research institutions in the US, we also want to use our positional power to break down the rhetoric surrounding promotion to full professor with an eye toward professional development and faculty growth.

In this paper, we rely on the concept of language games (Wittgenstein, 2010) to examine the rhetoric and images surrounding promotion. Language games succeed when people are playing by the same rules, yet language and its associated rules are manipulable, resulting in a breakdown of the game. Using the concept of a language game, we break down some common ways language is used to either propel or hinder someone’s promotional track. There often is a breakdown between what is written in promotion guidelines versus how other full professors speak to the next generation.

Through the language game lens, we can explore where each party in the process has agency – the professor seeking promotion and the supervisors meant to help them. So often, the process of becoming full professor is dehumanizing and fraught with landmines we might not know exist. Moreover, the problem is exacerbated in the US when gender and race are added to the intersectional mix (Marini & Meschitti, 2018). Oftentimes, for instance, Black academics undertake unseen emotional labor and extra service that goes unnoticed in official promotion standards (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2008).

The paper will introduce a framework that opens the “black box” of promotion by breaking down some language games we have heard along our way. Professors can reclaim their agency by telling their stories in powerful ways, while supervisors can do a better job of mentoring and engaging employees rather than making promotion combative. By presenting this at EGPA, we hope to engage in a broader conversation with our European colleagues to distill international differences (see Dnes and Seaton, 1998), turning this project into a larger field-wide conversation and making the framework applicable and/or tailorable to different university systems and contexts.

References

Dnes, A. W. and Seaton, J. S. (1998) “The reform of academic tenure in the United Kingdom”, International Review of Law and Economics, Volume 18, Issue 4, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0144-8188(98)00017-9

Marini, G. & Meschitti, V. (2018). The trench warfare of gender discrimination: evidence from academic promotions to full professor in Italy. Scientometrics, 115, 989-1006.

Rockquemore, K.A. & Laszloffy, T. (2008). The Black academic’s guide to winning tenure without losing your soul. Lynne Reiner.

Wittgenstein, L. (2010). Philosophical investigations. John Wiley & Sons.

This paper offers a critical lens of the normative approaches to public service leadership that emphasize behavior, traits, and intra-organizational practices. The paper argues that contemporary pedagogy of leadership in public administration should reflect more explicit assessment and interpretation of governance structures and institutional regimes to advance public value. The current context of intersecting and evolving public governance systems, whether at the domestic multi-jurisdictional level (e.g. federalism), inter-organizational (e.g. inter-agency commissions, or international level (e.g. European Union), requires a more context-analytical leadership pedagogical approach. This pedagogical approach assumes that contexts fluctuate and public administrators must be nimble in implementing public programs and policies in varied governance contexts. The paper presents examples of public service leadership cases “ripped” from the headlines and instructor guide for case analysis and action that include the following components:

• Synthesize the leadership opportunity in the context of the public aim or need to address.

• Explain the contextual factors that frame leadership opportunity, including the governance systems that define scope of authority, institutional regimes that guide values and norms of the leadership domain.

• Generate specific recommendations to address the leadership opportunity that leverage the opportunities and intersections of governance structures and institutional regimes.

“Learn by Doing: Teaching Policy Analysis Through Integrated Experiential Learning Projects” will propose a framework for teaching policy analysis that relies on theoretical foundations, but continuously integrates practical application and experiential learning. I then illustrate the framework’s application through a proposed course structure that includes learning the five-stage model, weekly team decision-making, writing project deliverables, the final paper, and client briefing. This course format provides students with a rigorous analytical framework for tackling complex policy and management issues (of any topic) pertaining to the public and nonprofit sectors. The presentation will include best practices related to how course sections come together, handling client communication, conducting research and other critical success factors. It will also include challenges related to recruiting clients and agreeing on an issue that is narrow enough to address comprehensively in the time allotted and that is not framed in a prescriptive way.

This kind of teaching approach serves as a bridge from the classroom to the professional world and sets up the students with highly transferrable skills that they can employ adeptly in interviews and on the job. Students overwhelmingly isolate the experiential learning coursework as the most valuable experience from their graduate studies, and the clients find value in the project deliverables as well.

Results and impacts from the experiential learning policy analysis coursework are evident both inside and outside of the classroom.

1. Students transform their writing styles and become incredibly agile at writing direct and cogent analytical arguments.

2. Students hone their presentation skills. For many, the briefings are their first experience with formal, and in the case of the live briefings, high-stakes presentations.

3. Students learn how to think on their feet and how to sell a defensible argument with actionable recommendations in a relatively high-pressure context.

5. The client-based work not only helps connect the graduates (and the school’s name) to the professional world but also associates the school with a product that can be marketed.

6. The regular involvement of live clients guarantees that students are exposed to

current issues.

7. It's important to keep the analytical framework on the cutting edge.

By Pernille Boye Koch, LL.M, Ph.D., Research Director, The Danish Institute for Human Rights, and Michael Gøtze, Professor in Administrative Law, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.

In Denmark it can to a wide extent be argued that the Corona crisis was handled with care and focus by a strong one-party government assisted by an efficient administration. Nevertheless, one of the most debated “scandal cases” also has its origin in the Corona context. The case challenges fundamental legal perceptions of rule of law and the main actors in the cases were – apart from the Danish prime minster – the Danish civil service carrying out political decisions. The case calls for reflections of how to assess the role of the civil service in a legal context.

The Mink-case is a highly exposed case in Denmark, maybe the most exposed administrative scandal ever. In November 2020, the Danish government decided that all mink in Denmark should be culled after a mutated form of coronavirus that can spread to humans was found on a substantial number of mink farms. The decision was based on a concern that the mutated virus could pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future Covid-19 vaccine. However, the mink farmers were – both informally by broad press statements and formally by the assisting police - told to kill their animals even though the government did not have a legal basis for this drastic measure. The civil service that were involved in the process were in a hurry and the focus on legal requirements were secondary, at best. The minority government acted in anticipation of an act, but the act did not actually exist yet.

The Mink case resulted in the dismissal of the Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and an independent commission of Inquiry was established to scrutinize the course of events and to assess who is to be held responsible – in particular within the Danish civil service - for these unlawful actions. The investigation and assessment are now over and one of the pivotal questions is: where does this leave the civil service?

In this paper we will look into this question within a framework of fundamental questions of rule of law, separation of powers, good administration in a time, where the Danish central government has been under heavy pressure due to the pandemics, while the state administration is at the same time affected by centralization and politicization. Danish civil service is at a crossroad. A number of legal concepts – within administrative law, employment law and constitutional law – need to address the conflict between the ideal of neutrality of the civil service and the reality of a civil service with strong political ears.

The deadline for Member States to transpose the Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the “Whistleblower Protection Directive”) was 17 December 2021. In January 2022 Belgium received from the European Commission a letter of formal notice for lack of transposition of this directive. Belgium wasn’t alone: at least 25 other member states received a similar letter of formal notice.

In 2022 the Belgian federal legislator as well as the Flemish legislator went into overdrive and the necessary legislative initiatives were finally taken. It resulted – in November and December 2022 – in two federal laws (one for the private sector and one for the public sector) and in the Flemish Decree of 18 November 2022 amending the Provincial Decree of 9 December 2005, the Decree of 22 December 2017 on local government and the Administrative Decree of 7 December 2018, as regards whistleblowers. In May 2023 a Flemish draft decree transposing the European whistleblower directive for education in the Flemish Community was submitted to the Flemish Parliament.

In this paper we will first describe the – at times slow and difficult – transposition process of the Whistleblower Protection Directive in Belgium and especially in Flanders and discuss in more detail the implementation of the new legislation and the problems (both legal and practical) that have arisen. Special focus will be on local government – for municipalities the new regulation came into force on 11 December 2022 (ten days after publication in the Belgian Official Gazette) and on educational institutions – a specific decree for the education sector is at the time of writing still being debated in parliament.

The importance of better protection for whistleblowers is not in dispute. However questions arise whether for public administrations – especially for smaller administrations - it is still possible to keep sight of the overall objective when confronted with yet another procedure requiring internal and external reporting channels. Although an effort has been made to use where possible existing channels and instances (ombudsman, Audit …) there is still – or perhaps as a result thereof - a perceived lack of clarity, especially with regard to how the ‘whistleblower’ procedure relates to other complaints systems, for example the procedure that apply within the ‘well-being at work’ legislation.

So, will these new procedures and the protections they offer be sufficiently clear to potential whistleblowers if it is maybe not so clear for the administrations themselves? And a last all-important question: will these new or amended regulations make civil servants in said administrations feel more secure and more willing to report on serious breaches of EU-Law?

This article studies the final stage of the policy cycle: the enforcement of European railway regulations within the national legal framework and administrative practices focusing on the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate and the Consumer and Market Authority within the Dutch railway sector. The research objective is to reveal any de jure conundrums that occur between the European and national legal frameworks concerning railways as well as clarify how the authorities cope de facto with dilemmas that result from such legal conundrums during their enforcement activities. An academic focus on such national regulatory authorities in the railway sector, and particularly those of the Netherlands, has so far been absent despite the increasing body of European railway legislation, the recognised complexity of the legal field of transport and the convoluted implementation and enforcement strategies that have rendered the position of these authorities significant. Various legal examples, regarding provisions for the role of the infrastructure managers as administrator and the calculation tool for track access charges suggest that European legal railway instruments and the Dutch legal framework and practices occasionally contradict, resulting in dilemmas that authorities have to cope with during their supervisory and enforcement practices. Also, this article contributes to empirical legal research focusing on law in action by uncovering the mechanisms regulatory authorities apply to cope with contradicting legal provisions stemming from the EU and national framework and practices, the problem solving capabilities of the authorities and how complex legal provisions are put to practice. The focus is on the Dutch safety authority and market authority to give an integral overview of supervision and enforcement by these authorities in the Dutch railway sector but is limited to the implementation and enforcement of specific elements of the fourth European railway package including Directive 2016/797, 2016/798 and 2012/34/EU and their transposition into the Dutch legal framework. The central research question is: what are the legal conundrums the Dutch market authority and safety authority are de jure and de facto confronted with, pursuant to the transposition of EU Directive 2016/797, Directive 2016/798 and Directive 2012/34/EU by the Netherlands, and how they cope with the concomitant dilemmas. The present research applies a document analysis of the relevant European and national railway and administrative laws and case law as well as an empirical analysis based on semi-structured interviews. The respondents include legal experts from the field, officials of the relevant departments of the safety and market authorities and of relevant ministerial departments. The expert interviews are used to develop a picture of the case and context. Interviews with the staff members focus on the dilemmas the authorities de facto encounter and are used to identify which mechanisms are employed in practice to cope with this.

Recent years have brought major social changes, including growing dissatisfaction with democratic institutions and the emergence of so-called “illiberal democracies”. Globalisation, economic crisis, political conflicts, and security threats also contribute to malfunctioning of modern societies. Many countries experience backsliding from the rule of law, as well as growing populist and authoritarian tendencies.

Central and Eastern European countries already experienced authoritarianism in the past. In the turbulent mid-war period of 1920s and 1930s, as well as in the communist system enforced by the Soviet Union after the WW2, the regimes struggled to navigate the economic and social challenges by resorting to non-democratic measures. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it seemed that the reestablished democracies will be successful and resilient, and that the rule of law should be strengthened by joining the EU. However, the democratic system of government, division of power and the rule of law soon became challenged by the populist and authoritarian tendencies.

Administrative law plays a very important role in these processes. Since its main function is to protect the individual against the abuse of state power, it can be surprising to discover that it is instrumentally used by the regimes in decaying democracies. By breaking the principles of the rule of law and weakening of the constitutional values, populist governments often misuse the instruments of administrative law to limit the citizens’ rights and liberties. This process is however not always evident, as this ‘prerogative state’ coexists with ‘normative state’, where legal forms of action may be used differently depending on the addressee.

Looking at the example of Poland, it is clear that the administrative measures can be effectively used both to protect and to oppress the citizens, depending on their loyalty towards the regime. This paper aims at showing at how the ‘dual state’ works in practice, focusing on the examples of misusing the administrative law in Poland since 2015. The most striking recent example being the new legislation from May 2023 to establish a commission to investigate Russian influence that could be used to block the candidacy of opposition politicians with only administrative measures and without due process.

Jean Hartley and Jane Roberts

All public service senior leadership roles are inherently political, in the sense of having to deal with both the formal institutions and agents of the state, as well as the contested nature of many public service issues. Within that context, policing is notably political as is indicated by the prominence of policing “stories” in daily news and in public debates. Policing is inherently political (Bowling, Reiner and Sheptycki, 2019).

However, in the UK at least and in other Westminster political systems, there has been relatively little research into the dynamics of how senior police work alongside, elected politicians and how they develop their roles and relationships. Senior police work with a wide range of elected (and appointed politicians) who may work in national or local political roles or in police oversight roles such as the Police and Crime Commissioner for each geographical force in England and Wales.

An earlier literature review (Roberts and Hartley, 2021) showed that there is a considerable literature about the legal and governance frameworks of chief constables working with police and crime commissioners but that there is relatively little about how each understands their roles or how they navigate their roles vis-à-vis each other. Consequently, the empirical part of the research investigated three questions: First, how do senior police officers and staff understand the roles of elected politicians? Second, how do senior police officers interact with elected politicians? Third, what skills do police officers use to navigate their relationships with politicians. The research also explored how police acquired their skills but that is not covered in this paper.

The method used was 22 semi-structured interviews, of which 11 were with chief constables and also separately with their counterpart police and crime commissioner, (so the pair were responsible for a particular geographical area of policing). The researchers also carried out four hours of workshops with 11 aspiring senior leaders (superintendents and chief superintendents). All interviews and workshops were carried out online due to Covid restrictions in place at the time. All interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.

The paper will analyse the dynamics of senior officers through several themes: context and formal governance; roles including how they are understood and negotiated; relationships between the political and the operational leader; and skills and behaviours. The themes are reflected on through the literature on the politics administration dichotomy, its limitations and developments.

Scholars have already shown the structured relationship that politics has with policing (Reiner, 2010). Similarly, the literature has highlighted the selectivity of police activity that leads to disproportionate deaths and harm among certain groups, especially Blacks (Alexander, 2010). The practices of repression and police violence go beyond overt aggression and also manifest in areas related to mental health, housing, and public space, especially with the strengthening of the neoliberal state (Camp & Heatherton, 2016). This process serves the control and discipline of specific groups by the neoliberal state (Wacquant, 2009; Soss et al., 2011). In urban contexts, it materializes as state violence in certain race-class subjugated (RCS) communities (Soss & Weaver, 2016). This dynamic reinforces an imaginary of inferiority and dangerousness of these groups, further exacerbating harm to RCS individuals.

Although the increasingly repressive and violent behavior of the police towards certain groups is a consequence of the neoliberal state model, politics plays a central role in determining how the institutional strengthening of police bureaucracies occurs and how their political use is operationalized in governmental agendas. The increase in the number of policemen running for and holding elective office, along with the establishment of a political agenda for the security forces, highlights the empirical and theoretical importance of the intersection between politics and the police. Some studies have focused on understanding the impact of democratic backsliding on police agendas, including government systems that do not directly control the police (Lotta & Bueno, 2023). However, there is still a lack of understanding that concretely connects the neoliberal political agenda of top-level governments to the everyday practices of police officers interacting with RCS groups. Specifically, how this neoliberal agenda for and by the police materializes in the implementation chain, involving different bureaucracies, and how it impacts the interaction between police officers and RCS groups.

To address this gap, I conducted a study in a territory widely recognized as an RCS community, Crackland, located in downtown São Paulo, Brazil. It is known for having the largest urban drug use scene in the country, where hundreds of homeless individuals, who are heavy crack users, reside and interact with various street-level bureaucracies, including different security forces. Data was collected through an eight-month ethnographic research, involving 89 structured interviews aimed at understanding the perceptions of these homeless individuals regarding the bureaucracies operating in this territory. The research was conducted during a period of democratic backsliding under Jair Bolsonaro's government, also capturing a time when the police played a prominent role in shaping public policies implemented in the region.

This article intends to contribute to the policing literature by examining how the intersection of political interests materializes in the performance of police corporations within a context of democratic regression and how these political interests impact police activity, particularly in their interactions with RCS groups.

In the context of the Russian war on Ukrainian, nations sharing a border with Russia found themselves confronted by security challenges. Furthermore, the inviolability of their citizens sense of security was gravely tested. While the sense of security among citizens is a multidimensional phenomenon, it remains intricately intertwined with two variables: (1) citizen participation, which refers to active participation in shaping public decisions, and (2) an attitude toward the future that includes an overall sense of optimism and positivity [1].

The aim was to assess the consequences of the evolving security landscape, catalysed by the Russian military aggression on Ukraine, on the sense of security and attitude towards the future among the Baltic nations' citizens. Additionally, the study sought to examine the influence of citizen participation on these attitudes as well as an impact of sociodemographic characteristics. A noteworthy aspect of this study is its time perspective, as it was conducted across distinct periods – pre-Russian-Ukraine war and as it continues.

Biennial study is conducted: (1) The first stage of this study was conducted in 2021 in November, i.e. 4 months before the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine. A random survey of 3175 citizens was conducted in three Baltic countries: Estonia (1002), Latvia (1017) and Lithuania (1006). (2) The second stage of this study was conducted in 2022 September, i.e. 6 months after the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. A random survey of 2,026 citizens was conducted in two Baltic countries: Estonia (1,002) and Lithuania (1,024). Since the results obtained in Lithuania and Latvia during the first study were relatively similar, the second stage of the study was conducted only in Lithuania and Estonia.

Considering that the three Baltic countries are similar in their socio-demographic, economic and political models, not only each country was analyzed separately, but also the entire Baltic region. The Baltic countries are going through the same crises as other countries, a global pandemic in 2020, Russian aggression towards Ukraine in 2022. The latter event affects the Baltic countries more sensitively than other countries; therefore, the study examines the sense of security of the citizens and the attitude towards the future that changes over time in the three Baltic countries. Correlations between citizen participation, sense of security and attitudes toward the future were found to vary across countries, regardless of the nature of the crisis and the geographical proximity of the countries in question. There are exceptions that relate to citizens' sense of security, and in some aspects considerable changes are seen when measured before and during Russian aggression.

Comprehensive security refers to a cross-sectoral, cross-actor collaboration between state (e.g., state leadership, national defence, police, rescue services, health and social care, infrastructure) and non-state actors (e.g., citizen organizations, businesses, the citizens) in securing essential societal functions. It has been the foundation of preparedness thinking in Finland.

However, the guiding principle of the Finnish system is that each public authority is responsible for preparing for crisis situations and coordinating preparedness actions within their respective jurisdictions. This, along with the division of the Finnish central government into 11 sectoral ministries and the Prime Minister's Office, poses a challenge to the country's preparedness for cross-sectoral threats and provides fertile ground for turf wars and ambiguity in safety and security policy responsibilities. In recent years, in addition to military defence and general preparedness, the concept of civil preparedness has also entered the national discourse, in part due to the administrative division. The concept may be interpreted as emphasizing the role of non-military functions in contingencies – something that is undeniably evident in modern hybrid threats and in the aftermath of COVID-19 – while also making a clear distinction between the roles of civilian and military actors in preparedness. As such, it emphasises the difference between military preparedness and the preparedness of both state and non-state civilian actors and citizens.

The aim of this research is to examine why such a military-civilian division in the preparedness discourse has arisen, along with its possible implications for the governance of safety and security. The research is based on interviews of Finnish civil servants and citizen actors, along with a survey directed at experts in preparedness and security.

This paper applies the concept of bureaucratic representativeness to the demographic composition of contemporary local police forces to address the following four-part question: What effect does racial representativeness of police departments have on 1) citizens’ satisfaction with their police department, 2) citizens’ sense of public safety, 3) citizens’ satisfaction with their local government overall, and 4) citizens’ trust in government institutions.

Police-community relations in several European countries and the U.S. have been rocked in recent years with several high-profile incidents of citizens claiming police brutality or use of excessive force. Subsequent protests and riots around the country have highlighted increased community tensions between some segments of the communities and their police departments, as well as a general erosion of trust.

This paper measures the extent of this erosion and the extent to which it varies in the U.S. with the racial composition of a city’s police force relative to the racial composition of its population. The theory suggests that more demographically representative agencies may be better able to signal the policy interests of those who share these demographic characteristics.

This paper focuses on service outcomes: citizen satisfaction with police, sense of safety during the day and night, and trust in one’s local government. Trust is critical for citizens to work with police and co-produce their own safety.

The paper presents results from a series of models examining the representativeness of a police department’s uniformed officers on these outcomes, along with a series of individual level covariates. The dataset includes the demographic characteristics of police for all the client communities of Polco, Inc.. In turn, Polco has made available standardized citizen satisfaction data for over 500 cities for whom they have conducted the National Community Survey. The results may suggest actionable personnel changes by police that could improve citizen satisfaction, sense of safety, and trust in local government and police.

Learning Objective 1: Identify the extent of the erosion of trust and satisfaction tied the racial composition of a city’s police force relative to the racial composition of its population.

Learning Objective 2: Understand the connection of representativeness in the police force to a communities' sense of safety.

Learning Objective 3: The results suggest actionable personnel changes and resource reallocations by police that could improve citizen satisfaction, sense of safety, and trust in local government.

Empirical work exploring and explaining learning accountability in public service contexts remains embryonic, especially for pressures brought by individuals through formal accountability channels. This paper seeks to identify and test organizational conditions for learning in the context of English and Welsh policing. I examine workforce diversity as a potential learning condition in particular detail. A qualitative-to-quantitative mixed methods approach draws on 42 semi-structured interviews with police leaders, officers and staff to interpret themes in how organizational learning from public challenges happens or fails to happen, and in responses to questions eliciting perceptions of organizational culture in terms of candor and workplace diversity relations.

A novel learning condition emerges from the data as “lesson salience and integrity”, referring to the gap between organizational action and cognition and the barrier perceived to exist in turning new ‘knowledge’ into action when those who must implement new knowledge –street-level officers– have no or limited involvement in interpretive or institutionalizing processes which mandate a new approach or rule. I argue this condition reflects a fundamental feature of learning accountability, where investigation for misconduct-identifying purposes necessarily drives a wedge between action and cognition. Interpretation of the relationship between workforce social diversity and learning from public challenges develops a picture which is part social-psychological and part-political. Focusing on the political reading, where learning from public challenges has group-based dynamics in internal competition for organizational attention and resources, the quantitative phase tests hypotheses about a range of diversity-related learning conditions using an original panel data set on public complaints against police forces from 2011-2018 about a range of themes, from the racialized and gendered to more ‘universal’ complaint categories.

Statistical results show cautious support for a representative bureaucracy-style argument that police forces with higher shares of black officers and staff and women are likelier to ‘learn’ from complaints about stop and search and discriminatory behavior. Social group fractionalization is found to have a mitigating effect. Concentration of social groups in different parts of the organization was found to increase learning from complaint types disproportionately affecting minorities. Tentative support is found for the notion of organizational learning trade-offs between themes, but also for complementary learning themes. Exploring and offering tentative explanations for learning from public challenges contributes to the public accountability literature, but also to organizational learning. By exploring and testing conditions for learning from a class of pressures which represents contested or ambiguous claims, it enables elaboration of learning theory which has often focused on more ‘objective’ failures as stimuli.

In the context of current challenges to the legitimacy of policing, is seems appropriate to address not just the challenge of improving public trust but the more fundamental question of how to build the ‘trustworthiness’ of policing organisations. This requires the uncomfortable work of examining the organisational conditions that have allowed the trustworthiness of some elements of policing fail. A key process in this uncomfortable work is to look closely at how institutions come to ‘know’ about issues and failures, and yet come to not act on that knowledge in order to prevent the same failures replicating into the future.

A tool for understanding ignorance in organisations is the theory of ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ as developed by Steve Raynor (2012). US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld famously spoke of ‘known unknowns’, ‘known knowns’ and ‘unknowns unknowns.’ Raynor notes that this typology leaves out a fourth quadrant comprising of ‘unknown knowns’: “the most intriguing combinations: what we don’t know we know” (ibid: 108). With this challenge, Raynor calls on us to look at those things that institutions ‘know’ to be true, but where that knowledge has either not been smoothly assimilated throughout an organisation, or where it is ignored in daily practical action (where it is known intellectually, but not in practice). In Raynor’s typology, there are four main ways in which organisations avoid uncomfortable knowledge. These are: 1) Denial: an outright inability or refusal to accept information contrary to the organisational narrative; 2) Dismissal: a recognition that there is information available that counteracts the organisational knowledge, whilst reasons are found to downplay or denigrate it; 3) Diversion: the construction of decoy activities, aimed to draw attention away from the uncomfortable subject; and 4) Displacement: where an organisation puts efforts into alternatives to effective action which may appear, on the surface, to address the uncomfortable subject, but are ultimately ineffective.

This research draws together findings from a currently ongoing piece of research that explores the value of the concept of ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ in UK policing. We will explore where sites of avoidance of uncomfortable knowledge may be present in UK police forces, such as, for example: where forces engage in trade-offs between urgent operational requirements and longer term operational strategies and priorities; where forces place their middle leaders in a double-bind of contradictory pressures, making them the interface between day-to-day operational priorities and processes from above that are meant to drive change; where forces operate a punitive error culture that depresses mechanisms of change; and where forces engage in displacement activities (what the Casey report (Casey et al., 2023) identifies as “initiativeitis”) at the expense of activities that could fundamentally challenge police culture. Our research will also examine ways in which techniques from the so-called ‘pedagogies of discomfort’ (Boler and Zembylas, 2003; Head, 2020) could be used to help police practitioners to break down barriers between their organisations and the ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ contained therein.

The proposed paper aims at explaining the trend toward parliamentary ombudspersons in Germany. In particular, it sheds light on the policy diffusion of those civilian ombudspersons, who have a certain degree of oversight capabilities over the police. In doing so, the proposed paper analyzes the influence that political parties may have on the policy process and, especially, on the institutional design of such parliamentary ombudspersons.

The provision of public safety is one of the constitutive attributes of the modern state. This feature includes the protection of citizens from police malfeasance. As a matter of fact, over the past few years, police accountability has become an internationally prioritized interest in the societal, political, and academic discourse (Goldsmith and Lewis 2000; Finn 2001; Borgs-Maciejewski 2006; Den Boer and Fernhout 2008; Cooper 2012; Jackson 2012; Aden 2013/2017/2019; Byrne and Priestley 2017; Töpfer 2018; Holmberg 2019a/b). With this development in mind, various German states (“Länder”) have started to implement a certain model of watchdog, striving to enhance the citizen-state relationship (Bosch et al. 2022; Piening et al. 2022; Schröter and Ibrahim-Sauer 2022; Töpfer 2022). In hopes of achieving a high level of institutional independence, the ombudspersons are associated with the state parliament. Their main objective is to review potential misconduct of police officers, as predominantly brought to the ombudspersons’ attention by citizens or other police officers. To carry out that task, these small organizations are equipped with the competency to request pertinent information, convey investigation results to relevant authorities (prosecution, ministry of the interior, or senior police management), and mediate between the accuser and the accused. However, as they have been given no powers to sanction or even enforce their findings and subsequent recommendations, they hold less authority than sports referees.

By now, eight out of the sixteen Länder have decreed to install such positions. Additional states as well as the federal government are expected to follow this trend in the near future. Noticeably, each time the decision was made, liberal political parties–namely, the Green Party and/ or the Social Democratic Party of Germany–shared government responsibility. Furthermore, four incumbent ombudspersons are members of one of these parties. It flows from this that political parties do make a difference in the policy-making process. Hence, the proposed paper examines the policy inputs, conversion, and output (Easton 1957) relevant to the aforementioned type of parliamentary ombudspersons in Germany. Considering the influence of polity, the argument is eventually geared towards assessing the low degree of institutional capacity and impact on the improvement of police conduct.

In the dynamic environment of the 21st century, organizational learning is essential for a successful police work. To keep up with environmental and social changes, learning has to be implemented deep into the organizational culture. Organizations that prioritize and cultivate learning are classified as learning organizations. Although a lot of empirical studies deal with this topic, the focus is on private companies. Quantitative research regarding organizational learning in public administrations in general and the police in particular. This is surprising, since police forces are ideally suited to represent learning organizations, considering that officers of the police are in constant exchange with the environment and facing permanent changes. Therefore, there is a need to close this gap and to gain more insights into the learning culture of the modern police. Also, there should be a better understanding of how internal factors, inherent in every member of the police, influence learning organizations. Against this background there is a strong need to bring together conceptual insights, and empirical data to better understand learning organizations in a public sector and police context.

In our quantitative empirical study, we investigate whether the German police represents a learning organization according to the model of Watkins and Marsick (1993). In this model, the learning culture is presented in seven dimensions, each of which describes an important part of learning and its conditions within an organization. Additionally, the dimensions can be regrouped, to describe the individual, team, and organizational level of learning in the organization.

In addition, we examine the impact of three internal factors (organizational commitment, organizational support, and communication quality) on the different dimensions of the learning organization. To measure these constructs, we use the dimensions of learning organization questionnaire by Watkins and Marsick (2003), the organizational commitment questionnaire by Porter and Smith (1970), the organizational support questionnaire by Eisenberger et al. (1986), and the vertical communication quality, perceived by the employee, questionnaire by Mohr et al. (2004). Our data was gained from 111 police officers selected to fill leadership positions in the German police forces. We investigated how the internal factors impact the learning organization using regression analyses.

Our preliminary findings suggest that the German police can be characterized as a learning organization. Furthermore, we find positive relationships between the measured internal factors and most dimensions of the learning organization. The internal factors have a positive impact on the learning organization, each in different ways and on different levels. While perceived organizational support has an important influence on the personal and team level of the learning organization, organizational commitment influences the aspects where the police connect with its environment. Leadership communication is important regarding distribution of resources towards learning. Our results offer valuable insights into the learning culture within the police as one of the largest public organizations and indicate approaches to improve it.

The police organisation is a collective system and a human community pursuing shared goals inside and outside an organisation. In this paper, a cultural change in police organisations is studied through organisational culture, structural change and organisational behaviour.

As an example of cultural change, the Finnish police organisation is studied by applying the autoethnographic research method. Integrating ethnography and autobiography, the autoethnography research method is reflexive and deploys the researcher within the study, and the researcher and participant are one and the same person. Findings of this study emphasise the importance of cognitive redefinition, learning a new point of view in the organisational culture.

The Finnish police organisation is considered a professional and human-centred institution possessing a very strong loyalty to society as a whole. However, the importance of collective organisational memory as an essential resource has not been fully recognized in the recent restructuring of the Finnish police organisation.

In Finland, like in many other countries, the increasingly abstract character of the police can be realized as the unintended and far-reaching consequences of the organisational and cultural changes. In the context of police reforms, it has been noticed that the police have become more at distance, more impersonal and formal, less direct, and more decontextualized, governed by ‘systems’. Therefore, the need to enhance a culture of the collective engagement and redefine a performance culture is a critical question in police organisations.

The collective spirit and a culture of engagement lay a sustainable foundation for organisational culture in the police. The importance of culture is to understand how organisations function.

Public sector training and education are recurrent issues in the public administration literature. More recently, this observation holds particularly true for (higher echelons of) the police. While some protagonists maintain that expertise in policing rests primarily on tacit knowledge, on-the-job training at street-level and vocational qualifications, there is also increasing recognition of the merit of more abstract intellectual education, which often comes in the guise of formal academic degree courses. Against this background, the proposed paper focuses on career paths, programs and institutions that prepare staff members for senior management positions in police authorities and seeks to analyze different meanings and consequences of a trend towards ‘academization’ in police training and education.

In doing so, the paper, first, develops a conceptual background for the analysis of police training regulations, programs, and institutions that are meant as stepping stones for future senior police officers. In a nutshell, the conceptual tools differentiate between the institutional status of training organizations (such as police academies, professional schools or universities), the content of relevant curricula (balance of academic disciplines, vocational vs. academic training) and the predominant teaching philosophies (student-centered learning vs. formal-passive instruction, on- vs. off-the-job training).

Against this background, we exemplify the analytical distinctions of training programs and institutions with reference to emerging patterns of senior police management qualifications in the case of Germany while making comparisons to other established European traditions of public sector and, in particular, police training and education.

Tourism is one of the biggest industries worldwide. Within this massive market, thousands of localities try to stand out, competing to gain financial and cultural resources, talent and infrastructure and to attract and satisfy tourists, residents and workforce. This has led to a struggle to achieve singularity, recognition and differentiation (de San Eugenio Vela, 2013). Developing a brand identity can support municipalities in identifying and implementing the desired future development of the place. At the same time, questions about the social and environmental sustainability of tourism and the necessity of exploiting tourism in a more resilient way have grown bigger (Skinner, 2021).

This article introduces the key results and learnings gathered from four case studies where the Brand-Driven Identity Development of Places Framework (BIDP-framework) by Botschen, Promberger and Bernhart (2017) was implemented and, using a design science research (DSR) approach, it assesses and evaluates such framework. The article answers the research question: “Does the BIDP-framework represent an adequate tool to develop a place identity that responds to current tourism and sustainability trends?” Moreover, as a design science approach shall not be merely descriptive but should also have prescriptive components, the article formulates improvement proposals. This is a qualitative study that analyzes the documentation available for the four case studies, consisting in reports, interviews and workshops. An in-depth literature review has been conducted to provide both a theoretical background and to evaluate the BIDP-model.

Given the complexity of the topic, it is important to remember that it is not feasible nor efficient to measure all possible aspects that define a place brand: certain trade-offs between intricacy and feasibility are unavoidable (Zenker, 2011). The goal of this paper is to expand existing literature and raise awareness about relevant issues for sustainable place branding by revising applied frameworks. DSR represents a particularly interesting approach in this context as it enables the researcher to go beyond mere description: it also foresees the prescription of solutions (Dresch et al., 2015). DSR is about designing artifacts that can solve real problems. In this case, the artifact is the BIDP-framework, yet its creation cannot be considered a sufficient result for DSR, which requires proof that the artifact was indeed up to the previously identified problems. At the same time, the goal of DSR is focused on finding a sufficient solution rather than the optimal one, also because this can help its generalizability (Dresch et al., 2015). This paper refers to the three-cycle view of DSR proposed by Hevner in 2007. The relevance cycle formalizes the real problem connected to place brand identity, bridging therefore the contextual environment of this research project with the other DSR activities (Hevner, 2007). Afterward, the rigor cycle ensures a connection between the DSR activities and the existing knowledge base of scientific foundations and proves the practical and academic validity of the developed solution. Finally, the design cycle iterates between building and evaluating the BIDP-framework, hence the design artifact and its processes (Hevner, 2007).

The value of this article is manyfold. First, the adoption of DSR in a managerial context already represents an aspect of novelty. Albeit being no new approach, DSR has found strong use in the information systems and engineering fields and much less in the management one. Moreover, the article assesses the application of the BIDP-framework, proving that the model can be regarded as a valuable place branding tool. At the same time, the article looks deeper into the challenges faced by the analyzed locations and assesses both strengths and weaknesses of the BIDP-model. Relying on a detailed literature review assessing the latest trends in place identity and place brand development, the paper merges the findings from the case studies with the existing theoretical background and elaborates improvement proposals. This article provides support to all locations willing to increase both their touristic and economic attractiveness and the life quality of their residents.

The article first presents the theoretical background introducing the place identity topic and the trends a place branding framework is expected to answer, comparing the BIDP-model also with other frameworks, addressing the problems faced by places and the existing solutions. Next, the application of the BIDP model in four different locations is described: this step further emphasizes the real problems faced by the locations at the beginning as well as the experiences they made on the journey to face them. These first chapters serve therefore the relevance and the rigor cycle of DSR. Afterwards, the article confronts the findings with the existing literature and proposes some valuable improvements by discussing the model’s strengths and weaknesses. With this evaluation also the DSR design cycle is performed. Finally, the conclusion recaps the main findings, highlighting the study implications, while also assessing its limitations.

References:

Botschen, G., Promberger, K., & Bernhart, J. (2017). Brand-driven identity development of places. Journal of Place Management and Development.

de San Eugenio Vela, J. (2013). Place branding: a conceptual and theoretical framework.

Dresch, A., Lacerda, D. P., & Miguel, P. A. C. (2015). Uma análise distintiva entre o estudo de caso, a pesquisa-ação e a design science research. Revista Brasileira de Gestao de Negocios, 17(56), 1116–1133. https://doi.org/10.7819/rbgn.v17i56.2069

Hevner, A. (2007). A Three Cycle View of Design Science Research. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 19(2), 87–92. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254804390_A_Three_Cycle_View_of_Design_Science_Research

Skinner, H. (2021). Place branding—The challenges of getting it right: Coping with success and rebuilding from crises. Tourism and Hospitality, 2(1), 173–189.

Zenker, S. (2011). How to catch a city? The concept and measurement of place brands. Journal of Place Management and Development, 4(1), 40–52. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538331111117151

Enhancing Communication Strategies in Public Administration: Challenges, Best Practices, and a Replicable Model for the INA – Instituto Nacional de Administração, I.P. and Beyond

Luísa Neto; Rita Soares; Graça Brites; Luís Ferreira

INA – Instituto Nacional de Administração, I.P. Portugal

Email: luisa.neto@ina.pt

ABSTRACT

Effective communication is a critical component for the success of public administration organizations. This study aims to analyse the challenges and identify best practices in communication strategies within a set of Public Administration organizations, with the goal of developing a communication strategy model that can be replicated in other public entities and public services, specifically focusing on the Portuguese National Institute of Administration, I.P. (INA) experience.

The research methodology employed involve data collection, document analysis, targeting professionals and stakeholders within the selected Public Administration organizations.

Through rigorous analysis, the study identified several best practices in communication strategies employed by Public Administration organizations. These practices encompassed clear goal setting, stakeholder segmentation, tailored message development, utilization of multiple communication channels, fostering a culture of transparency, and leveraging modern technologies and platforms.

Based on the identified challenges and best practices, a comprehensive communication strategy model was developed and applied specifically to INA. The model incorporates adaptable frameworks and guidelines to address the unique needs and goals of the organization. It emphasizes the importance of strategic planning, resource allocation, performance measurement, and continuous improvement.

Furthermore, the developed model can serve as a valuable blueprint for other public entities and public services seeking to enhance their communication strategies. By following the guidelines outlined in the model, organizations can overcome common challenges and implement effective communication strategies that facilitate transparency, engagement, and the delivery of public services.

The main preliminary findings of this study provide a significant contribution to the field of public administration, offering practical insights and a replicable communication strategy model. Implementing these recommendations can help Public Administration organizations establish robust communication channels, strengthen relationships with stakeholders, and ultimately improve their overall effectiveness and efficiency in serving the public interest.

KEYWORDS: Communication strategies, effective communication, public administration organizations, communication strategy model, best practices, stakeholder engagement

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The authors sincerely thank the members of the Department of Communication and Public Relations at INA, I.P. – Dora Francisco, Joaquim Fortunato, Manuela Oliveira, Maria Luísa Félix, Sara Coelho, and Vera Matos – as well as Maria João Neves from the Department of Organizational Models and Innovation Promotion, and the INA Innovation Pivots – Ana Isabel dos Santos, Andreia Neves, António Isidro, Cristina Rouxinol, Elsa Pires, Guida Pereira – for their invaluable contributions and support to this study that significantly enriched the ongoing research in enhancing communication strategies in public administration.

While strategic influencer communication is not a new area of research, social media influencers communication remains largely understudied, especially in the public sector. Nevertheless, the use of influencers by public organizations is increasing as they need to develop new communication activities, channels, and routines to reach certain target groups. This observation illustrates the lack of theoretical knowledge about social media influencers in marketing public services and policies, the potential issues related, and the measurement of influencers’ impact on service delivery and policy efficiency. Indeed, research has paid only limited to no attention to elaborating the basic concepts and principles of social media influencing in the public sphere. This article lays the foundations for the better understanding of the characteristics, roles, and functions of social media influencers in the public administrations’ communication toolbox. To do so, it situates the issue of social media influencing within the broader landscape of public sector communication, provides three in-depth case studies (at different institutional levels: national, regional et local) and finally proposes a new conceptual framework. It also discusses implications for theory and conceptual development in public communication research.