Background and research questions: Policing is a core service that government provides to its citizens. However, citizens in disorganized and/or disenfranchised neighborhoods have suffered from two types of ills: higher levels of crime and greater distrust towards the police. The latter affliction has inhibited the ability of communities to build the capacity to reduce crimes and improve the quality of life. Thus, the research question is how can police leverage the support of the communities they serve—including citizens, neighborhood groups, businesses, and faith communities—to build trust and strengthen the capacity to address crime and quality of life in their jurisdictions? More specifically, how can police build collaborative partnerships in disenfranchised neighborhoods that traditionally have displayed distrust in the police and therefore, are not used to partnering? Will citizens in disorganized and/or disenfranchised neighborhoods be more receptive and trusting toward police partners who have an understanding and appreciation of the issues they face on a daily basis?

Conceptual/theoretical approach: We draw from the collaborative partnership approach, defined as “a problem-solving alliance between the police department and multiple other parties, such as other government entities, businesses, nonprofit organizations, communities, and/or citizen groups” (Choi & Choi, 2012). In the context of public safety, collaborative partnerships serve as a basic component of community policing strategies that focus on establishing cooperative relationships between the police and various public and private organizations as well as citizens to achieve the common purpose of creating safe and sound communities (Bayley 1994; Kelling and Moore 1988; Walker 1998).

Methodological orientation: We use a qualitative case study approach to explore a specific case, namely, initiatives that have been implemented in the city of Baltimore. We explore the following aspects:

• Who were the parties involved?

• What different approaches and initiatives have been implemented?

o Which ones were successful vs. unsuccessful?

 If unsuccessful, why?

o Are there different degrees of success?

o Are there different levels of difficulty?

• What were their outcomes, both positive and negative?

o Were their different degrees of strong or weak outcomes?

Expected contribution to the literature and/or professional development:

This case study sheds light into the nature of a collaborative partnership implemented in the city of Baltimore. It offers implications for the development and implementation of a “pracamunal” approach to understanding and mitigating wicked problems – an approach to centering equity, catalyzing collective action, improving policies, advancing practices, defending democracy, and enhancing overall community safety and wellbeing.

This paper investigates how collaborative management networks involving police and mental health organizations become durable in different political contexts. To create collaborative advantage (Huxham & Vangen 2005), a management network must be sufficiently durable – effective at solving problems and institutionally sustainable – to navigate shocks or disturbances (Weber 2012). It needs to be robust – to continue implementing its policies or programs effectively amid disruptions – or to rebound by adapting operations after disruptions (Bakker, Raab, & Milward 2012).

A literature review identified twelve characteristics that can increase the durability of collaborative networks over time. Six pertain to shared cognitions and interactions among collaborating organizations; four to managerial actions supporting joint activities; and two to external support and legitimacy. Because collaboration is largely emergent (Gray 1989) and the timing and sequence of emergence vary across collaborations (Ulibarri et al. 2020), this study traced processes through which the characteristics emerged or faltered in different settings.

The process tracing examined collaborations between police and mental health organizations working to improve treatment access and reduce violence for people living with homelessness or behavioral health issues. By providing alternatives to law-enforcement responses to people in distress, these collaborations offer to improve the legitimacy, equity, and performance of public safety policies. Both the politics shaping their authorization and their interorganizational dynamics, however, are subject to racialized power, authority, and governance that privilege police over other actors in policy design and implementation (Soss & Weaver 2017; Gonzalez 2020). Even police-mental health collaborations that are institutionally sustainable may not realize collaborative advantage, then, if they cannot operate effectively due to the traditional politics and practices of policing.

The research design therefore varied the politics surrounding these collaborations in four US cities – two in more conservative states, two in more liberal states. In general, conservatives favor “tough on crime” policies over treatment programs, while liberals favor treatment over law enforcement solutions. (Although US cities operate their own police departments, US states are unitary governments; a number have enacted laws preempting local public safety policies and procedures.) Tracing processes through which characteristics of durability emerged or faltered in matched pairs of collaborations enabled comparison of whether and how the political setting shaped collaborative durability.

Data came from interviews, media coverage, and documentation of the collaborations. The findings indicate, somewhat counterintuitively, that the politics surrounding collaboration had less influence on durability than internal attributes of collaborative partners. Staff behaviors, organizational norms, and leadership inside police departments – and to an extent mental health and emergency dispatch organizations – hindered the emergence of important characteristics of durable collaboration in the liberal cities. Those same factors (behaviors, norms, and leadership) supported the emergence of other characteristics of durability in the conservative cities. These findings are preliminary, given the study’s limited sample. They nevertheless suggest reconsidering the importance of politics compared to the internal dynamics of policing and highlight a need for further research comparing external and internal influences on the durability of collaborative management networks.

This article builds on a qualitative case study of the Danish National Police's strategy for a data-driven organisation, presented under the label 'National Strategic Analysis' (2013-19). A data-driven approach is common in many (public) organizations that strive to improve their task-solving procedures with modern data collection and analysis technologies; to prevent problems rather than mostly cure them. An important element of data-driven governance in this case is public safety risk assessment. The initiative of the National Police was in line with common concepts such as 'Smart policing' or 'Intelligence-led policing' (Ratcliffe, 2008). The analytical focus in our paper is on the police's own interpretations of the new strategy.

The theoretical framework is based on the literature on 'institutional logics' (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury, 2012), which are viewed entrenched guidelines for appropriate and legitimate behavior in a given context. Thorton et al. (2012) have distinguished several logics, such as a state logic, corporate logic and professional logic. Most institutional logics literature assumes that each has a one-dimensional meaning: a clear, undisputed message or content. But institutional logics are not reified cognitive structures, but they are interpreted and given meaning by actors within specific contexts (Zilber, 2002; Smet et al., 2015). We analyze the new police strategy for a data-driven organization by exploring its interpretations, viewed from a state logic, a corporate logic and a professional logic.

The paper is based on document analysis, supplemented with (group) interviews with key respondents involved in the new strategy. Core documents are the annual editions of the ‘National Strategic Analysis’ (2015-2019). In addition, many other national and local documents concerning the police organization and the organizing of police work were analysed.

Our findings point to controversial interpretations of the new strategy within the Danish police. The concept of a data-driven organization evoked different interpretations and created tensions between the old and new ways of organizing the police. Within each of the three logics (state, corporation, profession), the new strategy was interpreted in more ways, creating latent tensions about how the police should operate - such as ensuring the safety and security of citizens, improving efficiency of the organization and preventing rather than merely responding to crime and threats. Seen from a professional logic, the new strategy challenged the police identity to shift from experiential knowledge to analytical knowledge. Tensions arose about which forms of knowledge were legitimate within the organization and who should and can make decisions. Overall, the data-driven strategy challenged perceptions of what it meant to be a police officer.

Theoretically, we add 'depth' to institutional studies through the 'intra-institutional' dimension of logic, following a call from Meyer and Höllerer (2014). Our study investigates how institutional complexity can arise from one logic, rather than being the result of multiple competing institutional logics as assumed in most literature (Besharov and Smith 2014; Greenwood et al, 2011). The police organization and officers may benefit from this study by recognizing the different meanings in adapting the organization to new threats to public safety.

References

Besharov, M. L., & Smith, W. K. 2014. Multiple institutional logics in organizations: Explaining their varied nature and implications. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 364-381.

Friedland, R., & Alford, R. R. 1991. Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. In W. W. Powell, & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis: 232-263. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E.R., & Lounsbury, M. 2011. Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses. The Academy of Management Annals, 5, (1): 317-371.

Meyer, R. E., & Höllerer, M. A. 2014. Does institutional theory need redirecting? Journal of Management Studies, 51(7): 1221-1233.

Ratcliffe, J. H. 2008. Knowledge management challenges in the development of intelligence-led policing. The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Policing: Current Conceptions and Future Directions. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 205-220.

Smets, M., Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G. T., & Spee, P. 2015. Reinsurance trading in Lloyd’s of London: Balancing conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3), 932-970.

Thornton, P.H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. 2012. The Institutional logics perspective: A new approach to culture, structure, and process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zilber, T. B. 2002. Institutionalization as an Interplay between Actions, Meanings, and Actors: The Case of a Rape Crisis Center in Israel. Academy of Management Journal, 45(1), 234-254.

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