Polisens organisationskultur : En explorativ studie

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the police organizational culture in Sweden. Previous research on Police in Sweden has focused largely on Police Chiefs and police officers. It has ignored a major element in the organisational culture of the police – civilian employees. This thesis revisits the organisational culture of the Swedish Police Service in its entirety. The thesis reports the change, steering and management issues that arose from the introduction of ’planned change’, via quality management, into the organisational culture of the police. To clarify these issues, it focuses on a recent reform initiative – community policing in the period between 1993 and 2004. Fieldwork and other data on a quality project were collected between 1995 and 1998. The results of this initiative were uneven. It was difficult to accomplish planned change. Much time was taken up with ’muddling through’. These results are then compared earlier accounts of planned change and ’muddling through’, taken from the international literature on organisational cultures. Overall, the research suggests that the organisation of Police Chiefs, police officers, and civilian staff are not fully integrated, and boundaries between these groups are a source of internal, time-consuming discussion, all of which have an impact on the Swedish police service. In sum, organizational culture of the Swedish police service can be understood in terms of its relationships with different sub-cultures and in term of its relationship with the outside world. These features give the service a unique character