Development of organisational culture to ensure community security

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Development of organisational culture to ensure community security

Angela Zelenschi, PhD, Associate Professor

"Stefan cel Mare" Academy

This article explores the concept of organisational culture as a strategic tool that can be used by leaders to undertake the organisational changes necessary to ensure community security. Managers' actions are primarily geared toward the functioning of the organization as an entity, towards increasing employee engagement in achieving organizational goals, and secondly, actions are externally oriented, being focused on establishing a network of relationships with community stakeholders to achieve goals and promote organizational causes.

Theoretical research on the phenomenon of organizational culture is carried out, using the method of examining the correlations between the elements of organizational management - organizational culture and organizational leadership, organizational culture and external networks, organizational culture, and effective habits of employees. The author addresses the problem of developing organisational culture within the police with the aim of improving the management system. The outcomes achieved by the author can be applied in theoretical research on organizational culture, in the managerial process of police structures, and in the training process of young specialists in the field of security and public order.

Keywords: organisational culture, values, effective skills, interdependent networks, community security.

РОЗВИТОК ОРГАНІЗАЦІЙНОЇ КУЛЬТУРИ ДЛЯ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ БЕЗПЕКИ ГРОМАД

Анжела Зєлєнскі, канд. філос. наук, доц.

У статті досліджується концепція організаційної культури як стратегічного інструменту, який може використовуватися лідерами задля здійснення заходів та організаційних змін, необхідних для забезпечення безпеки громад. Дії менеджерів насамперед скеровані на функціонування організації як цілісності, яка спрямована на збільшення залучення працівників до досягнення цілей організації. Також ці дії орієнтовані назовні та зосереджені на встановленні мережі відносин із зацікавленими сторонами громади для досягнення цілей і просування організаційних справ.

Проведено теоретичний аналіз феномена організаційної культури за допомогою методу дослідження співвідношення між елементами організаційного менеджменту: організаційною культурою, з одного боку, і організаційним лідерством, зовнішніми мережами та ефективними звичками співробітників - з іншого. Автор розглядає проблему розвитку організаційної культури в поліції з метою вдосконалення системи управління. Досягнуті автором результати можуть бути застосовані в теоретичних дослідженнях організаційної культури, процесах управління поліцейськими структурами та підготовки молодих спеціалістів у сфері безпеки і громадського порядку.

Ключові слова: організаційна культура, цінності, ефективні навички, взаємозалежні мережі, безпека спільноти.

Formulation of the problem

organisational culture community security

The development of organisational culture within the police is necessary in the current climate of strengthening efforts to ensure community security. The main role in countering and preventing crime has been assigned to the police, but the responsibility for eradicating factors such as poverty, mass migration, violence, etc. that increase insecurity in society is shared by all community actors. Members of a community are part of various organisations, where they interact and make decisions about their work. The organisation represents a rational, institutionalised form of interaction of a group of people who have a common goal to achieve through group effort. The culture of an organisation denotes the group's manner of thinking and acting; it is the framework formed by the fundamental concepts developed by an organisation as employees learn to solve problems of internal integration and adaptation to the external environment. Culture is a phenomenon that influences both the processes within the organisation and the way the organisation interacts with its stakeholders - organisations or third parties from the external environment. The traditional, mechanistic and bureaucratic view of the organisation no longer meets the requirements of efficiency when the environment is constantly changing and rules are not sufficient to set behavioural benchmarks. Organisational values can overcome the rule deficit and guide employees' actions in the problem-solving process.

In this paper we aim to examine how organisational culture can be developed to make the necessary organisational changes and successfully implement the concept of community policing. We believe that leaders can use organizational culture as a strategic tool to strengthen the interaction between police and citizens. By developing effective skills of civil servants with special status and establishing a network of relations between the police, local public administration authorities, decentralized and deconcentrated public services in the territory, civil society organizations, media, business organizations, etc., the objective of long-term collaboration in solving public security problems can be achieved.

Analysis of research and publications

Organisational culture began to be widely addressed in scholarly publications in the late 1980s of the 20th century, as a phenomenon that determines the success of organisations and an essential element, indispensable for social progress. A first approach to organisational culture was taken by T. Peters and R. Waterman, illustrating in their work In Search of Excellence (1982) the correlation between organisational culture and leadership in high performing organisations. They developed a set of concepts, focused on what happens in the organisational process, which has been called the "7-S Model" (structure, strategy, systems, skills, staff, style, shared value). The ability of the organisation to create shared values, which unite the efforts of all the structures of an organisation, is one of the main factors of the effectiveness of managerial activity [4].

From the perspective of the organisation and its environment, G.Hofstede presents the model of the basic di-mensions of differences between national cultures. Cultures and Organizations. Software of the mind (1991) represents a classic work on intercultural research in organisations. Hofstede treats the issue of culture as the foundation of individual, organisational and international thinking, feelings and activities. Cultural differences have an important impact on the manner in which organisations operate [2]. An organisation's environment includes things, people, conditions or influences that interfere with its performance. Some interferences are direct, as the organisation is in relation to these factors, others are indirect. One way in which the values of national culture permeate the organisation is through the process of staff engagement. Concerns about improving working conditions, increasing employment opportunities or reducing informal employment, reflected in public policies, have an impact on organisational values, principles and practices. Organisational culture is an element of the national culture of which it is an integral part.

Focusing on the notion of trust, D. McGregor examines in The Human Side of Enterprise (1960) the assumptions about human behaviour that underlie managerial activity. The traditional view of management is based on managerial steering and control. The traditional view of administration is based on managerial steering and control. "Theory X" is based on a set of assumptions that see employees as people who are work-averse, require control, avoid responsibility and are only looking for security. This is why employees need to be coerced, supervised, steered in order to get them to make the necessary effort to achieve their goals. McGregor proposes an alternative - "Theory Y", where the basic principle of leadership is integration. From this perspective, employees are seen as people, who enjoy their work, they do not need to be kept under control or constrained in any way, as long as they are committed to the organisation's goals [3]. Management is a complex activity and its deterministic and analytical tools are indispensable, but they cannot be the only informational reference for the decision-maker. Trust is important for achieving cooperation, it is shown when individuals are able to appreciate each other's actions and when there is mutual respect. The main aim of community policing is to create structures of participation between police and citizens based on trust.

In the context of the problem addressed, it is important to increase work engagement and active participation in networking, and this requires to develop employees' skills. A comprehensive analysis of the habits of highly effective people is carried out by St. Covey in his outstanding work The Seven Habits of highly effective people (1989). According to St. Covey, personal effectiveness determines organisational effectiveness. A person who passionately achieves individual goals, is personally and professionally fulfilled, and makes a significant contribution to organisational development [1].

Leaders use their influence to achieve organisational goals, opting for innovation, satisfaction and organisational commitment. According to E. Schein's insights, a key element of how an organisation functions that enhances organisational performance is the activity of the leader who shapes organisational culture. In Organizational Culture and Leadership (1992) Schein defines organizational culture as a framework formed by the basic concepts developed in the organization as employees learn how to cope with the problems of adjustment to changes in the external environment and internal integration. He identifies three levels of organisational culture expression - artefacts, values and core concepts, providing a model for understanding the phenomenon of organisational culture, the principles and methodology of organisational culture research and development, enabling us to manage organisations successfully [5].

Purpose of the article

The aim of the research is to identify a model of organisational culture development that can be applied in organisational practice in order to form optimal conditions for achieving organisational goals and solving community security problems using multistakeholder networks.

Exposition of the main material of the study. Organisational culture can be a factor in achieving both success and failure, it can play a key role in mobilizing all the organisation's resources to fulfill the defined objectives or it can also be an obstacle in reaching organisational goals. The theoretical concerns of organisational culture reflect a new vision of human resources - proactive, self-aware and selfcontrolled employees, oriented towards participation and taking responsibility for actions and decisions, and a new perspective on the management of organisations - change-generating leadership, the activity of systematically steering collective human action towards performance.

Leaders have the task of creating organisational conditions and mechanisms for people to get their commitment. Their primary duty is to support their staff to become effective. ideally, all members of an organisation should feel that organisational goals have personal meaning for them [3]. Engaging employees in work-related decision-making requires a participative management style. Employee participation succeeds when employees have the will to do so, are intelligent, have effective skills and are committed to group problem solving.

Without seeing a clear relationship between organizational success and their own success, organizational members will not be willing to actively engage in achieving the organizational mission. Effective leaders are concerned with building and disseminating the values that will transform the organization and training and developing employees. Training the seven skills of effectiveness enables personal development from dependence to independence and then to interdependence.

Proactivity expresses the fact that proactive people take responsibility, are self-aware, behave according to a conscious, values-based choice. Applying the habit of starting with the purpose of accomplishing in mind means planning activities so as to achieve what is essential. Prioritising means setting objectives based on organisational roles and goals. The win/win mindset is a global paradigm of interpersonal relationships that is characterized by integrity, maturity and abundance mentality. Empathic communication emphasizes the value of diagnosis as a basis for cooperation and mutual benefit in interdependent relationships. The synergy action constitutes integration into the collective by recognising, respecting and creatively exploiting differences. It is the principle of creative cooperation to solve problems, identify synergistic solutions through compromise and cooperation. Continuous renewal recognises the need to maintain and enhance personal and organisational capabilities. Continuous renewal recognises the need to maintain and enhance personal and organisational capabilities. This is the principle of continuous improvement [1]. Developing these skills would stimulate employees to take transformational initiatives and respond to environmental factors that produce insecurity.

An organisation's success depends on how employees tackle the problems they face. The reactive approach to solving community problems indicates that decisionmakers act in response to a specific event, are focused on shortcomings and are particularly concerned with removing consequences. The proactive approach refers to anticipating events and acting accordingly, well in advance of their occurrence. The model of sustained proactive influence, geared towards internal integration and collaboration with stakeholders in the external organisational environment, is based on deeply shared values of employees. Proactivity is a personal quality, which influences the organisational potential to make decisions and plan. The pattern of cooperation depends on how interdependencies and interconnections are built and evolve over time, at the level of individuals and groups within and outside organisations. Building effective networks is based on a set of values - trust, accountability, free exchange of information and transparent communication, addressing community issues and cooperation through various participatory procedures. These values are elements of organisational culture and are expressed in individual and group behaviour.

The development of organisational values, deeply rooted in organisational experiences, is reflected in the collective mindset, which gives the organisation a unique identity. Culture is defined by Geert Hofstede as a "collective mental programming by which members of one group distinguish themselves from members of another group" [2, p.20]. In this definition, the term meanings - implicit meanings and significations, assumed through socialization, become a kind of accessible software, which the subject exploits in facing the challenges of the social environment. Hofstede uses values to describe and interpret cultures. Organisational culture in domestic public and private organisations has developed in response to the specific conditions of their activity and to the demands of their environment.

Building social integrity, reinforcing a value system, formulating the mission, strategic planning and long-term orientation are all part of organisational culture. At the same time, the content of these is different from one organisation to another. "In each organisation the values have their own specificity, the mission, leadership style and personal skills of the members of the organisation are different. Organizational culture can be characterized as a specific one, it is a system of relationships, actions and interactions, which are carried out within a concrete organizational operation" [4].

The process of developing organisational culture is the essence of leadership. The ability to perceive the limits of one's own culture and to enhance cultural adaptability is an essential leadership challenge. The leader must understand the challenges and create the conditions to adapt to the changing environment. The main element of organisational culture is the core concepts, which are passed on to new members as prescriptions on how to perceive, think or feel if they want to achieve success. According to Edgar Schein, core concepts are something that has value to the members of the organisation. The values that are formed on the basis of core concepts express the essence of the organisation's mission. They are shared by employees and expressed in working principles. The stated values are explicitly formulated for the members of the organisation, but they may remain merely stated by the management without corresponding to actual practices. Artifacts are symbols and products that focus on observable things and are meant to reflect organizational values and norms [5]. The relevance of research and development of organizational culture as a factor in optimizing managerial activity results from the fact that the main role of the leader is to manage organizational culture. A leader's talent resides in his or her ability to understand the culture, maintain it and pass it on. The things he pays attention to, the managerial methods he uses, his motivation, the control he exercises, his reaction to certain crises, the people he recruits and promotes - all these convey an important message that defines the organisation he manages.

The establishment of partnership relations between the police and the community, based on better cooperation and communication between the police, local public administration authorities, decentralized and deconcentrated public services in the territory, civil society organisations, the media, and business organisations, is aimed at working together and addressing public order and security issues. In the framework of police modernisation and reform, traditional policing practices are complemented by the community policing model to increase the accountability of the police force and the level of trust in the police service to citizens, raising its efficiency, quality, and accessibility. We find important the efforts undertaken by the police authorities of the Republic of Moldova to create an efficient police structure, capable of achieving innovations in the field of management, related to the aspects of functioning and relationships in the internal and external environment of the public order and security system. At the same time, we would like to mention that the success of the implementation of this model depends, to a large extent, on the development of the organizational culture and on the effective joint action of all stakeholders involved in the process of ensuring community security.

Conclusion

In order to implement the concept of community policing, organisational changes are needed, particularly in the managerial practice of public order and security organisations. In terms of the relationship between organisational culture and leadership, it is essential that the role of coordinating, controlling and guiding the work and delegating decision-making responsibilities to police officers who have direct contact with citizens is assumed. Effective collaboration requires the development of employee skills in proactive action, empathetic communication, win/win conflict resolution, synergistic action and continuous learning. Adult training programs and mentoring can be used to achieve this.

Networks formed to address community security issues can take a variety of formal or informal, permanent or temporary forms, and the partnership is not just made up of public and/or private organisations, but can involve community leaders, volunteers, etc. Effective collaboration requires trust-building and problem-solving approaches. A key role in establishing a proactive social dialogue is played by police officers who can harness the potential of community stakeholders. Establishing criteria for assessing the performance of special status civil servants in relation to their ability to address community security issues through the engagement of community stakeholders would enhance their involvement.

СПИСОК ВИКОРИСТАНИХ ДЖЕРЕЛ

Covey, S.R. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. London, Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 432.

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and Organizations. Software of the mind. London, Mc Graw-Hill Book Company Europe, 576.

McGregor, D. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise New York, McGraw-Hill, 256.

Peters T.J., Waterman R.H. (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. New York, Harper & Row, 400.

Schein, E. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 418.

REFERENCES

Covey, S.R. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. London, Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and Organizations. Software of the mind. London, Mc Graw-Hill Book Company Europe

McGregor, D. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise New York, McGraw-Hill

Peters T.J., Waterman R.H. (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. New York, Harper & Row

Schein, E. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass

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