Collectivism versus individualism in police cultures

This article explores how organisational culture, as a complex ensemble of values, attitudes, symbols, rules, and practice, emerges as people react to situations and exigencies shaped by its members' interpretations, and how it develops as people respond in various meaningful ways. We study police cultures and their interpretation of values, more specifically among newcomers in law enforcement, counter terrorist officers and criminal investigators in the Norwegian police force. Cultural values are related to characteristics of policemen as more collectivistic than individualistic in their interpretation and awareness of their own organisational culture. We find that the police culture is characterised as more collectivistic than individualistic. However, there are significant variations related to the respondents' interpretation of values. Rather than being absolutely individualistic or collectivistic, police officers seem to be somewhere between the two on a scale ranging from extreme individualism to extreme collectivism, especially with regard to the complexity of attitudes, symbols and rules related to cultural values. Each officer's location on this scale seems influenced by experience and duties at hand. The officers also vary in their responses on the basis of demographic background, individual personalities and interpretations.