Organizational Structure in American Police Agencies: Context, Complexity, and Control

Citation

Paoline, E.A. (2006), "Organizational Structure in American Police Agencies: Context, Complexity, and Control", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 182-184. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510610648557

This study represents a rare attempt to not only construct a theory about the factors that shape the structure of large American police agencies but also to test it. This is a refreshing departure from individual level theorizing about police. Maguire effectively weaves police and organizational literature in eloquently delineating a set of interrelated propositions about the context, complexity, and control among police organizations. Although others have described, and even tested, factors related to police structure, only James Q. Wilson's (1968) Varieties of Police Behavior and Robert H. Langworthy's The Structure of Police Organizations are considered pure organizational analyses of police. Maguire follows the lead of these police scholars, though his work is different in that he uses advanced statistical procedures to examine multivariate relationships among contemporary complex police organizations. Maguire makes a substantial contribution to the social science field with this study. As such, this book is a must read for professors and graduate students in criminal justice and sociology who are interested in policing, organizational theory, data analysis, casual modeling, and theory construction.

Chapter 1 presents the outline of the book. It is here that Maguire correctly acknowledges that among the volumes of police literature, theories that explain police organizations are rare. The author contends in this chapter that his study seeks to empirically examine the factors that shape variation in large municipal police agencies.

In Chapter 2 Maguire uses a broader sociological discipline rooted in a long line of organizational research to frame his theoretical model of police organizations. The two dimensions that comprise an organization's structure are: complexity (i.e. the amount of differentiation within an organization) and control and coordination (i.e. the amount of “formal administrative apparatuses” implemented by a given organization). The structural complexity and control of an organization includes three separate components (i.e. vertical differentiation, functional differentiation, and spatial differentiation), while structural control includes three components as well (i.e. administration, formalization, and centralization).

Chapter 3 outlines the contextual factors that have been used by organizational researchers to account for variation in organizational structure. This is the last piece of the puzzle in framing Maguire's primitive theory (his term) of police organizations. To the extent that organizations differ in terms of complexity and control (both outlined in Chapter 2) this variation is explained, in part, by the contextual factors presented in this chapter – size, age, technology, and environment. As he did in Chapter 2, the author does a superb job of outlining volumes of research that have been conducted on each of the four components of organizational context.

Chapter 4 is a review of both empirical and theoretical literature that has focused on the various components of the police organizational structure. This literature has examined police structure as an independent variable, police structure as a dependent variable, and the factors that explain police structure. The author does an exceptional job of reviewing the literature, which includes tables displaying the major components (e.g., variables, measures, relevant findings, units of analysis etc.) of each of the studies reviewed. The author concludes that very few pure organizational analyses of police agencies have been conducted, as the bulk of the research that includes police structure utilizes it as an independent variable. It is here that Maguire notes that his work is an extension of Langworthy's (1986) study – the only empirical analysis of police that used a structural organizational theory. This chapter is an excellent example of how to conduct a literature review (i.e. around constructs versus chronological laundry lists), and thus should be consulted by any graduate student who is planning to write a thesis/dissertation.

In Chapter 5 Maguire lays out his primitive theory of police organizational structure, which is rooted in macro‐sociological theory. The theory is comprised of the three main factors outlined in Chapter's 2 and 3 (context, complexity, and control), consisting of fifty‐five hypotheses, which are clearly depicted in a series of casual models. The numerous hypotheses are a byproduct of the multidimensionality inherent in two concepts included in Maguire's context factor. That is, technology includes two dimensions (task scope and task routineness) and environment includes four dimensions (capacity, heterogeneity, instability, and dispersion). Overall, the theory posits that there are direct effects of both contextual and complexity factors on control factors, direct effects of contextual factors on complexity factors, and indirect effects (through complexity factors) of contextual factors on control factors.

Chapter 6 presents the sample, data, and descriptive statistics of the variables that Maguire uses to test his theory. The sample consists of “large” police agencies that employ one hundred or more full‐time active sworn police officers, of which 432 exist in the United States. Maguire compiles his own data set by merging four sources of data: the 1993 wave of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey of police departments, the 1993 Police Foundation Community Policing survey of police and sheriff's departments, the 1990 Census population data, and a 1996 supplemental survey of large police agencies constructed and administered by the author. The multiples sources of data utilized are a definite strength of the study. The bulk of the chapter details the descriptive statistics for Maguire's measures of context (8 concepts – 16 measures), complexity (3 concepts – 7 measures), and control (3 concepts – 3 measures).

In Chapter 7 Maguire tests his theory of police organizations. It is here that the reader could easily get lost, but Maguire skillfully drops enough breadcrumbs to keep one on the path. In fact, in the opening paragraph the author warns the reader about the sophisticated statistics in this chapter, encouraging them to essentially wade through it. Maguire uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a series of causal models (i.e. both initial and modified) that were proposed in Chapter 5. The author does a sound job of utilizing figures to illustrate path, factor, and measurement models associated with SEM. Maguire also does a good job of educating the reader on a number of advanced statistical terms (e.g., recursive models, exogenous and endogenous variables, bootstrapping etc.). Maguire's initial finding that there is variation across police organizations is informative in its own right. In explaining the structural variation in large police agencies, Maguire finds that the factors that shape other large organizational structures are in some respects similar for large police organizations, but also very different. More specifically, Maguire's theory informs us more about the various contextual factors (of which organizational size is the most consistent predictor) that work to shape police complexity rather than control and coordination. As such, Maguire's tests of his theory reveals that structural complexity can be predicted more consistently than structural coordination and control.

The final chapter summarizes the findings, and addresses the implications of this research for police theory, research, and policy. This discussion is very insightful, bridging theory, research, and policy in a very clear succinct manner. Maguire also thoroughly addresses some of the limitations of his research (e.g., lack of multiple indicators for some concepts, issues of multicollinearity, absence of normality for some measures, and small sample sizes). Following the acknowledgment that many of his hypotheses failed to be supported, the author humbly concludes that his study “probably raises more questions than it answers.” But, isn't that what generates good scholarship?

Overall, Maguire's study of the structure of large police organizations is extremely well presented. This work is parsimonious, but at the same time complicated. The work is parsimonious in the sense that there are essentially three core factors (context, complexity, and control) that operate to explain police organizational structure. The complexity of the study involves the clusters of concepts that comprise each of the three factors, from which Maguire constructs fifty‐five hypotheses. In addition, the analytical technique and modifications used to test the theory are fairly complex.

Finally, Maguire is correct when he notes in his discussion that some of his null findings might be explained by an examination of organizational culture. My own impression is that organizational culture would have the most impact (and even impacted by) organizational control and coordination mechanisms. Unfortunately, systematic investigations of police organizational culture are rare (like all police organizational research). I hope that in future examinations of police organizational structures, Maguire will heed his own advice and address organizational culture with the intellectual vigor used in the present study. I offer this as a mere suggestion and not as a criticism, because such a criticism would be analogous to a baseball manager asking a star player with a 0.375 average to hit for more power.