A review of literature relating to the measurement of organisational culture in policing organisations.
| Lead institution | |
|---|---|
| Principal researcher(s) |
Naomi Davis-Crane (Liverpool John Moores University) and Prof Mike Rowe (University of Liverpool)
|
| Police region |
North West
|
| Level of research |
Professional/work based
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| Project start date |
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| Date due for completion |
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Research context
The National Policing Culture and Inclusion Strategy (College of Policing, 2025) represents part of an increased focus across policing on organisational culture, to include the potential for cultural change and in turn implying the need for measurement. This agile evidence review (AER) seeks to provide policing practitioners with an overview of available methods of cultural evaluation, including presenting some of the associated limitations and benefits of each approach. It is informed by systematic searching of academic databases in October to November 2025, coupled with snowball searching stemming from the content identified in the initial structured search. The AER begins by defining organisational and police culture as related but distinct concepts, then examines quantitative methods of cultural evaluation. It subsequently explores qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, concluding with an appraisal of their effectiveness in assessing organisational cultural change and introducing the concept of organisational climate as a potential alternative metric for the understanding of police organisational behaviour.
Research methodology
Via systematic literature searching, the AER sought to answer three questions:
- in what different ways is organisational culture measured and what are the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches?
- what other (qualitative) ways are there of assessing organisational culture?
- are measures of culture effective ways of then informing and tracking cultural change?