Power, knowledge and domination / Raymond Daniel Gordon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gordon, Raymond Daniel, author.

Series:

Advances in organization studies.

Advances in Organization Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Power (Social sciences)--Australia--New South Wales--Case studies.

Power (Social sciences).

Organizational behavior--Australia--New South Wales--Case studies.

Organizational behavior.

Corporate culture--Australia--New South Wales--Case studies.

Corporate culture.

Police corruption--Australia--New South Wales--Case studies.

Police corruption.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (292 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Frederiksberg, Denmark : Copenhagen Business School Press, 2007.

Summary:

This book provides a theoretically sophisticated and empirically detailed account of power relations within a heavily bureaucratized organization attempting to introduce post-bureaucratic structures, policies, and systems. The organization in question, the New South Wales Police Service, was rife with corruption. Postbureaucratic reform was seen as a means of enhancing social control through the facilitation of democracy. Despite institutional change, the book reveals how, at a deeper social and political level, the Service remains authoritarian and closed. The author's review of the power in organizations literature demonstrates that it is largely made up of to two streams of power analysis - the idealist and the pragmatist streams. Those within the former tradition concern themselves primarily with how power relations should be constituted, while the latter describes the actual workings of power, what it is and does. Power, Knowledge and Domination illustrates how the Service's reform program failed because it is premised on a taken-for-granted idealist view of power. Using genealogy as a methodological exemplar, the book develops a pragmatist analytical frame that shows how relations of domination can be continually reproduced, irrespective of institutional change. Power is shown to be tied to the rationalities, modes of sense making, practical consciousness knowledge, truths, and the general ontological 'being in the world' that social agents discursively produce. This process is subject to historically constituted structures of dominancy that continue to legitimize acts of domination and create a prevailing sense of despotism - anything but democracy. Power, Knowledge and Domination argues that the organization remains vulnerable to corruption because those in positions of dominance are free to rationalize their own version of rationality.

Contents:

Intro

Power, Knowledge and Domination

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

List of Appendices

PART I

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Histories of the NSW Police Service

2.1 Colonial Beginnings 1788-1861

2.2 Consolidation of Police Power 1862-1959

2.3 Police Rationality 1960-1979

2.4 Change That Resulted in More of the Same1980-1995

2.5 Conclusion

Chapter 3: 1996 Royal Commission into Police Corruption in the New South Wales Police Service

3.1 Forms of Corruption Discovered in the Service

3.1.1 Process corruption

3.1.2 Gratuities and improper associations

3.1.3 Substance abuse

3.1.4 Fraudulent practices

3.1.5 Assault and abuse of police powers

3.1.6 Prosecutions - compromise or favourable treatment

3.1.7 Theft and extortion

3.1.8 Protection of drug trade, vice and gaming operators

3.1.9 Drug trafficking

3.1.10 Interference with internal investigations and the code of silence

3.1.11 Corruption Case Studies

3.2 Entrenched and Systematic Corruption

3.2.1 The Criminal Investigations Bureau tradition and the elitism of detectives

3.2.2 The code of silence

3.2.3 Protecting the reputation of the Service

3.2.4 Other Structural Factors

3.2.5 Command Accountability, Effective Leadership and Supervision

3.3 The Commission's Assessment of the Overall Problem - Inadequate Leadership

3.3.1 The Royal Commission's recommendations for reform

3.4 Commissioner Ryan's Response: His Reform Plan for the New South Wales Police Service

3.5 Conclusion

PART II

Chapter 4: Streams of Power

4.1 The Idealist Stream: Ideas About How Power "Should" Be

4.1.1 The Management Sub-stream: the "rational" approach to power

4.1.2 The Critical Sub-stream: the "democratic" approach to power.

4.1.3 Mere "ideals" about how power "ought" to be

4.2 The Pragmatist Stream: Accounts of How Power "Actually" Is

4.2.1 Post-Foucauldian contributions to the power in organizations literature

4.3 Conlusion

Chapter 5: Leadership Throughthe Power Lens

5.1 Traditional Approaches to Leadership

5.2 Dispersed Approaches to Leadership

5.3 Dispersed Leadership: Problematic Considerations in Regard to Power

5.4 Conclusion

PART III

Chapter 6: The Research and Methodological Framework

6.1 Contextual Issues for Organizational Research

6.1.1 The widespread adoption of new organizational forms

6.1.2 Contemporary debates, arguments and challenges in organizational studies

6.2 Broad Methodological Considerations

6.3 The Research Framework

6.3.1 Generating a priori concepts to focus the research

6.3.2 The inductive study

6.4 The Methodology

6.5 Conclusion

Chapter 7: Methods, Instruments, Contexts and Trends

7.1 The Research Questions

7.2 Selecting the Research Subject

7.3 Crafting Instruments and Protocols

7.3.1 Taken for granted realities

7.3.2 Historical patterns of decision legitimacy

7.3.3 Historical delineation of relationship

7.3.4 Historical patterns in sensemaking

7.3.5 The boundaries of discursive practice

7.3.6 The ordering of statements

7.3.7 Words versus deeds

7.4 The Constraint and Strategic Use of the Archaeology

7.5 Data Collection Strategies

7.5.1 The generation of a priori concepts

7.5.2 Entering the field and gaining acceptance

7.6 Data Analysis Process

7.6.1 Modelling the databases

7.6.2 The data saturation process

7.6.3 Quantitative trends

7.7 Conclusion

PART IV

Chapter 8: Data Analysis: Watching the Detectives

8.1 Taken for Granted Realities

8.1.1 A right to power and a duty to obey.

8.1.2 Detectives are superior to other police

8.1.3 Control through discipline and punishment

8.2 Conclusion

Chapter 9: Data Analysis: History and Sensemaking

9.1 Historical Patterns of Decision Legitimacy

9.2 Historical Delineation of Relationships

9.3 Patterns in Sensemaking

9.4 Conclusion

Chapter 10: Data Analysis: Policing the Boundaries, Maintaining Order, and Words Versus Deeds

10.1 Boundaries of Discursive Practice

10.2 The Ordering of Statements

10.3 Words Versus Deeds

10.4 Conclusion of Data Analysis

Chapter 11: Conclusion: The Historical Constitution of Power

11.1 Propositions

11.1.1 Ideals are grounded in context

11.1.2 Domination shapes the construction of reality

11.1.3 Power can make nonsense make sense

11.1.4 Domination makes stupid

11.1.5 "The Leader" is a problem

11.2 The Historical Constitution of Power in the New South Wales Police Service

Postscript

Appendices

APPENDIX A - Key Limitations and Assumptions

APPENDIX B - Notes on the Way the Research was Conducted

References

Topic Index

Name Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

87-630-0307-4

OCLC:

935248778