Dr. Kapoor’s research studies what happens to the anti-corruption ethics of police recruits as they move from the training institution to the real world of police practice. He demonstrates how the wider organizational culture predominates, and the recruits’ actions no longer reflect their espoused anti-corruption values.
LUNCH WORKSHOP: Giving Shots of Ethics? Corruption, Culture and the Context of Organizational Socialization in the Police
Abstract: A Longitudinal study of police recruits in Central India over the two years of their probationary training phase reveals that the espoused values on Ethics and Anti-Corruption mainstreamed through the formal training process get imbibed in the perceptions of the trainee officer through an evolving normative understanding and value retention as to what is practical and what is less; through the exposures to field practices during their training phase in the field.
The Organizational Socialization happening through the field visits and field exposures; along with interfaces developing with the experienced officers ‘doing the practical job’, shape the perceptions of the trainees as they weigh the ethical standards and norms taught at the academy in the perspective of the organizational senior’s world of practice in the field - "the real world" they feel they have to face. The findings in the study show that there are changes over time in the espoused values and retained values of the young recruits as they get transformed into police officers, revealed through the progressively low prioritization of ethics around corruption; as they move ahead in their training phase over time, resulting into gaps between the espoused values of the organization and the values retained and enacted by its members. These findings have important policy based lessons on organizational socialization as a deciding factor in envisioning capacity building of governance institutions and their new members.
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