Consolidation of Police and Fire Services in the United States

More than 100 municipalities across the United States have consolidated their police, fire, and emergency medical services into a single, consolidated agency. Typical reasons for such consolidation are to reduce costs or improve efficiency. As initial reasons to consolidate change or diminish, some agencies have deconsolidated, but many remained consolidated. In this work, we use perspectives of contingency theory and institutional theory of organizations to explore why agencies may remain consolidated. Using a mixed-methods approach, we first recruited two expert panels of consolidated agency leaders and others knowledgeable about consolidation and deconsolidation across the United States. From these experts, we gathered insight into a broad range of issues related to public-safety consolidation. We then conducted a series of seven case studies among communities chosen for their location and community features, interviewing agency executives and line staff as well as local officials. We found contingency theory helps explain why many of these agencies consolidate. We also found, as institutional theory would predict, that many conformed to standards of other bodies or even created their own “cultural” standards. This work highlights the importance of both theoretical perspectives in assessing the growth and persistence of these agencies.

Interplay of institutional and cultural theories of organization

In this paper, similarities and differences between the institutional theory of organization and organizational culture theory are analysed, and how these theories complement each other is highlighted. This study posits that both the institutional and cultural theories of organizations have the same research subject and that they approach it from the same research paradigm. The level of analysis distinguishes the two, and therefore, an interaction between the institutional and cultural theories of organizations is useful. Organizational culture theory supports the institutional theory in explaining the underlying factors and the forms of the implementation of institutional pattern in organizations. The institutional theory of organizations supports the organizational culture theory to expand its findings regarding the sources of organizational culture.

Accounting for the “Second Assault”: Legal Organizations’ Framing of Rape Victims

What organizational and community conditions influence legal officials to treat rape victims “unresponsively”? Our analysis is guided by Goffman's theory of organizational frameworks and frames of activity and March and Olsen's institutional theory of organizations. Using data from 130 organizations in Florida that process rape cases, we compare six types of organizations (including hospital emergency rooms and rape crisis centers) on eight criteria and review their frameworks and frames of activity relative to unresponsiveness. We use the issue of victim legitimacy to illustrate the utility of our model. Our results show that well-meaning staff in legal organizations are oriented to routinely treat victims unresponsively. Their organizations routinely orient them to be concerned with, for example, public approval, the avoidance of losing, and expediency more than with victims' needs. In our conclusion, we identify ways legal officials and rape crisis centers can promote responsive treatment of victims. We also call for research on legal organizations that are responsive to victims and for a nationwide discourse on the “politics of rape victims' needs” as a means of addressing the gender inequality issues that underlie rape crimes and laws and orient legal officials to treat victims unresponsively.