The perceptions of organizational culture in the community corrections profession : a quantitative study.

Despite efforts to implement and adopt effective supervision practices that construct long-term sustainable and effective community corrections systems, agencies struggle with internal organizational factors that impact the effectiveness and, subsequently, public safety (Baker et al., 2015; Kras et al., 2021; Viglione, 2019; Wilson et al., 2022). Too often, leaders overlook the organizational factors that formed the current organizational culture, which leads to ineffective staff behavior norms. In researching this problem, I discovered two main concerns. The first concern is the need for more research and acknowledgment to study organizational culture in the community corrections profession. The second concern is the disconnect between management and non-management staff perceptions of the expected staff behaviors and the organizational culture factors that led to the creation of a passive defensive operating culture.

I used a causal-comparative quantitative research design with the How Culture Works theoretical framework in this study. The theory asserts that the different perceptions of organizational factors develop the expected behavior norms staff adapt to fit in and succeed in the organization and that the development of different expected behavior norms leads to defensive cultures. Therefore, I used the Organizational Culture Inventory to focus on three determinations. First, to determine the current organizational culture style of the participants. Second, to determine the current organizational culture style by organizational level, management, and non-management. Finally, to determine if there is a statistically significant difference between the perceptions of the current organizational culture between management and non-management participants.

Descriptive analyses showed that the primary organizational culture style for the sample of participants is passive defensive. In addition, the primary organizational culture style for management participants was also passive defensive. However, the primary organizational culture style for non-management participants was constructive. Thus, the comparative analyses showed a statistically significant difference between management and non-management perceptions of the constructive, passive defensive, and aggressive defensive culture styles. Implications of these findings relate to governing bodies, professional leaders, and researchers associated with the community corrections profession.