TITLE:
Cultural Diversity in Police Organizations: A Quantitative Study between Two Generations of Recruits at the Rio Grande Do Norte State Police
AUTHORS:
Moreno Montenegro, Angeliki Papasava
KEYWORDS:
Cultural Diversity, Human Resources Management, PMRN, Police, Law Enforcement, Community-Oriented Policing, Value Survey Module, Cultural Dimensions, Hofstede
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.3,
March
17,
2023
ABSTRACT: Managing
multicultural teams is a contemporary challenge either in public, private,
international, or domestic firms. Leading or working with individuals with
diverse cultural backgrounds can be a risk, but an opportunity, though, especially in Brazil, a
gigantic multicultural country whose people’s diversity is often treated
carelessly. This project investigated whether the cultural differences between
two generations of Police Officers in one of Brazil’s State Police Organization
are relevant and deserve special measures of Human Resources Management.
Through quantitative methods, an experiment with 349 participants was performed using the Value Survey Module (VSM), a cultural
dimensions framework devised by Hofstede. Two groups have been compared, namely,
recruits undertaking the basic police course and sworn officers with ten years
of police service. Relevant cultural differences were identified in four
cultural dimensions, namely, Power Distance, Individualism vs. Collectivism,
Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long-term Orientation indexes. Based on this, urgent
Human Resources-related measures are necessary to integrate culturally diverse
team members and foster cooperation instead of competition. Moreover, this
study offers recommendations to improve the professionalism of the Law
Enforcement Agency and its community-oriented service.