CULTURAL CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNICATION: THE CASE OF COMPSTAT AS A PLANNED CHANGE MODEL

Communication and culture are most often studied independently in many fields. In contrast to other fields, communication scholars place communication at the center of analysis and view it as both creator and manifestation of culture. In this line of thought, culture and cultural change in any organization can be analyzed based on the communication practices and choices of people in that organization. The central purpose of this study is to examine the cultural change in a large police department (Newark Police Department) after the implementation of a popular planned organizational change model known as Compstat, which has been implemented by numerous police organizations in the USA over the last decade. For this purpose, 26 interviews were conducted with police officers. In addition, the main components of this model, Compstat meetings, were observed for six months to examine manifestation of cultural change in the communication practices. The study revealed that there is certainly a cultural change in this police department after the implementation of Compstat model. While accountability, information sharing, ‘can do mentality’ and flexibility seem to be emerging values in this organization, the claims of Compstat to bring creativity, innovation, risk taking and organizational learning were not observed at the desired level.  Design of communication in the Compstat meetings should be reconsidered to bring a genuine, meaningful dialogue that allows for the development required for organizational learning, creativity, and innovation.