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CHAPTER 14
Change and Innovation
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, the student will have achieved the following objectives:
• Understand why change occurs.
• Be familiar with the process of organizational change
• Discuss four significant elements of a planned change
• Understand the basic ingredients of planning in criminal justice
• Understand personal resistance to change
• Understand organizational resistance to change
KEY TERMS
changing
civil litigation
climate
crescive change
forecasting
innovations
organizational development
organizational structure
performance gap
personal source
planned change
refreezing
resistance to change
service quality
stunted analysis
unfreezing
vested interest
vision
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Introduction: Criminal Justice Agencies and Change
A. The criminal justice workforce is rapidly becoming more diverse, with the inclusion
of minorities and women. This change, which itself will impact the system, has its
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1. Perceived need for reform and change in the criminal justice system, however,
preceded the Progressive era; attempts to bring reform to the criminal justice
system began at least as early as the mid-1800s.
C. The President’s Commission of 1967 was followed in 1973 by massive volumes from
the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals on
recommendations to improve police, courts, corrections, and the juvenile justice
system.
D. Because change and innovation were seen as desperately needed throughout the
system, millions of dollars in grants were provided to state and local criminal justice
agencies through Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
E. Today, the effectiveness and practices of the criminal justice system are continually
being challenged by society or the political and legal systems.
II. How Change Manifests in Agencies
A. Change is manifested in simple agency alterations or in major reforms may be
purposive or crescive.
1. Crescive change is inadvertent or unplanned, independent of a control, and may
2. Purposive change results from conscious, deliberate, and planned efforts by
organizational members, typically managers. It may be a response to changing
environmental conditions or pressures, to internal conflict, or to organizational
members’ perceived needs to change or improve aspects of their system.
B. Crescive and purposive changes are obviously not mutually exclusive
processes. The Patriot Act is a current example of a mix of crescive and purposive
changes and fits into our previous discussion on the national response to the terrorist
threats.
III. Why Change Occurs
A. Change can emanate from inside or outside an agency’s environment.
B. A performance gap may cause a perceived need for change, resulting in the agency
entering into deliberate or planned change efforts.
C. A performance gap may be produced by:
2. Internal structural or technical changes
4. Repercussions of an agency’s performance
D. Organizational change can be understood as a bridge that links an organization with
its environment.
E. Organizations modify their internal workings to adapt to external environmental
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A. A deliberate and rational process of planned change is the optimal approach.
B. Most organizational change is not purely rational or deliberate.
C. Planned organizational change consists of a set of activities designed to change
individuals, groups, and organization structure and process.
1. It requires innovation.
3. It also requires overcoming:
a. Organizational decision making routines
b. Seeking knee-jerk quick fixes
c. Confusing symptoms with problems
d. Excessive concern for protecting boundaries
e. Use of least-cost solutions and methods to placate external pressures
V. Planning in Criminal Justice
A. Planning is a process that:
1. precedes decision making
3. seeks coordination among sets of interrelated decisions or actions
B. Planning allows:
2. the making of rational choices among alternative programs
C. The planning process is the first step in developing and implementing planned
change.
D. The tasks of planners are:
1. identifying agency goals and problems
3. generating and testing alternative
E. Planning is, at best, difficult and bounded by constraints.
F. Rational planning requires that:
1. an agency’s goals are congruent rather than contradictory
3. means-ends relationships are understood
G. The planning process has the potential to clarify goals or at least prioritize agency
objectives.
VI. Resistance to Change
A. Implementing change is the human and more difficult aspect of planned change.
1. A natural resistance to change exists in almost all organizations.
2. Obstacles and sources of resistance to change must be identified and eliminated or
controlled.
B. Personal sources: Reasons for employee resistance are limitless.
C. Organizational sources:
2. Organizational change requires altering the organization’s routines.
3. Resistance to change is also a function of the magnitude and depth of the change
being proposed.
a. A proposed change that focuses on a single aspect of the behavior of a few
4. When an agency’s constituents and members both perceive a performance gap,
the momentum for change will be strengthened by congruent pressures.
D. Characteristics of innovations
2. Innovations that create a high return on the initial investment or improve an
agency’s efficiency will be more attractive than those that do not.
3. The extent to which organizational change creates risk or uncertainty will also
affect the likelihood of innovation.
4. Innovations that emanate within organizations and are timely have a better
opportunity for acceptance than externally imposed or poorly timed innovations.
5. The larger the mass of people involved in the change process, the greater the
resistance.
E. Overcoming resistance to change
2. The responsibility for overcoming resistance to change within an agency typically
falls on change agents—usually management.
4. Strategies for change can be aimed at:
a. Agency individuals
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c. The organizational climate
d. Combinations of these targets
F. Individual change strategies
1. The assumption underlying this approach is that individuals or groups of
individuals within an agency must modify their attitudes, skills, and behaviors.
2. Attempting to impose new roles upon staff by decree will inevitably be met with
resistance.
G. Structural and systems change strategies
2. Before workers’ behaviors can change, basic structural aspects of the system that
constrain their behaviors must be changed.
H. Organizational climate change strategies
1. The assumption underlying this approach is that the behaviors in an organization
2. The dimensions of the organizational climate may include:
a. Task structure: The degree to which the methods used to accomplish tasks are
spelled out by an organization.
b. Reward-punishment relationship: The degree to which granting additional
rewards are based on performance and merit instead of other considerations.
3. Creating an organizational climate that is conducive to cooperative change can be
an overwhelming task, especially if the change is prompted by extreme conflict
within an agency.
VII. Organizational Development
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A. Organizational development (OD) focuses on the environmental influences of an
organization.
1. The process attempts to alter systemic values, routines, and structures so as to
B. OD program objectives may include:
2. confronting and resolving problems
4. increasing the level of personal satisfaction among organizational members
5. increasing open communication within the organization
C. As a field of social and management science, OD relies on a multidisciplinary
approach, draws heavily from:
2. sociology
4. theories of motivation, personality, and learning
5. research on group dynamics, leadership, power, and organizational behavior
D. Techniques used in OD are based, in part, upon Theory Y assumptions that
individuals are responsible and can be motivated most readily when they are given
responsibility.
E. OD techniques and programs typically include surveys, team building, and training.
F. OD requires active participation of organizational members in the process of
management and change.
VIII. Unintended Consequences of Change
A. The final outcomes of a change effort may be different from those desired by change
agents or planners.
B. Social interventions fail as policy makers and planners fall into regressive traps for
several reasons.
2. Goals may be displaced by the bureaucratic emphasis on process rather than
outcome.
3. Program evaluation needs may pervert the desired ends as agencies may:
C. The successful change agent needs to be free of traditional organizational paradigms
to posses the vision to look for future contingencies.
D. The visionary leader needs to have an understanding of the cultural forces within his
or her own organization that limit vision.
IX. Ethics and Organizational Change
A. Organizational leaders – acting as change agents –need to create an ethical
framework to guide the organization as they initiate and facilitate the process of
change.
B. To accomplish this goal, they have to be aware that the change process is going to
affect the lives of individuals within the organization as well as the lives and well
being of external constituents.
2. Leaders also need to distinguish between the means to create change and the ends
– the desired outcomes. Focusing primarily on the desired outcomes can create a
framework of unethical values and practices throughout the change process.
C. Leaders and change agents will be instrumental in their treatment of organizational
member, clients and stakeholders and not treat these significant individuals as objects
that need to be manipulated by some method.
D. Organizational leaders and change agents must map out an ethical means to
restructure their agency or its practices, culture, and activities of its members.
X. Implications for Criminal Justice Managers
A. Developing new paradigms requires recognizing and setting aside the assumptions
that dominate the organization.
B. The importance of leadership and a holistic approach is demonstrated by the
following mode of change in a police department:
2. Urging retirement of older officers and replacing them with new officers who can
be successfully indoctrinated.
4. Training middle managers through the chief’s office to ensure proper
indoctrination.
6. Applying the coercive power of the chief’s office to punish those fighting change.
C. Leaders must develop a high level of sophistication about the organization’s political
1. alertness to the need for change and innovation
3. ability to create a climate within their agencies that fosters communication and
criticism from the ranks
4. willingness to expend the resources required to implement change
G. Criminal justice managers who would themselves be change agents must free
themselves and their personnel from firmly rooted organizational values that contain
major obstacles to change.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
influences on an organization or from internal organizational conflict. Purposive change
results from conscious, deliberate, and planned efforts by organizational members, typically
managers.
Change can emanate from inside or outside an agency’s environment. A performance
gap may cause a perceived need for change, resulting in the agency entering into deliberate
and bounded by constraints. This chapter also shows us that implementing change is the
human and more difficult aspect of planned change. There are a host of personal and
organizational sources of resistance. Overcoming resistance to change ultimately requires
unfreezing, changing, and refreezing the behavior of an organization’s members. The
responsibility for overcoming these obstacles typically falls on change agents—usually
In the final chapter we will explore how research, when used properly can be a tool
for criminal justice organizations. It is a tool that administrators can use to enable their
organizations to communicate in better ways and operate more efficiently.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. To what extent does an agency’s reliance on its folklore to enhance its self-image impede
planned change? Police agencies, for example, may see themselves as fighting a war on
2. A growing number of line-level criminal justice practitioners have college degrees. Will
the advanced education of these practitioners create greater or less resistance to change
from within criminal justice organizations?
3. What must a corrections administrator consider in deciding whether to police the
agency’s boundaries or succumb to pressures for change?
4. Define a criminal justice agency problem that you are familiar with and understand in
5. Provide a definition of a “change agent”. What ethical responsibilities do change agents
have? Discuss what personality traits or characteristics you believe would make a good
change agent.
DISCUSSION TOPICS/STUDENT ACTIVITIES
1. Form the students into four groups. Give the groups 20 minutes to analyze the case study
on pages 448 and 449 of the text (Change through Accountability v. Culture). Assign
3. Have the students identify and discuss four significant elements of a planned change.
5. Divide the students into two groups and have them list as list seven innovative ideas on
how to make this course more interesting or dynamic. Reunite as a group and facilitate a
INTERNET CONNECTIONS
1. Access J. T. Hage’s article “Organizational Innovation and Organizational Change” at
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/centerforinnovation/PDF/Hage1999.pdf
2. Access the Ministry of Social Development’s article “Lessons Learned from Leading
Organizational Change” at
http://www.ssc.govt.nz/display/document.asp?docid=4934&NavID=82
4. Read the Drs. Brag and Weisburd paper on Police Innovation and Crime Prevention,
5. Navigate to the Crime and Justice Institute web page and read the article on Strategic