| The research goal was to examine how attitudes of local Virginia law enforcement executives affected their agency's actual implementation of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Prior research indicated that attitudes towards the NIMS affected compliance NIMS rates, and that discrepancies between an organization's intentions and their actual implementation actions could translate into a lessened capacity to institute the NIMS. It was hypothesized that the problem was not that guidance didn't exist, but was more a matter of the degree of implementation, which could be explained by the theory of planned behavior and expectancy theory of motivation. The purpose of this correlational quantitative study was to identify factors that persuaded compliance with the NIMS. This correlational study identified factors that influenced organizational commitment to the NIMS doctrine, using a theoretical behavioral approach. The study population consisted of a random sampling of local Virginia police and sheriff agencies, using an anonymous online survey to capture their opinions related to the NIMS. This quantitative study used linear regression analysis to evaluate the influence of the independent variables of policy, implementer views, and local capacity on the dependent variables of intended and actual NIMS implementation behaviors. This dissertation challenged the assertion that all law enforcement agencies implemented the NIMS concepts in the same manner, having different resource capabilities. Analysis showed that the NIMS implementation intent and actual NIMS implementation indexes were highly correlated and significant at the p < 0.01 level for two-tailed Pearson's r ( n(34), r = .878, p = .000). However, hypothesis testing determined that the null hypothesis could not be refuted because analysis revealed there was no statistically significant relationship between Virginia law enforcement agency attitudes towards supporting the NIMS, written NIMS policy, and local capacity as it related to NIMS implementation behaviors. An important finding was that policy characteristics were most strongly related to the intent to comply with the NIMS, whereas local capabilities were the most strongly correlated with actual implementation behavior. Due to the small population sample (N=34) the research findings from this study could not be generalizable to other localities, and future research would benefit from using larger population sample or comparing groups such as those of municipal police to sheriffs' agencies. Future research would also benefit from investigating how many hours of NIMS training agencies had completed annually, and whether training levels contributed to higher degrees of proficiency and competency in applying the NIMS. |
