Assessing organizational culture: Uniformed patrol officers of the Los Angeles Police Department

Purpose. Organizational culture is a much-researched phenomena in the social sciences. This study sought to understand the values and beliefs foundation of a police department culture measured by respondents' perceptions of both the ideal and actual existing culture. Only when the ideal of organizational culture is determined measured against actual cultural behavior can the dissonance be determined and better operating structure be implemented.Methodology. A stratified random sample of uniformed officers of the Los Angeles Police Department was administered the OCTAPACE culture inventory to determine the current or actual culture existing for these respondents. An additional OCTAPACE culture inventory was administered to another random sample of uniformed officers asking them to respond to what the ideal culture should be for the LAPD. A null hypothesis was tested stating that there is no significant difference between the actual and the ideal culture of the Los Angeles Police Department as measured by the OCTAPACE culture inventory. Distribution of inventories resulted in 566 respondents which was an 82 percent usable response for the combined inventories.Findings. Using a t-test for paired samples, the results indicated there were no significant differences between the ideal and actual sample for the culture determinants of authenticity, collaboration, and experimentation. There were significant differences at the.05 level for the culture determinates of openness, confrontation, trust, proaction, and autonomy.Conclusions and recommendations. Police officers in this study believe the organizational culture of the Los Angeles Police Department is not what it should be for five of the eight organizational culture determinants. When values training is conducted in the future, these organizational determinants must be considered since they are driven by the beliefs and values of the officers themselves.