Much research has been done on the way in which individuals in organizations deal with their discretion. This article focuses on the literature on street-level bureaucracy and the literature on ethical decision-making. Despite their shared attempt to explain individual behaviour and decision-making, these research traditions have been developed quite independently. Moreover, while they both list relevant influencing factors, they do not succeed entirely in clarifying how and under which circumstances these factors have an impact on individual behaviour and decision-making. This article attempts to substantiate how the concept of 'social mechanism' could help to open the black box of causation.
Existing research on bureaucratic encounters typically studies how bureaucrats’ and clients’ characteristics influence frontline decision making. How social interactions between street-level bureaucrats and between officials and citizens could directly affect case-related decisions largely remains an underexplored field of study, despite the fact that new forms of governance introduce social dynamics in the form of trust and collaboration as tools to increase legitimacy. Relying on in-depth qualitative data of the Belgian labor inspectorate and the Dutch tax authorities, this study scrutinizes how decisions about cases could be affected by their immediate social context.
Recent years have seen an increasing privatization of the security sector, leading to an intermingling of private and public policing and a possible 'value-shift' for the overall security policy. Systematic comparative research between police and private security values is, however, still lacking. This article intends to help filling this void by giving an overview of literature on values and occupational culture in both sectors. We conclude that culture is mostly approached in a one-sided, stereotypical and negative way. Our recommendation is to integrate the occupational culture research in the broader academic tradition that focuses on organizational culture and climate.
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