European Journal of Policing Studies

Article

From ‘what works?’ to ‘who am I?’: Existential research in the extended policing family

Keywords Academic-Practitioner Collaboration, Organizational Identity, Private Security, Regulation, Security Industry Authority
Authors Adam White en Imogen Hayat
DOI
Author's information

Adam White
Adam White is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on three interconnected themes: (i) the rise of the private security and private military industries in the postwar era; (ii) corresponding issues of governance, regulation and legitimacy in the contemporary security sector; and (iii) the changing nature of state-market relations (corresp: adam. white@sheffield.ac.uk).

Imogen Hayat
Imogen Hayat joined the SIA in 2007 and has worked across the organization as Development Manager, Insight Manager, Head of Private Office, Stakeholder & Media Relations Manager and (her current role) Project Support Manager. Prior to this, she worked at COI as a Strategic Analyst and at CAFCASS as a Corporate Strategist. She holds a Masters degree in Geography from Leeds University.
  • Abstract

      Police forces are long established organizations shot through with tradition and confident of their underlying organizational identity. This means that when police practitioners collaborate with academics, they tend to be more concerned with pragmatic questions of ‘what works?’ than they are with existential questions of ‘who am I?’. However, on the fringes of the ‘extended policing family’, where organizational identities are far more fluid, a different picture emerges. These less established organizations are often equally interested in both types of question. This presents an opportunity for academics and practitioners to work together on deeper questions regarding the constitution of the policing landscape. Through the lens of Hatch and Schultz’s (2002) model of organizational identity dynamics, this article profiles one such example which revolves around a research collaboration between the Security Industry Authority – the public body tasked with regulating the UK private security industry – and the University of Sheffield.

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