Shaping Police Officer Mindsets and Behaviors: Experimental Evidence of Procedural Justice Training | Research Seminar with Rodrigo Canales

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Meeting ID: 868 9472 9220

Abstract: Research on organizational justice shows that perceptions of justice by internal and external agents are reliable predictors of key organizational outcomes. But how can we promote the enactment of fair behavior by those with decision-making authority within organizations? This is particularly important for organizations that depend on frequent client interactions, where individual discretion is required to make consequential decisions, and “necessary evils” are unavoidable. Few organizations face this challenge as intensely as police forces, where misconduct and bad decisions by their street-level bureaucrats can have large negative consequences. This paper treats justice as a dependent variable to investigate if police officers can be trained to effectively incorporate the principles of procedural justice in their interactions with citizens. In collaboration with the Mexico City police, we implemented a randomized controlled trial with 1,854 officers to measure whether procedural justice training changed their perceptions of policing and actual behavior on the field. We find significant and positive effects of the training across all measures of the procedural justice model. Our research yields insights into critical elements to consider in organizational training programs, including managerial alignment with the objectives of the training and a consideration of employees’ perceptions of the extent to which their work is understood by others.  

Bio: Rodrigo Canales does research at the intersection of organizational theory and institutional theory, with a special interest in the role of institutions for economic development. Rodrigo studies how individuals can purposefully change complex organizations or systems. Rodrigo’s work explores how individuals’ backgrounds, professional identities, and organizational positions affect how they relate to existing structures and the strategies they pursue to change them. His work contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that allow institutions to operate and change. Rodrigo has done work in entrepreneurial finance and microfinance, as well as in the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs. His current research is divided in three streams. The first focuses on the structural determinants of the quality of startup employment. The second explores the conditions under which development policies and practices integrate rigorous evidence. The third, with generous support from the Merida Initiative, explores how to build effective, resilient, and trusted police organizations in Mexico.

Rodrigo is faculty director of Questrom’s Social Impact Program. Before, he was Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management, where he taught the Innovator Perspective. He sits in the advisory board of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; he spent the 2014-2015 academic year advising the Mexican government on the US-Mexico bilateral relationship; and sits in the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy.

Our CIRHR Research Seminar series invites industry leaders and researchers to present their findings. Future guest speakers include:

• Shaping Police Officer Mindsets and Behaviors: Experimental Evidence of Procedural Justice Training
  September 11, Rodrigo Canales, Boston University Questrom School of Business, Management and Organizations

• September 26, Amalia Miller, University of Virginia Department of Economics
   
• November 6, Chunyun Li, LSE Department of Management