Zoekresultaten

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European police officers

Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers' strain over a three-month-period after the lockdown. Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers' main tasks, stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively. Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience, stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers' reports allowed to derive implications for governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics. Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress regulation skills in police training.

E-Procurement as Digital Collaboration in an Integrated Coalition Limited by EU Regulation

from the article: Supply chain integration intensifies through digitalisation of business administration (BA) processes. However, it is unclear whether differences exist between the public and private sector in development or implementation of supply chain integration solutions. The large scope of the supply chain, being a large network of companies working together towards one end product, is limited for this study to e-procurement processes. The related software solutions are included. This study starts with a theoretical snapshot of e-procurement. This is followed by a process viewpoint of the e-procurement function. Next five different forms of e-procurement cooperation are presented seen from an actors network viewpoint. The utilisation of these forms create insight in the differences between the public and private sector in their e-procurement adoption behaviour. The process maturity scan results shows that the process maturity between the two sectors is comparable. However, this only explains the differences per sector concerning their ability to improve and control their processes in general. For reliability, this step is followed by three in-depth interviews combined with analyses of recent e-procurement behaviour studies involving the two sectors. The final step compares the maturity outcome with the in-depth data results. Both sectors show certain forms of coalition in the e-procurement. Where ‘competition’ is a construct that drives the private sector, the public sector has cost control as a driver towards collaboration and integration within e-procurement. This can only partially be explained by the past European financial crises. Differences are found in digital collaboration and the integration itself. The most important difference lies in the European tendering procedure to which the public sector (unlike the private) is restricted. In nature an e-procurement design and development project does not fit the prescribed procedures.

A framework for traceability of legal requirements in the Dutch Governmental context

From the article: Abstract Since more and more business rules management solutions are utilized, organizations search for guidance to design such solutions. Principles are often applied to guide the design of information systems in general. Scientific research on principles for business rules management is limited. The purpose of this paper is to specify, classify, and validate design principles that can be applied to guide the design of a business rules management solution. We conducted a three round focus group and three round Delphi Study, which led to the identification of 22 principles. These 22 principles can be clustered into four categories: 1) deep structure principles, 2) physical structure principles, 3) surface structure principles, and 4) organizational structure principles. Our results provide a framework for the design and analysis of business rules management solutions.

Preventative Parenting: Governmental Racialization of Migrant Families

Institutionally embedded research

To elucidate how authoritative knowledge is established for better dealing with unstructured urban problems, this article describes how collaborations between researchers and officials become an instrument for conceptualizing and addressing policy problems. A case study is used to describe a research consortium evaluating the controversial practice of ‘Lifestyle’ based housing allocation in the Dutch domain of social-housing. Analyzing this case in key episodes, we see researchers and policymakers selectively draw on established institutional practices—their so called ‘home practices’—to jointly (re-)structure problems. In addition, we find that restructuring problems is not only intertwined with, but also deliberately aimed at (re-)structuring the relations within and between the governmental practices, the actors are embedded in. It is by selectively tinkering with knowledges, values, norms, and criteria that the actors can deliberately enable and constrain the ways a real-world problem is addressed.

Setting the research agenda for governmental communication

The Research Group for Governmental Communication has carried out a trend study of governmental communication within The Netherlands (1). Research topics were: the major tasks for communication, current issues, profiling the communication department, and policy plans for communication. Another study focused on quality control as a management function for the communication department (2). A tool was developed to measure the communication quality of governmental organisations. Looking back on the results of both studies we asked ourselves the question: How can the academic field pursue the research of communication practice in governmental organisations and then support this field with results? The article focuses on governmental communication in The Netherlands, but the results might also be interesting for researchers and communication experts in governmental communication in other countries. The author argues that the priorities in the research agenda within the field of governmental communication should include: monitoring methods, quality control and accountability.