Rules in Organizational Context

Narcotics Law Enforcement in Two Settings

Bibliographic Data

ID2275909
AuthorsPeter K Manning (0000-0002-7940-2023, Michigan State University, corresponding author)
Year1977
Volume18
Issue1
Pages44-61
Publication date1977-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.1977.tb02161.x
OpenAlexW2120334792
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited28

Studies of organizational action tend to isolate actors, structures, and goals as if they were not concretely interdigitated in organizational conduct. In many cases, actors are omitted as relevant units of analysis; goals are stated as abstracted entities unrelated to complex collective processes of defining, clarifying and evaluating goal-attainment, and often rules are not studied as continuously negotiated through and by interaction. Unless a close analysis of how broadly defined rules emerge as narrowly defined procedures sanctioned as reasonable and proper conduct is undertaken, the assumptive nature of the concept “bureaucracy” is left unexamined, operates invisibly, and thus impedes sociological analysis. This paper, based on fieldwork and interviews in three police organizations, identifies the processes by which an abstract organizational goal is defined, deferred to and becomes actionable. The organizational contexts of the two narcotics enforcement units (from which most of the data presented here are derived) embed the rules said to guide the pursuit of major violators of narcotics laws and systematically make certain aspects of the work either visible or obscure. Thus, some members are exposed to negative sanctioning while others experience positive sanctioning. This suggests that since the context of rules, not the rules themselves, nor the rules about the rules (so characteristic of formal organizations), determine the consequential (i.e., actionable) meanings of acts, situated interactions, accounts and shared understandings should be examined in the sociological analysis of organizations

Action (physics) · Bureaucracy · Business · Context (archaeology) · Criminology · Enforcement · Epistemology · Geography · Knowledge management · Law and economics · Law enforcement · Organizational analysis · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Situated · Sociology · Computer Science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment

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