Policy Imperatives and Local Circumstances: Sensemaking and Interpretation in the Prison Service
This thesis considers how managers accomplish organization-wide policy imperatives at a local level in the setting of HM Prison Service. Policy imperatives are defined as policy instructions or initiatives that require an action or event defined by policy makers as mandatory and to be achieved by a particular deadline, the outcome of which is relied on by multiple stakeholders. They present a situation whereby managerial opportunity and discretion is constrained by a centrally or externally determined outcome. In this thesis they are conceptualised as a process of organizational change, subject to interpretation and sensemaking by organizational actors in particular contexts. An embedded case study methodology is used to explore the introduction and execution of a particular policy imperative, SR2000 Increasing Capacity in the Prison Service. Across five prison sites, this thesis traces its accomplishment using multiple sources including retrospective accounts articulated by members of senior management teams. As a research site the Prison Service offers considerable potential to explore how this process is managed given recent shifts from a centrally dominated command and control culture to one in which individual prison management teams are responsible and held accountable at prison level. Accordingly, this thesis offers a timely analysis of the role of managers in interpreting centrally decreed policy imperatives to achieve implementation. The research demonstrates how careful alignment of the narrative of policy objectives with local circumstances can facilitate policy implementation in unfavourable circumstances. The thesis demonstrates that where managers are tasked with the accomplishment of policy instructions which are practically non-negotiable commands, and where discretionary powers are constrained or curtailed, both by the policy command and structural features of the context then policy implementation is achieved through localisation of the policy through context specific variation in i) the characteristics attributed to the change and ii) the nature of implementation strategies. Managers achieve this through privileging detailed knowledge of the local context, rather than generic change or policy implementation process knowledge. Specifically, this detailed knowledge of local context (which spans the range of roles and relationships between key actors in the local context) helps to build plausible accounts of change and mobilise actors to work towards implementing change. Empirically, the thesis offers a critical contribution through the generation of detailed case study material which illustrates and exposes the processes whereby change is interpreted, enacted and implemented within the context of the Prison Service. In particular, the evidence presented identifies how prison managers negotiate and mobilise the complex landscape of relationships and interactions between the multiple stakeholders in the organization in order to achieve policy imperatives, typical as a vehicle for effecting change in the organization. In relation to theory, the thesis offers insight into the nature of context. the process of policy implementation and the managerial skills required in enforced change.
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