Policy Imperatives and Local Circumstances: Sensemaking and Interpretation in the Prison Service
type: CreativeWork
description: 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 thro…
abstract: 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 thro…
author: Watson, Mairi Nisbet
license: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/0a762d3b-89fb-406b-bf07-4e74b0886d09/download
date published: 2012-02
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:18:40Z
provider: De Montfort University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: De Montfort University