For the purposes of this paper, "culture" is defined as "a system of orientation that is typical for a nation, society, organization, or group." This system of orientation consists of basic, unconscious attitudes, of values, and of the corresponding artifacts. The police as an organization has a specific culture, which consists of their own set of assumptions, rules of behavior, etc. There are different police cultures within Europe. The communist experience in Central and Eastern Europe had led to a police culture and a security culture that is still different from that in Western countries. Intercultural human resource management perceives cultural differences as an opportunity more than an obstacle. It provides the opportunity for different cultures to profit from the distinctive values that each offers. The cooperation among police officers from different countries, hence from different cultural backgrounds, offers the chance to recognize the limitations of their own methods and to consider partners' models and their possible use for their own work. Some forms of international cooperation discussed in this paper are joint international training and bilateral work groups or task forces.
Intercultural Human Resource Management for Police Cooperation in Europe (From Policing in Central and Eastern Europe: Comparing Firsthand Knowledge With Experience From the West, P 103-108, 1996, Milan Pagon, ed. -- See NCJ-170291)
NCJ Number
170302
Date Published
1996
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This paper considers the possible contributions of intercultural resource management to the interior security of European nations.
Abstract