I came across a doctoral dissertation in my university library. It's titled, "Differential use of Discretionary Powers: Police and Young Offenders". It is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of a PhD in Business and Management, School of International Business. What is this got to do with International Business or even business in general? Have you come across similar incidents?
Did you read the thesis? Perhaps this was a cop who was taking a DBA. My brother did his thesis on varying traffic patterns in the LA Basin for his MPA degree.
The following is the abstract: Although police generally exercise wide discretionary powers across most of their duties, it is with respect to young people that these powers are the most extensive. Both sociological and psychological factors influence the use of police discretionary powers. There are said to be strong relationships between authoritarianism, for example, and justice outcomes. Other measures, such as cynicism and punitiveness, have been observed to be influential predictors of police behaviour. Extending the work on jury decision-making, along with other police research, the present research examines use of police discretionary powers with young offenders. Sworn police officers from two jurisdictions, New Zealand and New South Wales, responded to written surveys about their past and intended future behaviour surrounding four crimes most commonly conducted by young offenders. In all, over 500 officers took part in the studies. Further, participants responded to a battery of personality and attitude questionnaires, along with questions about situational variables normally taken into consideration by officers. Results show that police behaviour towards the same offending varies greatly, both within and across jurisdictions. New Zealand police officers were much more likely than New South Wales police officers to report that they diverted, rather than arrested, young offenders who had committed shoplifting and burglary offences. However, when responding to scenarios of underage drinking and assault, it was New South Wales police who were more likely to divert young offenders. There were very few significant relationships between attitudes and behaviour when examining either group, with significant results possibly being a side effect of large sample sizes. Further there were few significant relationships when considering demographic or situational variables. However, in an exploration of police personality, through cluster analysis, evidence was found for different ‘typologies’, or resonances, of police. The results indicate that police are not an homogenous group. In addition, quite complex relationships between measures of police behaviour and individual difference were found within the resonances, with effect sizes showing moderate results. The findings support the need to investigate further personality typologies and extend them to the examination of attitude-behaviour relationships. In addition, research into the use of an attitudinal measure, such as discretionary ideology, as an alternative to measuring behaviour could be expanded. Moreover, broadening of the research into additional areas of the juvenile justice systems, such as legal representatives, magistrates, and youth detention centre officers, would provide further insight into the appropriate use of discretion within juvenile justice for both minor offending and more serious offending. I don't why it has anything to do with business & management. It is for a PhD with the School of International Business. Don't you think it will be more appropriate with another school such as public policy or somethine else. The reason that I'm worried is that my school seems to have many PhD Business and Management students both here and offshore. Apparently they graduate a lot of them. Seems like they will let anyone into the program. It seems like they will accept just any dissertation even it isn't relevant to business.
If I were in your position I'd be more concerned about the quality of these dissertations and not their subject matter. If the Department allows for a great deal of breadth in the approved topics this could be considered to be a good thing. If, on the other hand, they allow substandard dissertations to slip through then you might have a legitimate concern (although, as has been stated in the past, every school lets one slip by on occasion). Jack
OB My guess is this was written from the perspective of organizational behavior and management issues. As for international . . . New South Wales and New Zealand, I guess, would technically qualify. Cheers, Adrienne
