Cultural Diversity in Police Organizations: A Quantitative Study between Two Generations of Recruits at the Rio Grande Do Norte State Police

Abstract

Managing multicultural teams is a contemporary challenge either in public, private, international, or domestic firms. Leading or working with individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds can be a risk, but an opportunity, though, especially in Brazil, a gigantic multicultural country whose people’s diversity is often treated carelessly. This project investigated whether the cultural differences between two generations of Police Officers in one of Brazil’s State Police Organization are relevant and deserve special measures of Human Resources Management. Through quantitative methods, an experiment with 349 participants was performed using the Value Survey Module (VSM), a cultural dimensions framework devised by Hofstede. Two groups have been compared, namely, recruits undertaking the basic police course and sworn officers with ten years of police service. Relevant cultural differences were identified in four cultural dimensions, namely, Power Distance, Individualism vs. Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long-term Orientation indexes. Based on this, urgent Human Resources-related measures are necessary to integrate culturally diverse team members and foster cooperation instead of competition. Moreover, this study offers recommendations to improve the professionalism of the Law Enforcement Agency and its community-oriented service.