Managing strategic knowledge in policing: do police leaders have sufficient knowledge about organisational performance to make informed strategic decisions?

The literature suggests that in spite of a generally stated philosophical shift to community policing, police organisations have often failed to embrace congruent business practices. One such business practice is that of strategic management and, thus, the strategic performance measurements necessary to generate knowledge with which to make strategic decisions. Consequently, this study explored the extent to which Canadian police organisations have strategic performance measurement systems in place that are congruent with community policing. The results indicated that many Canadian police organisations are not being measured and managed strategically and, accordingly, were likely not managing knowledge strategically. This suggests that these police organisations probably had yet to adopt the contemporary model of policing – community policing – and thus were likely to have insufficient knowledge about organisational performance to make informed strategic decisions.