A research study of instituional culture and subcultures in the Turkish Police Organization

Following the view that organizations have different subcultures in addition to institutional-based values and norms, this study seeks to recognize institutionally promoted cultural tendencies and subcultures in the Turkish Police Organization. In the study I identified trust, occupational responsibility, avoidance from torture, mistreatment, political involvement, discrimination, professionalism, love, tolerance, respect for people, individual rights, and private life, neutrality, equity, honesty, and fairness as manifestations of institutional culture in the formal regulations, discourses and practices of the Turkish Police Organization. The research conducted in a sample of 369 police officers in Adana using the cultural dimensions of professionalism, hierarchy orientation, proactive orientation, torture orientation, transparency, and community orientation brought out five subcultures as professionalism, violation culture, nepotic culture, passive culture and indefinite subgroup. Implications of the research results for the literature on organizational subcultures and the Turkish Police Organization are also discussed.