Management Tool Usage and Perceived Benefits: Insights from Germany’s Police Forces

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the degree to which Germany’s police forces have implemented selected Public Management instruments. The authors conducted 154 partially structured interviews about these instruments with key managers in Germany’s police forces and then analysed the responses using parametric and non-parametric methods. A principal finding of the analysis is that controlling tools and management by objectives have relatively higher degrees of implementation than product-related tools (e.g. product-related budgeting, product-related cost accounting) and outsourcing. The study therefore concludes that the strategy-and-goal-oriented dimension has a larger impact on the management system of Germany’s police forces than the financial dimension does. A literature review shows that these relationships are not peculiar to Germany’s police forces.