Organisational learning from field research in policing: how police can improve policy and practice by implementing randomised controlled trials

Organisational Learning (OL) perspectives suggest that all organisations use evidence to adaptand change their policies and practices. The special case of how police organisations adapt and change in response to experiences with the implementation of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) is, however, not well understood in the extant literature. The value of policing RCTs may, on the one hand, lie in their ability to provide hard evidence or results of ‘what works’ in policing. On the other hand, RCTs may be powerful change processes which serve to generate OL and potential service improvements even in the absence of results. This paper presents an analysis of the results of in-depth interviews conducted in a policing organisation that has implemented a RCT. Using an integrated perspective of OL, we show that processes related to the experience with implementing a RCT may have a specific potential to leverage organisational change.