Muutuste kommunikatsioon Politsei- ja Piirivalveametis 2007-2010 Lõuna prefektuuri näitel
Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Communication of changes in the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board in 2007-
2010 through the example of the South Prefecture.
This Master's thesis analyzes, through the example of the South Prefecture, the
communication of changes before, during and after the reform in the Estonian Police and
Border Guard Board, formed on January 1, 2010 through the merger of the Police Board,
Border Guard Board, Central Criminal and Personal Protection Police, and the Citizenship
and Migration Board. The merger process that was time-consuming and complex meant that,
after the merger of the boards, the state created Estonia's historically largest institution with
almost 7 000 state officials whose background varied from military representatives to
customer service assistants. Estonia has never seen such a large-scale merger of institutions
and it is also noteworthy that the merger included very autonomous bodies with historical
traditions and long-term organizational culture.
The Master's thesis analysis focuses on the timeliness and reasoning concerning the
communication of changes in one of the South Prefecture staff's main communication
channels, the internal web, and also the meaning of these changes. The author additionally
uses in-depth interviews to study the level of awareness of the changes among the prefecture
board members whose task is to forward crucial information and messages to the subordinate
units. The author also compares the results of the two named analysis sources with external
communication messages to study any differences in the internal and external communication.
Solution of the research task employs the text analysis of posts to the internal web of the
South Prefecture, also the structured in-depth interviews with South Prefecture heads, and a
discourse analysis of external communication.
As a result of the study, the author found that the internal web environment before the merger
was primarily a place for presenting operative messages and mediating media texts. When it
came to comments on behalf of the institution, the communication was predominantly passive
and described the process, rather than explaining its background. Since the input for internal
communication was often gained from external communication, the messages on the semantic
field of the communication of changes were primarily from external sources (gains from the merger: an increase in effectiveness and internal security). During the merger, the mediation
of journalistic texts to the internal web died down; one could also note a marked increase in
the quality of posts since the messages were clearer and the topics raised were more specific
(the basis for these was planned internal communication). When it came to messages, the
semantic field saw a strong arrival of the attempt to achieve uniformity in the merged board;
at the same time the messages also continued to emphasize the increase in effectiveness, but
also the service quality. After the merger, several groups of issues concerning minor processes
caused by the changes were raised, but the related communication in the internal web was
almost non-existent; a period of silence reigned. The messages that had previously appeared
in the semantic field were suddenly gone, although some were still not convinced in the
necessity or promised gains of the merger. However, at the same time, the messages
continued to emphasize, to a lesser extent, the fact that a merged board needs to create
uniform standards (uniformity).
The most exciting input for the thesis was provided by the regional managers whose in-depth
interviews revealed that during their everyday work they see gains from the merger in the
form of more effective resource usage (including the opportunity for cross-usage), yet the
majority of the interviewees were rather skeptical about the messages mediated to them
during the reform. More than half the respondents had heard that the merger would bring
about optimization of costs and the reduction of overlapping through support services, but did
not fail to note that these reasons were not convincing and do not apply to today's situation;
some also found that the merger process arose due to national policy where the execution of a
merger was more of an opportunity for 'heroism'. The interviewees repeatedly highlighted the
fact that overlapping in information exchange has increased significantly after the merger and
there is now a lot of noise, because a large number of people in the central apparatus turn
daily to as many officials as possible with very different issues, yet these issues do not affect
such officials at all or do not affect them concerning the specific process period.
The discourse analysis revealed that the messages provided in external communication about
the gains from the merger were quite clear, but transformed too quickly in the chronological
sense. Before the merger, messages were relatively uniform in internal and external
communication (because external texts were mediated into internal communication), but in
later periods the media was far more progressive in raising and discussing crucial issues,
directing their focus to the most important points – the costs, lay-offs, cuts, and identity and
other problems. However, in internal communication these periods were often ruled by
silence.
During the study the author found that the main mistakes revealed in the internal
communication of the reform were the facts that, despite the rapid pace of the merger process,
communication was not hurried; the employees were not engaged in the process to the least
extent; internal communication yielded to silence; and the main question – why the merger
was executed in the first place – was constantly forgotten.