status-authority asymmetry between professions
TRANSCRIPT
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STATUS-AUTHORITY ASYMMETRY BETWEEN PROFESSIONS:
THE CASE OF 911 DISPATCHERS AND POLICE OFFICERS
Status-authority asymmetry in the workplace emerges when lower-status professionals are
ascribed with higher functional authority to oversee higher-status professionals and elicit
compliance from them. However, eliciting compliance from the higher-status professionals
is ridden with challenges. How and when lower-status professionals with functional
authority could elicit compliance from higher-status professionals? To examine this
question, I conducted a 24-month ethnography of 911 emergency coordination to
understand how 911 dispatchers (lower-status professionals with functional authority) were
able to elicit compliance from the police officers (higher-status professionals). I identify a
set of relational styles – entailing interactional practices and communication media –
enacted by the 911 dispatchers. Findings suggest that as compared to the customizing and
the escalating relational styles enacted via the private communication medium, the
publicizing relational style (i.e., publicizing the noncompliant behavior of an officer to his
immediate peers) enacted via the peer communication medium enabled the dispatchers to
elicit compliance. Such peer publicizing triggered self-disciplining, as that noncompliant
officers’ trustworthiness is on the line in front of the peer group. More generally, through
enrolling the alters’ peers in the compliance process, the lower-status professionals with
functional authority were able to generate second-degree influence and elicit compliance
from the higher-status professionals.
Forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly
Author:
Arvind Karunakaran
Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organization
Desautels Faculty of Management
McGill University
Keywords: Professions; Status; Authority; Work; Compliance; Police Officers; 911 Dispatchers
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank the associate editor, John Wagner, and three anonymous reviewers for their time and helpful
feedback. I am grateful to my dissertation advisor and committee members - Wanda Orlikowski, Kate Kellogg, John
Van Maanen, and JoAnne Yates - for their support and generous comments. I would also like to thank Matt Beane,
Curtis Chan, Matt Corritore, Lisa Cohen, Diana Dakhlallah, Daphne Demetry, Julia DiBenigno, John-Paul Ferguson,
Ruthanne Huising, Ece Kaynak, Erin Kelly, Audrey Mang, Ryann Manning, Hatim Rahman, Emily Truelove, Brad
Turner, Victoria Zhang, and Ezra Zuckerman for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, to the
participants at the ASA Annual Conference, AOM Annual Meeting, People and Organizations Conference, LERA
Annual Meeting, and to workshop attendees at the Work, Technology, and Organizations Workshop at Emlyon,
Montreal Organizations Writing Workshop, McGill University (Sociology), MIT Economic Sociology Working
Group, and City University London. A previous version of this paper was the recipient of the Louis Pondy Best
Dissertation Paper Award from the AOM OMT Division.
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Organizations are increasingly inhabited by professions, who make up the “largest and fastest
growing proportion of the labor force in the United States” (Kellogg, 2014, p.913; Gorman and
Sandefur, 2011). Scholars of work and professions have examined how and under what conditions
status difference between professions can promote noncompliant behavior and impede the
achievement of organizational goals (Barley, 1986; Zetka, 2001; DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014).
Although prior research has examined how status differences between professions can
negatively impact compliance, these studies have examined this phenomenon in contexts where
there is an alignment between professional status and formal authority (Barley, 1986; Vallas, 2001;
DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014; DiBenigno, 2018). In other words, the higher-status professionals
also have higher formal authority over the lower-status professionals. However, there are several
other contexts where an organization ascribes more formal authority to lower-status professionals
to oversee and direct a specific function (or set of functions) performed by higher-status
professionals, with the overarching objective of eliciting their compliance with organizational
policies, protocols, and standards (Etzioni, 1959; Daft, 2014). Organizational theorists refer to this
subcategory of formal authority as functional authority, distinct from other subcategories of formal
authority such as line and staff authority (Thompson, 1956; Galbraith, 1977; Daft, 2014).
In these organizational contexts, a misalignment or asymmetry between professional status and
functional authority occurs, a phenomenon that I refer to as status-authority asymmetry. For
example, lower-status safety auditors have functional authority over higher-status scientists with
respect to lab safety practices (Huising, 2015), lower-status magazine fact-checkers in news
organizations have functional authority over higher-status journalists on the factual aspects of a
feature article (Cohen and Staw, 1998), and lower-status DEI professionals (Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion) have functional authority over higher-status recruiters with regard to diversity initiatives
in hiring (e.g., criteria for demographic diversity in the application pool) (Portocarrero, 2021).
Across these contexts, lower-status professionals are given the mandate by the organization to
oversee, keep tabs on, and elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals. But the
asymmetry between status and authority poses critical challenges for the former to exercise their
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authority and elicit compliance from the latter (Silbey, Huising, and Coslovsky 2009; Gray and
Silbey, 2014; Huising, 2015; see also Valentine, 2018). A failure to elicit compliance from the
higher-status professionals, in turn, could exacerbate conflicts and affect the attainment of
organizational goals (Pondy, 1969; DiBenigno, 2020).
All of these begs the question on how and when lower-status professionals with functional
authority could elicit compliance from higher-status professionals? I examine this question in the
“strategic research site” (Merton, 1987) of 911 emergency coordination. In this setting, 911
dispatchers (lower-status professionals with higher functional authority) need to elicit compliance
from the police officers (higher-status professionals) in order to quickly and effectively dispatch
911 calls for service. Although the police officers perform a range of functions (e.g., patrolling,
issuing citations, making arrests), in functions that pertain to 911 emergency response, the 911
dispatchers have higher functional authority over the police officers. Not only are the dispatchers
responsible for assigning 911 calls to the appropriate police officer but also in-charge of overseeing
and directing the police officers during such emergency response, including “watching out” for
officer safety. Police officers are, by official protocol, expected to follow the directions of 911
dispatchers when responding to a 911 emergency. They are also supposed to periodically update
the dispatchers about their progress in responding to a 911 emergency. However, 911 dispatchers
face difficulties in exercising their functional authority in practice and elicit compliance from the
police officers. Indeed, police officers are often noncompliant with the dispatchers’ requests.
Through a 24-month ethnography of 911 emergency coordination, I find that some 911
dispatchers were able to effectively elicit compliance from the police officers, while others are
unable to do so. Findings from this study suggest how and when certain relational styles – entailing
a combination of interactional practices and the use of communication media – enacted by the
dispatchers enabled them to elicit compliance from the police officers, while others ensued in
failed compliance outcomes. Findings also highlight the considerable emotional toll experienced
by the individual 911 dispatchers – including the ones who used the most effective relational style
– in their attempts to elicit compliance from the police officers, ensuing in outcomes such as
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reduced morale, burnout, and absenteeism. In this paper, I elaborate on the practices of eliciting
compliance in the presence of status-authority asymmetry between professions, discuss what the
underlying mechanisms are, and with what organizational- and individual- level consequences.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Building upon prior work, I distinguish between status, authority, and power as related but
conceptually distinct bases of social hierarchy (Mechanic, 1962; Bunderson and Reagans, 2011;
Fast et al., 2012; Anicich et al., 2016). Status is understood as “the position in a social hierarchy
that results from accumulated acts of deference” (Sauder, Lynn, and Podolny, 2012, p.268;
Ridgeway 1984) or, more simply, as “the extent to which an individual or group is respected or
admired by others” (Magee and Galinsky, 2008, p.359). By extension, professional status is
conceptualized as the position within a professional hierarchy that is derived from accumulated
acts of deference and respect. Power is defined as the “asymmetric control over valued resources”
in social relations (Magee and Galinsky, 2008, p.361; Emerson, 1962; Salancik and Pfeffer, 1977).
Authority, on the other hand, is a more complex and multi-faceted construct (Selznick, 1948;
Crozier, 1964; Barley, 1986; Aghion and Tirole, 1997; Baker, Gibbons, and Murphy, 1999).
Traditionally, authority is conceptualized as a form of power whose use is considered as legitimate
by other actors (Weber, 1921; see also Merton, 1963). Sociologists and organizational scholars
have subsequently examined how authority operates within organizations (Thompson, 1956;
Stinchcombe, 1959; Blau, 1968). According to these scholars, authority in organizations is
formalized as “command vested in an official position” by the bureaucracy (Blau, 1968, p.455;
Parsons, 1965). Often referred to as formal authority, it is considered to be distinct from other
bases of authority such as tradition and charisma (Weber, 1952; see also Blau, 1955; Stinchcombe,
2001). Formal authority is vested in official positions and roles, as opposed to specific individuals
or their characteristics, within an organization (Follet, 1940; Valentine and Bernstein, 2021).
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Subcategories of Formal Authority: Line, Staff, and Function
Organizational scholars have further examined the distinct aspects of formal authority within
organizations, and theorized its three subcategories, namely line authority, staff authority, and
functional authority (Etzioni, 1959; Simon, 1957; Peabody, 1962; Daft, 2014).
Line authority in an organization is characterized by a direct chain of command or reporting
structure, and reflects supervisor-subordinate relationship. Actors with line authority have the
decision rights to hire/fire, sanction, supervise, and give orders to subordinates under their span of
control. These actors are also responsible for evaluating the performance of subordinates. Line
authority is typically hierarchical in nature, as reflected in the organizational chart, and extends
down through different levels of an organization (Daft, 2014, p.327; Dalton, 1950; Koontz, 2010).
Staff authority in an organization is narrower in scope and largely advisory in nature. Actors
with staff authority have the “right to advise, recommend, and counsel” (Daft, 2014, p.262) other
professionals and managers/department heads in areas pertaining to their technical expertise.
However, actors with staff authority do not have the decision rights to command and/or enforce
their recommendations upon the latter. For example, a process analyst might counsel and give
recommendations to a software engineer on software development processes, but s/he does not
have the decision rights to command, sanction, or evaluate the work performance of that software
engineer (Daft, 2014, p.328; Dalton, 1950; Gouldner, 1954; Myers and Turnbull,1956).
Functional authority occupies the middle-ground between line and staff authority (Garner,
1990; Koontz, 2010; Daft, 2014). Actors ascribed with functional authority are responsible for
monitoring, overseeing, and directing a specific function (or set of functions) performed by other
actors in an organization. These actors with functional authority typically also possess the requisite
expertise pertaining to that function (Daft, 2014, p.327). However, unlike those with line authority,
actors with functional authority have limited decision rights, i.e., they cannot hire/fire, sanction,
or evaluate the work performance of others whom they oversee. Nonetheless, as compared to those
with staff authority, actors with functional authority take on a larger role that is beyond merely
advisory. As described above, these actors have the decision rights to oversee, direct, and even
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control “specified processes, practices, policies, or other matters relating to activities undertaken
by persons in other departments” (Koontz, 2010, p.182). For example, “a quality assurance
representative directs a work center to do further repair on equipment that does not meet
specifications. A safety representative closes down an unsafe operation” (Garner, 1990, p.52-53).
Asymmetry between Professional Status and Functional Authority
With increased specialization and complexity of work, the presence of such organizational
actors with functional authority is becoming even more prevalent (Daft, 2014), as evidenced in the
profusion of new professional roles within organizations such as sustainability professionals,
safety auditors, DEI professionals, fact-checkers, quality control officers, financial fund auditors,
infection prevention officers/COVID-19 compliance officers, and more (Cohen and Staw, 1998;
Huising, 2015; Currie et al., 2016; Augustine, 2021; Miller, 2021). However, these professionals
are also typically lower-status in the professional order. Consequently, ascribing functional
authority to these lower-status professionals to direct parts of the work performed by higher-status
professionals creates its own set of challenges. For example, the lower-status professionals
ascribed with functional authority often encounter acts of resistance and noncompliance from the
existing higher-status professionals (Heimer and Stevens, 1997; Kellogg, 2012; Gray and Silbey,
2014). For instance, Huising (2015) describes the difficulties that lower-status lab safety auditors
encountered in obtaining compliance from the higher-status scientists. Likewise, DiBenigno
(2018) examined the challenges that lower-status mental health professionals faced in obtaining
compliance and cooperation from the higher-status commanders in the U.S. army. More generally,
this line of research suggests that higher-status professionals disregard, neglect, or disobey the
directions given by the lower-status professionals with functional authority as a way to reassert
their dominant position in the professional hierarchy (Huising, and Silbey, 2013). They may also
fail to acknowledge the tasks assigned to them by lower-status professionals in anticipation that
these professionals will follow-up with them, and in turn, use such interactional opportunities to
trigger even more deference from the lower-status professionals (Ridgeway and Balkwell, 1997).
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In summary, although lower-status professionals have been ascribed with functional authority
and made responsible for oversight and monitoring of the higher-status professionals, they do not
have the requisite status – in terms of accumulated patterns of deference and respect – to enforce
their authority in practice. Due to this asymmetry, these lower-status professionals with functional
authority are often implicitly viewed by the higher-status professionals as “punching above their
weight” and “acting out of place” (Rudman, 1998; Magee and Galinsky, 2008; see also Bendersky
and Hays, 2012). Consequently, during the moment-to-moment flow of work, there is a grinding
reluctance among the higher-status professionals to acknowledge the lower-status professionals’
functional authority and comply with their directions (Huising, 2015). In short, lower-status
professionals with functional authority need to navigate what I refer to as status-authority
asymmetry in order to elicit compliance and cooperation from higher-status professionals.
Eliciting Compliance in the Presence of Status-Authority Asymmetry
Although prior researchers did not directly deal with this issue on how lower-status
professionals with functional authority can elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals,
they have examined some general mechanisms for eliciting compliance in contexts involving
status differences between professions (Huising, 2015; Kellogg, 2009, 2012).
For instance, one stream of work explored the relational aspects of eliciting compliance between
professional groups with differential status (Kellogg, 2012; Huising and Silbey, 2011, 2013). For
instance, Huising (2015) examined how lower-status professionals can perform a type of relational
work – of what she referred to as “scut work” – to elicit compliance from the higher-status
professionals. Scut work refers to work that is menial in nature and requires “additional interaction
… in which the professional is observed doing work that is physically, socially, or morally difficult
or dirty work” (Huising, 2015, p.267; see also Hughes, 1958). Through her comparative
ethnography of two lower-status professionals (biosafety officers and health physicists) who were
ascribed with functional authority to monitor and perform oversight over higher-status
professionals (scientists in university labs), she found that one of the lower-status professional
group (biosafety officers) that tried to maintain professional purity was unable to elicit compliance,
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while the other lower-status professional group (health physicists) that did not emphasize
professional purity but instead performed scut work was able to elicit compliance from the higher-
status professionals. As compared to the biosafety officers, scut work enabled the health physicists
to interact more with the higher-status professionals, acquire more situated knowledge about them
and their work, and expand the basis of their relationship. This, in turn, enabled the health
physicists to elicit compliance from the higher-status scientists.
A second stream of work has examined the demographic aspects of different professionals
within an organization in shaping compliance outcomes. Specifically, scholars have looked at how
cross-cutting demographics between professional groups with differential status can help the
lower-status professionals to elicit compliance and cooperation from the higher-status
professionals (DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014; see also Blau and Schwartz, 1984). In contrast to
consolidated demographics, the presence of cross-cutting demographics provides the lower-status
professionals with relational toolkits to draw upon non-professional social identities, which they
can use to build rapport with the higher-status professionals and elicit compliance from them.
The above streams of research help advance our understanding of eliciting compliance in
contexts marked by status differences between professions. Nevertheless, if we consider Leifer’s
(1988) classic work on status and role behavior, in the presence of status-authority asymmetry, the
very act of a lower-status professional performing scut work could be viewed by the higher-status
professionals as relational accommodations that they are fully entitled to and therefore, have little
obligation to reciprocate. Moreover, the higher-status professionals might even use such relational
accommodations from the lower-status professionals to “lock [them] into the giver’s role” (Leifer,
1988, p.872) and demand that they fully deserve favorable terms. All of these could undermine the
functional authority of lower-status professionals and negatively impact compliance outcomes.
In addition, given the pervasive nature of occupational/professional segregation, most
professional groups have consolidated as opposed to cross-cutting demographics in the U.S.
economy (Acker, 2006; Weeden, 2008). As DiBenigno and Kellogg (2014) described in their
study, only one of the units at their field site hospital had cross-cutting demographics between
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patient-care technicians and nurses. Most of the other units had consolidated demographics
between the two professional groups. Even more importantly, these authors note that the benefits
from cross-cutting demographics are possible when it is a feature of the “unit’s social structure…in
which status was uncorrelated with demographic characteristics” at the unit level (DiBenigno and
Kellogg, 2014, p.399). In other words, demographic overlap needs to be a structural feature of the
workgroup – as implied by the term “cross-cutting demographic” – to reap some benefits.
Therefore, in the presence of status-authority asymmetry within organizational contexts
characterized by consolidated demographics, how and when lower-status professionals with
functional authority could elicit compliance from higher-status professionals? Before turning to
my findings, I describe my research setting and methods for data collection and analysis.
RESEARCH SETTING AND METHODS
This study is based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork in emergency management
organizations (EMOs) conducted between May 2015 and May 2017. My primary fieldwork
occurred at Delta City’s emergency management organization (DEMO) and the associated Delta
City police department (DPD)1. Specifically, I focused on emergency coordination between 911
dispatchers (lower-status professionals with higher functional authority) and police officers
(higher-status professionals). This setting provided a “strategic research site” (Merton, 1987) to
examine my research question for the following reasons. First, I was able to observe the
phenomenon of interest at a higher frequency in this setting: since the 911 dispatchers had to
dispatch several 911 calls to the police officers every shift, it provided an opportunity to observe
and document issues around compliance. Second, this context also enabled me to conduct fine-
granular observations of the practices enacted by lower-status professionals in their attempts to
elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
1 Names of the city and the emergency management organization are pseudonyms for the purpose of protecting the
confidentiality of the study participants.
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Context and Research Site
Emergency management organizations (EMOs) served as the research context for this study
(Manning 1988; Seim, 2017; Herring, 2019). The primary work of EMOs involves 911 call-taking
and call dispatching (Roberts et al., 2008). Call-takers answer the incoming 911 calls from the
public, gather required information about the incident from the caller, evaluate whether the
reported incident is a valid emergency or not, and if so, what type and category, while concurrently
entering all these details into the Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. Once the incoming
call is categorized by the 911 call-taker as an emergency and all the relevant information is entered
into CAD, the call is now referred to as a “job” and is automatically routed to an appropriate 911
dispatcher based on the location of the emergency incident. Information about the call (e.g., type
and severity of the emergency) appears on the dispatchers’ jobs dashboard queue. This dispatcher
then assigns the job to the available police officer who is nearest to the scene of the emergency
within a pre-defined time-period based on the type of the emergency, performs important oversight
functions such as directing and keeping tabs on the officer, getting progress updates from officers,
and “watching out” for their safety until they have returned from the emergency location.
At DEMO, work is conducted across three shifts per day (referred to as “watches”), with each
shift overseen by three to five supervisors (who directly monitor the 911 call-takers and 911
dispatchers as well as handle escalations), and one watch manager who is responsible for managing
the operations floor and planning the schedule and staff rotation for the next day. The 911
dispatchers at DEMO are organized by 13-zones2. Some zones cater to two police districts, while
others handle one “busy” police district. This arrangement ensures that the workload is distributed
in a relatively equal manner across the dispatch zones. DEMO employs 190 dispatchers. Most of
the 911 dispatchers are women (82% women; 18% men), from minority communities, particularly
Black and Hispanic (66% Black, 16% Hispanic, 14% White, 2% Asian, 2% Other), and are
civilians who work as full-time employees of DEMO (and not the police department).
2 In addition to the 13 zones, there are some dispatchers who handle city-wide services. I have excluded them from
analysis as these dispatchers interact with a wide variety of City, State, and Federal agencies, not just the Police.
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Data Collection
My primary sources of data include 24-months of longitudinal and embedded observations of
the 911 dispatch process and interviews with 911 dispatchers at DEMO. In order to understand
how responding to 911 calls for service feels from the “other side,” that is, from the lived
experiences of the police officers, I also did ride-alongs and conducted interviews with officers.
As summarized in Table 1, I use three types of data: observational, interview, and archival.
Observations. When I began my research, I enrolled in an online training program on 911
emergency communication to learn about 911 dispatch protocols. I also participated in the internal
training and dispatch simulation exercise that DEMO provides to its new 911 dispatchers. Part of
the training was to become more familiar with police radio channels and radio codes. During
observations, I kept a copy of the radio codes in front of me to make sure I could understand and
follow the terms used by dispatchers. After the training period, I started my initial phase of
observations of the 911 dispatch process. At this stage, my research focus was on how
professionals in fast-response organizations such as EMOs coordinate remotely under time
constraints (Hinds and Bailey, 2003). I sat next to a 911 dispatcher and listened to the conversations
and interactions between the dispatcher and police officers (via a headphone plug-in). As the
observations progressed, I noticed the high frequency of noncompliance exhibited by police
officers, and what the individual 911 dispatcher did to address such noncompliance. From these
observations, patterns of deference and status dynamics in this setting became evident: although
these “civilian” dispatchers are ascribed with higher functional authority (in functions pertaining
to 911 emergency coordination) by the organization, they are lower-status in the professional order
as compared to the “sworn” officers. In addition to the professional status characteristics, nominal
characteristics such as gender and race further reinforced the dispatchers’ lower-status.
Therefore, I began the main phase of observations examining (a) the nature of the challenges
that these 911 dispatchers with lower professional status but higher functional authority confronted
during their everyday work, and (b) the practices that dispatchers used to manage the challenges
and elicit compliance from the higher-status police officers. I attended the shift roll-call and
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shadowed a dispatcher for her entire duration of the shift. At this stage, it became clear that the
non-overlapping nature of the shift schedule between DEMO and DPD created limited
opportunities for long-term repeated interactions between a dispatcher-officer dyad. Both the shift
timing (i.e., at what times are the morning, evening, and night shifts structured) as well as the shift
rotation policy (changes to what days of the week a dispatcher or an officer works) varied between
DEMO and DPD. Consequently, a specific dispatcher-police officer pair was engaged in repeated
interactions to a maximum of three shifts on three consecutive days; the likelihood that the same
dispatcher-police officer pair will be interacting again was only after 6 weeks, thus generating “as-
if” random assignment of dispatchers and police officers into dyadic pairs.3 In order to observe the
interactions between a dispatcher-police officer dyad on the consecutive shifts they worked
together (e.g., Shift A on Day 1, Shift A on Day 2, Shift A on Day 3), I focused my subsequent
data collection efforts to observe a specific 911 dispatcher over the entire duration of her shift on
three consecutive days. The primary data for this study comes from this focused period of
observation over 246 shifts, including 86 evening shifts (2pm – 10pm), 82 morning shifts (6am –
2pm), and 78 night shifts (10pm –6am)4. During this period, I was able to shadow 80 dispatchers
for their entire duration of the shift for three consecutive days at least once. This included 28
dispatchers from evening shift, 27 dispatchers from morning shift, and 25 dispatchers from night
shifts. Refer to Appendix A for a background on the 80 dispatchers whom I shadowed, including
information about their demographic characteristics, educational background, and tenure.
As and when the 911 emergency coordination was happening between the dispatcher and police
officer, I used short-hand notations to record in a notebook the interactional practice and type of
3 Such incongruence in (rotating) shift schedule between different professional groups is prevalent in other EMOs as
well as in service sectors such as healthcare and aviation (Costa 2003; Lambert et al., 2012). However, the “as if”
random assignment helps preclude selection issues around a particular relational style used by a 911 dispatcher to
elicit compliance from specific police officers, as compared to other officers, who are persistently non-compliant. 4 In order to ensure that there were equal hours of observations across the different days of the week, I maintained an
observation calendar that equally distributed the observation period across the days of the week. Although the volume
of calls handled by the dispatchers varies from shift and shift, and there are fluctuations in the patterns of call in-flow
(e.g., on Friday and Saturday nights, the dispatchers working the night shift need to handle an increased inflow of
calls), the overarching dynamic of 911 call-dispatch, interactions with the police officers, and status-authority
asymmetry experienced by the dispatchers remained the same across the three shifts.
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radio channel used by a dispatcher and the subsequent reactions from a noncompliant police officer
(e.g., responsive, non-responsive, gave progress update, did not provide progress update). Within
a 24 to 48-hour period, I transcribed the hand-written field notes and assigned codes to the
dispatcher’s practices and police officers’ responses. This enabled me to record and subsequently
analyze the variation in how officers responded to the dispatchers’ practices. I also observed the
emotional toll these practices had on dispatchers by noting their visible expressions of frustration
and their use of swear words immediately following their interaction with the police officer.
To understand the perspectives and experiences from the “other side” of 911 emergency
coordination, I observed how police officers responded to 911 dispatchers. Through ride-alongs
with police officers and observations of police unit meetings, I examined how police officers
responded to the dispatchers’ practices in a certain manner and why so. I did 34 ride-alongs with
officers from multiple police districts totaling over 160 hours of observations. During these ride-
alongs, observations, and informal conversations, I noticed how police officers within a unit “kept
tabs” on each other and how they gauged the trustworthiness of another officer within their unit.
Interviews. In addition to observations, I conducted 80 ethnographic interviews (Barley and
Kunda, 2001) with the 911 dispatchers during my shadowing sessions or during their break time.
These interviews helped me to ask clarification questions on a recent 911 job, and to understand
the interpretive significance that the dispatchers attached to their practices. I also conducted 35
semi-structured interviews in a conference room with the 911 dispatchers at DEMO, as well as 12
semi-structured interviews with the 911 supervisors. Finally, I conducted 52 ethnographic
interviews with the police officers responding to 911 calls, and 28 semi-structured interviews with
the sergeants and supervising patrol officers. Please refer to Appendix B for the interview protocol.
Most interviews were taped and transcribed. For informal interviews, I took detailed notes during
the interview, followed by my reflections and summaries.
These multiple sources of data enabled triangulation and generated an understanding of the
phenomenon from different vantage points.
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Data Analysis
Data collection and analysis unfolded in an iterative manner (Strauss and Corbin, 1997) over
three phases. In the first phase, I synthesized my daily fieldnotes into weekly descriptive memos.
These memos described the work practices of 911 dispatchers, how they handled their workload,
and the challenges they faced during their remote coordination with police officers In the process
of writing these memos, I was struck by how even in a time-sensitive, potentially “life-or-death”
setting such as 911 emergency coordination, the social dynamics of status and authority impacted
compliance outcomes, which in turn affected the overarching organizational goal of effective
emergency response. In parallel, I started doing “initial coding” of my field notes and interview
transcripts. Responses were coded based on the phrases and terms offered by the dispatchers (e.g.,
“radio discipline,” “reach out and be nice to the officers,” “play by the book,” “escalate to Sarge”
“put on girlfriend’s voice” “mommy’s voice” etc.) and police officers (e.g., “Debbie Downer,”
“shirker,” “will he watch my back?” “team player”). At this point, I was still collecting data and
observed that some 911 dispatchers were able to elicit compliance from the police officers more
effectively than others. I focused my subsequent data collection and analysis on examining what
the 911 dispatchers did during the emergency coordination process (e.g., how deferential they
were, their practices, use of language) and the subsequent responses from the police officers.
At the second phase of data analysis, I did “focused coding” of the field notes and interview
transcripts. I also wrote analytical memos detailing the interactional practices that a dispatcher
used, especially following a noncompliant act from a police officer. This process also helped me
move from my broad unit of observation (“coordination encounter”) to a more specific unit of
analysis (“officer’s response to a dispatcher’s relational style”). To elaborate, my unit of
observation was the “coordination encounter” between the 911 dispatchers and police officers. By
coordination encounter, I refer to an entire episode of back-and-forth interactions between a
dispatcher and a police officer for a particular 911 job (Refer to Table 2 for examples). Across the
three shifts in my main data collection period, I observed a total of 6281 coordination encounters
between dispatchers and police officers. Out of these total coordination encounters, ~62% of them
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(3870) are “problematic coordination encounters.” I used the following criteria to define a
problematic coordination encounter: (a) when an officer did not acknowledge after a dispatcher
assigned the officer a new 911 call for service (i.e., job) and referred to the officer #ID twice; (b)
when an officer failed to respond to a “progress update check” by a dispatcher for an existing/in-
progress 911 job; (c) when an officer failed to give a “finish update” to the dispatcher after
completing an existing 911 job; (d) when an officer responded to the dispatcher in a rude and/or
bullying manner. Table 2 illustrates the difference between a problematic coordination encounter
from an unproblematic one.
I analyzed coordination encounters that the 911 dispatchers used when dealing with
noncompliant police officers and abstracted them into overarching interactional practices. For
example, I abstracted codes such as “dispatcher was deferential,” “dispatcher modified her
workflow,” and conceptualized them analytically as the “customizing” practice. Iterative rounds
of focused coding revealed that the interactional practices converged onto three categories:
customizing, escalating, and publicizing. Further coding and memo writing revealed the
importance of not just the interactional practices that dispatchers enacted but also how and where
these practices were enacted, i.e., the different types of communication channels that the
dispatchers used during their remote coordination with police officers. I analyzed when and how
individual dispatchers used the private radio channel vs. the peer radio channel when interacting
with a noncompliant police officer. On further analysis, I found that these two aspects of the
dispatcher’s work – the interactional practices and the use of communication media – were
entangled with each other to the extent that one would not be able to understand the interactional
practice in isolation from the communication medium.
In the final stage, I engaged with relevant literature on the sociology of professions/occupations
(Van Maanen and Barley, 1982; Abbott, 1988; Anteby et al., 2016) as well as the literature on
eliciting compliance inside organizations (Kellogg, 2012; Gray and Silbey, 2014; Huising, 2015).
I also read relevant literature, including “cultural toolkits” (Swidler, 1986), to theorize my
emergent findings. Since individual dispatchers typically did not mix-and-match their practices or
16
draw from a portfolio of cultural toolkits or social strategies, I found those concepts less helpful in
understanding my findings. Instead, I found the concept of relational style - “reoccurring patterns
of interaction employed (by social actors) within and across exchange relationships” (Canales and
Greenberg, 2016, p.905; see also Canales, 2014) – more helpful and in-line with what I was
observing at my field site. 911 dispatchers tended to use a dominant relational style during
interactions with police officers. My subsequent data analysis on examining the relational style of
the individual dispatcher, which took into account both the interactional practices and the
communication channels a dispatcher used, and how noncompliant police officers responded to a
dispatchers’ relational style. I wrote theoretical memos on how and when certain relational styles
were more effective than others in eliciting compliance and what these findings meant
theoretically. Appendix C provides additional evidence, in the form of interview quotes and
exchanges from observations and ride-alongs, for these findings.
FINDINGS
In this section, I first describe the difficulties that dispatchers encounter in exercising their
functional authority and eliciting compliance from the police officers during the process of 911
emergency coordination. I then elaborate on the relational styles, entailing interactional practices
(customizing, escalating, publicizing) and the use of communication media (private or peer radio
channel), that dispatchers use during their remote coordination with the police officers and their
respective compliance outcomes. I conclude this section by describing the emotional toll
experienced by dispatchers enacting these relational styles, and with what consequences.
Difficulties in Exercising Functional Authority
While the everyday work of police officers involves several functions such as patrolling, issuing
citations, making arrests, and paperwork, in functions that pertain to 911 emergency response,
DEMO is the “command center,” and by extension, the 911 dispatchers are the “command.” These
dispatchers are ascribed with the functional authority by the organization and the city bureaucracy
to assign 911 calls to police officers as well as to oversee and direct police officers during 911
emergency response. Police officers are expected to follow the directions from 911 dispatchers,
17
respond to the dispatchers when they call out the officer’s ID# over the police radio, and
periodically update the dispatchers about their progress, as described in the official protocol below:
Dispatchers are provided with a means of determining which police units are available for assignment and
authorized to assign police units. Dispatchers will monitor the status of [police] units on assignment… A police
officer who has received and understood a radio transmission from a dispatcher will acknowledge it immediately
with his or her radio call identification number and appropriate [radio] code. Officers who receive their
assignments by voice radio need to (1) maintain contact with the dispatcher; (2) report any changes in availability
status to the dispatcher via voice radio only; changes in availability status are subject to the approval of the
dispatcher and/or field supervisor; (3) clear the assignment via the voice radio.
Officers will also (1) be alert for radio calls; (2) acknowledge radio calls from dispatcher without delay; (3)
carefully listen to message from dispatchers; (4) respond immediately to radio calls from dispatchers; (5) accept
assignments from dispatchers at once and without dispute; (6) make themselves available for further assignment
immediately after an assignment is completed; (7) inform the dispatcher that they are proceeding to the location
of the next assignment at the completion of each previous assignment [emphasis added]
A 911 supervisor described the rationale for why the 911 dispatchers are ascribed with
functional authority over the officers during 911 emergency coordination in the following manner:
“We have more information about an [emergency] incident and have an overall picture of who is available and
who is not. If an officer keeps questioning our decision or not follow along, then we wouldn’t be able to dispatch
any jobs. So the way we have designed the dispatch procedures… is to let the dispatcher make the decision and
give out directions and the officer to just follow it.” [Interview, 911 Shift Supervisor, #SS4]
Therefore, one of the main responsibilities of the 911 dispatcher is to “clear the board,” that is,
to dispatch 911 jobs from their dashboard by assigning them to the appropriate police officer as
soon as possible within a pre-defined time period based on the type and severity of the emergency.
In that sense, eliciting compliance from the police officers (with regard to new 911 job assignments
and progress updates) is an important aspect of a 911 dispatchers’ work. However, police officers
occupy a higher-status position in the professional order, specifically within the public safety and
law enforcement totem pole. Officers are “sworn” (and thus more prestigious), while the 911
dispatchers have a “civilian” status. Officers refer to the 911 dispatchers using labels and phrases
such as “desk jockeys,” “call center people,” and “[they are] just civilians in a fancy uniform.” In
addition to the differences in professional status characteristics, there are also differences in
nominal status characteristics such as gender between the police officers and dispatchers.
Although police officers are, by official protocol, mandated to obey the functional authority of
the dispatchers and follow their directions during 911 emergency response, in practice, this does
not often happen. For instance, when a dispatcher calls out the ID# of an officer, a police officer
18
is expected to acknowledge the dispatcher as soon as possible; if unacknowledged and when the
same dispatcher calls out the ID# of that officer for the second time, the officer needs to
acknowledge and answer the dispatcher immediately. Officers are also expected to give “progress
updates” to the dispatcher about the progress of their current 911 job, and provide “finish update”
after completing a 911 job so that the dispatcher knows that an officer is now available to be
assigned to the next 911 job. But in practice, a dispatcher may call out the ID# more than twice,
but the officer will not acknowledge or respond. Similarly, officers frequently fail to give a
progress update or a finish update to dispatchers. As this 911 dispatcher described: The most frustrating thing with this job is when they [officers] don’t answer [the radio]. It’s so frustrating, I can’t
tell you how frustrating it is. I keep calling out their ID, but there is nothing on the other end. Not even a simple
99 or 10-4 [message received, understood]. I understand they may be busy or the signal is not clear, but can’t
they just give me a 10-23 [stand-by] or even a 10-9 [repeat message]. I will be happy to do that, repeat the job
to them. But they don’t do any of that. It’s like this: that I am not even acknowledged, [I am] not even recognized
as a person. As if I don’t even exist anymore to them… I am responsible for officer safety, so when I ask for an
update, I am not trying to screw their happiness and kick them out of Dunkin Donuts [laughs]. I am just trying
to do my job, make[ing] sure that they are ok and the jobs are dispatched on time. So next time [pointing at the
headset and the monitor] when I call-out, answer me. [Interview, 911 Dispatcher, #DP18]
Likewise, officers also interrupt and cut off dispatchers during the 911 job-assignment process
and fail to follow “radio discipline.” Some police officers often interrupt the dispatchers with
questions when that dispatcher is in the process of handling a 911 job with another officer. Officers
expect their request to be prioritized and answered immediately by the dispatchers, even if it is not
a high-priority incident. As a consequence, most dispatchers feel that police officers frequently
behave like “assholes” and “dicks” who refuse to follow “any protocol or radio discipline.” Finally,
police officers neglect to update the dispatcher when they are taking a break, going for lunch, or
after returning from lunch break. This requires the dispatcher to keep checking with police officers
about whether they are ready to be assigned to the next 911 job.
Interviews with police officers suggest that they are aware of the dispatch protocols as well as
cognizant of the work of 911 dispatchers, including the functional authority that dispatchers have
during 911 emergency coordination. As a part of the police academy training, officers visit the
DEMO operations floor for a day, observe the work of 911 dispatchers, and learn more about
dispatch processes and protocols. Likewise, dispatchers are also aware of, and have knowledge
19
about, the work of police officers. As a part of their dispatch training, dispatchers need to do 8
hours of ride-alongs with police officers (Please see Appendix D for more details).
Despite the dispatchers and police officers having general awareness and knowledge about each
other’s work, there are simmering tensions and manifest challenges that emerge during the 911
emergency coordination process. Interviews with DPD police officers suggest that although they
recognize the time-sensitive nature of work that dispatchers perform, they also believe that such
work is not in the “same league” as the work they do as enforcers of law with the mandate to
“perpetually engage in a struggle with those who would disobey, disrupt, do harm, agitate, or
otherwise upset the just [social] order.” (Van Maanen, 1978 p.308). As this officer remarked:
I get it, it is hard work and they need to do 10 things at once and be focused…. I also get that dispatch is the
“command” for 911 calls and there is a reason for that. But it is one thing to know that they are the command,
but quite another to listen to dispatch everyday, go where they ask us to go, give status update… “clear the job”
update… this update that update. It gets to you man. Sometimes it’s just annoying…what they do is not the same
as what we do. No fucking way. Being out on the street, seeing an asshole trouble-maker eye to eye, that’s a
whole different game, at a different level [Interview, Police Officer, #PO22]
Thus, my longitudinal observations, interviews, and ride-alongs revealed a clear pattern:
officers often did not acknowledge, let alone comply with, the directions given by 911 dispatchers.
This hindered the dispatchers' ability to exercise their functional authority in practice and elicit
compliance from police officers in order to dispatch 911 emergency jobs in the “thick of time.”
I did, however, observe that some 911 dispatchers were able to manage these challenges and
elicit compliance from police officers more effectively than others. The dispatchers’ tenure and
experience within DEMO did not explain why some of them were able to elicit compliance from
police officers more effectively as compared to others. There were some dispatchers with more
than 12 years of experience facing difficulties in eliciting compliance from the police officers,
while there were also junior dispatchers with less than 2 years of experience and mid-career
dispatchers with less than 6 years of experience who were able to elicit compliance from officers.
Likewise, when there was an overlap in demographic characteristics (e.g., a female dispatcher
interacting with a female police officer, a male dispatcher interacting with a male police officer),
I did not find significant variation in outcomes that could explain why some dispatchers were able
to elicit compliance more effectively than others. Findings suggest that some types of demographic
20
characteristics, such as gender, made a qualitative difference in the tenor of interactions between
the dispatchers and police officers (DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014; Doering and Thebaud, 2017).
For instance, compared to the male police officers, the female police officers were less uncivil and
rude to both the female and male dispatchers. In some instances, female police officers apologized
to the dispatchers for not acknowledging a new 911 job.
Nevertheless, female police officers were also noncompliant to the dispatcher’s requests, often
failed to respond during a new 911 job assignment, failed to provide progress updates and finish
updates to the dispatcher, and expected deference from the dispatchers. Male police officers, on
the other hand, were often rude to male as well as female dispatchers and frequently did not
acknowledge job assignments from dispatchers. An overlap in the gender of the dispatcher-officer
dyad, therefore, did not adequately explain why some 911 dispatchers were able to elicit
compliance from the police officers than others. This is not to say that demographic characteristics
such as gender did not matter at all in the coordination process. Findings do suggest that gender
made a qualitative difference in shaping the tone and tenor of the interactions during the
coordination process. Nonetheless, findings also suggest that as compared to the gender of the
individual professionals, the relative status of the gendered profession as a whole i.e., the
profession of police officers vs. dispatchers, the former a male-dominated profession, while the
latter is a feminized profession (Acker, 2006; Ridgeway, 2009; Irvine and Vermilya, 2010; see
also Johnson, 1993; Doering and Thébaud, 2017), possibly played a salient role in shaping
expectations of deference that the individual professionals have of each other, thereby impacting
compliance outcomes. This is perhaps the reason why female police officers, while less
rude/uncivil to the dispatchers and at times even thanked them, nevertheless expected deference
from the dispatchers and were also noncompliant to the dispatchers’ requests. These findings are
consistent with prior research, which suggests that a mere overlap in demographic characteristics
across a few dyadic pairs of higher-status and lower-status professionals is not enough to elicit
compliance. Rather, demographic overlap needs to be a structural feature of the workgroup
(DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014). Please refer to Appendix D for additional evidence on the role
21
of demographic characteristics, such as an overlap in gender between the police officer and the
dispatcher, and in shaping compliance outcomes.
Rather than the dispatchers’ tenure or demographic characteristics, I found that the dispatchers’
relational style helped explain the variance on why some dispatchers were able to exercise their
functional authority and elicit compliance from the police officers than others. As described before,
911 dispatchers enact certain interactional practices when dealing with a noncompliant police
officer. In addition, dispatchers can interact with the police officers using different communication
channels: the private radio channel that dispatchers can use to transmit a message or interact with
specific police officers, the peer radio channel that officers within a particular zone can listen to,
and the department-wide5 radio channel that every officer, sergeant, and district commander can
tune into. I found that certain combinations of interactional practices and communication media
used by the dispatchers helped explain the variance in compliance outcomes.
Below, I describe the combinations that led to less effective compliance outcomes (customizing
through the private communication channel, escalating through the private communication
channel), and then elaborate on a combination that led to more effective compliance outcomes
(publicizing through the peer communication channel)6. Table 3 provides a breakdown of the
number and percentage of dispatchers (by shift) who used specific interactional practices and
communication channels. Table 4 provides a summary of relational styles and compliance
outcomes. Appendix C provides additional evidence for each of the relational styles.
--- Insert Tables 3 and 4 here ---
Customizing through the Private Communication Channel
When a police officer does not acknowledge and respond promptly to a new 911 job assignment,
the dispatchers who follow a customizing relational style tend to modify the dispatch workflow in
5 Unlike the private radio channel and the peer radio channel, the department-wide radio channel is not often used
apart from broadcasting city-wide information. 6 Overall, I identified 5 combinations used by dispatchers – a) customizing using the private radio channel; b)
customizing using the peer radio channel; c) escalating using the private radio channel; d) escalating using the
department-wide radio channel; and e) publicizing using the peer radio channel. Among these 5 practices, two of them
(customizing using the peer radio channel and escalating using the department-wide radio channel) were rarely used.
I consequently focus on the 3 combinations that were used more often.
22
order to “reach out” to that police officer through the private radio channel. Likewise, when an
officer does not give a progress update to the dispatcher when she asks for one or fails to provide
a finish update after completing a job, these dispatchers will reach out to and check with the police
officers about their progress via the private radio channel. Once they get an update from an officer
after private follow-ups and repeated check-ins, these dispatchers also manually enter the updated
information into the system that the officers are supposed to enter through their mobile data
terminal [MDT]. The exchange below illustrates this process: 7
Dispatcher (DP): 5432,8 are you at 200 block of 19th St?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 5432, I see that you’re at 200 block of 19th?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5432, Officer do ya copy that?
PO: 99 [Affirmative]
DP: Should I clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: [switches to the private channel] 5432, Officer do ya copy that? Are you at 200 block of 19th?
PO: 844,9 copy that.
DP: [waits for a response] 5432, what’s your status? Are you still 10-8 [In service]? Or should I clear?
PO: Light my lamp [phrase for clearing an officer from a previous job so that the officer can be
assigned to the next job]
DP: 10-9 [repeat message]?
PO: [no response]
DP: 5432, 10-9 [repeat message] [waits for a few more seconds] can you repeat that?
PO: 844, sure go ahead.
DP: [Pauses, and lets out a sigh]. 10-4, copy that. [assigns a new job] 1263 N Main, block party and 4
people in fist fight.
PO: [interrupts] Check message [message sent through MDT to update a report from a previous job]
DP: Checking
PO: 844, 10-73 [how do you receive?], you got that?
DP: [stops dispatching the other job, reads the message from the job, and asks the secondary dispatcher
for the RD number] 5432, Updated it. RD is DPD102857344
PO: Standby. 10-22 [disregard last communication]. Check new message
DP: 10-4 [message received, understood]. Thanks! Are you still 10-8 [In service]?
PO: [No response]
As this exchange illustrates, the police officer did not acknowledge or respond to the dispatcher’s
requests. This dispatcher then modified the workflow to reach out to the police officer through the
7 These exchanges illustrate the interactions that unfolded between the police officers and dispatchers. Radio codes
and phrases that are specific to DEMO have been replaced with general codes. 8 The first part of the dispatcher’s message includes the ID # of the police officer. 9 The first part of the officer’s message includes the radio ID #.
23
private radio channel. Moreover, when this officer interrupts during the call dispatch process with
questions, this dispatcher accommodates such interruptions, responds to the officer, and then
continues with the dispatch process instead of asking the officer to “clear the air” and “hold off”
on the questions. This officer also preferred to provide an update through the internal messenger
on the MDT. The official protocol is to give all 911 job updates via radio channel. But this
dispatcher accommodated the officer’s noncompliant behavior; once the update was sent through
the messenger, this dispatcher manually entered the information into the CAD so that the update
gets reflected in the system.
Some police officers also prefer to hive off menial work (such as filing a report after a database
is accessed) to the dispatchers, although it is the officers’ responsibility to file such reports.
Dispatchers who follow a customizing relational style take up such work. These dispatchers do so
with the expectation that “the officers will not give me a hard time when I take care of such things.
I do understand that officers are on the street all day, dealing with crazy people and all of that gets
to them, so I feel those little gestures matter, and it is important to be flexible” [911 Dispatcher,
#DP17]. Finally, these dispatchers also customize their lingo when communicating with the police
officer in the private radio channel. One of the dispatchers referred to these gendered interactions
as putting on a “girlfriend’s voice” when reaching out and following up with the police officers in
order to “be nice and sound nice” to the police officer.
I found, however, that the dispatchers who followed a customizing relational style experienced
more difficulties in eliciting compliance from the police officers. Ride-alongs with the police
officers, in conjunction with informal interviews, suggested that once a dispatcher makes
adjustments to the workflow and tries to reach out to the officer through the private channel,
officers expect that dispatcher to continue making such accommodations throughout the duration
of the shift. For instance, these officers mentioned that it was totally acceptable for them to update
these dispatchers via an MDT message, or to ask them to fill out a form or run a license plate on
their behalf. Some officers even alluded that dispatchers are obliged to make such adjustments for
them. As this officer described:
24
They [dispatchers] are sitting out there, in a nice air-conditioned room. I’m here, slogging my ass off moving
from one [911] job to another. So why not let them do such stuff [fill the report or run a license plate]... Also, I
cannot always respond right away because I may be talking to someone or checking off some things, or maybe
I’m in a sketchy neighborhood... So they can just hold-off or check back with me later, in a few minutes, and I
am not going anywhere. Is that so hard to do? [Interview, Police Officer, #PO15]
These views establish certain expectations among the police officers about the customizing
dispatchers and their role. The exchange below illustrates these dynamics further: Dispatcher (DP): 5432, what’s your status?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 5432, Officer are you 10-8 [In service]?
PO: [No response]
DP: [switches to the private channel] Officer, are you in service at 1031 N Main?
PO: [after some time] Can you repeat that? 10-9 [repeat]
DP: What’s your status, officer?
PO: Affirmative
DP: Affirmative what? You at 1031 N Main? Can you confirm location, officer?
PO: No, I am 10-17 [request for gasoline] and then returning to station. Can you also put a lunch ticket
in my slot for 14:30? And then a 10-19 [returning to station]?
DP: So you clear at 1031 N Main? Can you confirm 10-20? [waits for few seconds for response]
PO: 99 [affirmative]
DP: And how long will you be at the station? Can you inform the Sarge?
PO: Negative. You update it to 10-19… Also, ask Sarge to approve my report in DIRA.
DP [takes her foot away from the dispatch pedal so that the officer will not be able to hear, and calls the
officer a dick. Then, presses the pedal]: 10-4.
PO: Check message. I’m now 10-17. Signing off now. Don’t forget DIRA.
DP: 10-4
PO: [No response]
DP: You’re welcome.
As this exchange illustrates, police officers repeatedly did not comply with these dispatchers’
request, especially when the dispatcher announced the officer #ID twice as per the 911 dispatch
protocol. As described in Table 5, out of the 1160 times where dispatchers used the customizing
relational style, 795 instances (68.53%) did not ensue in compliance from the police officer, while
only 365 instances (31.46%) ensued in compliance. In summary, the dispatchers who enact the
customizing relational style, i.e., modifying the workflow and reaching out to the police officer
through the private radio channel, find it difficult to exercise their functional authority and elicit
compliance from the police officers.
Escalating through the Private Communication Channel
While the dispatchers enacting a customizing relational style modify the dispatch workflow in
order to reach out to and follow-up with the individual police officer, there are other dispatchers
25
who choose to play “by the book.” These dispatchers escalate the noncompliant behavior of a
police officer to the supervising patrol officer or sergeant via the private radio channel. As this
dispatcher described:
I don’t have any other choice at that point than to inform the Sarge [Sergeant] of that officer’s attitude. Because
that is the protocol. I cannot shout at them [officers]… So I tell the Sarge to take care of it. And even there, I
don’t call-out publicly, but first ping the Sarge and then put in a word. I feel that is the right thing to do, and let
him [Sarge] do what it takes to discipline the officer [Interview, 911 Dispatcher, #DP4]
These dispatchers typically escalate the incident in a couple of different ways. Some dispatchers
privately reach out to the sergeant through the MDT, inquiring about a police officer, and then use
that opportunity to raise the issue of noncompliance. Other dispatchers contact the sergeant directly
through the private radio channel and let him know about the noncompliant behavior of a particular
police officer. The below exchange illustrates these dynamics, where a 911 dispatcher escalated
the noncompliant behavior of officer #2090 to the sergeant:
DP: 2090, what’s your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 2090, are you clear now? 10-98?
PO: [No response]
DP: [after a few seconds] 2090, officer are you receiving?
PO: [No response]
DP [switches to the private channel]: Sarge, this is dispatch 647
Sergeant (ST): 647, go ahead.
DP: Didn’t hear back from 2090, last known location at 200th of Lake and Ninth. Is he 10-7? [out of
service]
ST: stand by, lemme check
DP: copy that
ST: [after a couple of minutes]: 647, are you receiving?
DP: 10-4 Sarge
ST: 2090 is not 10-7. He is clear and available for service. Just spoke to him.
DP: copy that, thanks Sarge.
The sergeant responds to the escalation by either informing the dispatcher that he will talk to the
respective police officer about the complaint or by calling out the ID of the police officer and
asking him to join their private radio channel. Once the noncompliant police officer joins, the
sergeant describes the nature of the escalation to the officer and asks for an explanation. If satisfied
with the explanation, the sergeant lets go of the matter, as is often the case. If he is not satisfied,
the sergeant will issue an informal warning and ask the officer not to repeat such behavior. Only
in the rarest of cases, a sergeant “writes up” a police officer and issues an official warning that
26
goes into the officer’s record. Sergeants are reluctant to issue such warnings and enforce remedial
actions on the noncompliant officer for a number of reasons, as this sergeant explained:
[I do not want to evoke suspicion] …that I am trying to play favorites… because I have a grudge against one of
them. I mean, I don’t. But that’s how it would look, and like it or not, the word would spread and I want to avoid
that… And also this is more like “he said, she said” right? Each of them will have a story, and I’m not saying
that one is right and the other is wrong. Or maybe, one of them is right, I don’t know [pauses] So you just got to
cool it off, de-escalate it as much as possible, and then things will become alright over time. The more you
engage, the more dirty it becomes.” [Interview, Sergeant, #PS8]
Since sergeants are dependent on the police officers to “do their bidding,” that is, to manage the
workload of the district, and handle contingencies, they prefer not to enforce remedial action based
on escalations received from dispatchers. Even if remedial actions are proposed to the individual
police officer, they are typically under-enforced. As another sergeant described:
I am caught between them [officers and the dispatcher] and I got to handle it carefully. I can’t just shrug off the
dispatcher. I need to listen to them, of course. But I cannot just suspend the officer for that. I might ask them
something like “what’s up with the attitude” or ask them to keep their temper under control. But anything beyond
that, it will be difficult… I need these guys [officers], if I piss them off then my job becomes all the more difficult.
And I don’t want to end up in that situation. It is not good for the unit, not good for the department, and not good
for dispatch either [Interview, Sergeant, #PS6]
Officers who become aware of an escalation from a particular dispatcher often feel “betrayed”
by that dispatcher, believing that the issues should have been “discussed and sorted out between
us, like adults, than taking it up to the teacher. That’s what school kids do.” [Interview, Police
Officer, #PO11]. Some officers interpret the escalation as a result of some personal grudge the
dispatcher has held towards them: “She got to remember that it’s just the heat of the moment, and
not personal. Nothing personal, I promise you. But the moment you take it personal, that’s a whole
different ballgame. You are not acting like a professional anymore.” As the officer continued:
You can tell from their voice that if someone is happy or not… Most of them are professionals, I got to give it
to them, they do their job well, but then there are a few who are always annoyed or have no energy to do this job
at a level that is expected. So they constantly crib and complain. They are the Debbie Downers. They just can’t
be professional enough and discuss if something is wrong. Instead they want to create an issue out of everything.
I get it, this is a tough job, but it is not personal… You can’t keep holding a grudge. That’s not cool… So when
I interact with the Debbies, I just go matter-of-fact. Just boom boom boom. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
And if they screw up, of course I am going to call them out. It’s fair game. [Interview, Police Officer, #PO9]
Dispatchers who escalate issues to a sergeant become labeled by the police officers as
“incompetent,” “clueless,” “unprofessional,” “not a team player,” “Debbie Downers,” and at the
extreme, as “bitches.” Officers mentioned that they could no longer trust those dispatchers who
have gone behind their backs to complain about them to the sergeants. Consequently, the
27
relationship between the police officer and the dispatcher – as observed through their remote
interactions within a shift – becomes more strained: immediately after an escalation, the police
officers’ tone becomes more rigid. While the officer ceremonially complies with the dispatcher's
messages for a short time, subsequently he fails to acknowledge new job assignments and
directions given by the dispatcher throughout the rest of the shift. Officers also take a much longer
duration to respond to these escalating dispatchers. The following exchange illustrates the
dynamics after the dispatcher escalated officer #2090’s noncompliant behavior to the sergeant:
DP: 2090, are you receiving?
PO: [no response]
DP: [sighs] 2090, are you receiving?
PO: 10-4, receiving [in a stern voice]
DP: 288 [lewd conduct] at District Park North, close to Main St for 314 [lewd conduct]. White male,
30s, blue hoodie, grey pants…
PO: 647, which side of Main street? Location info insufficient.
DP: stand by, checking
PO: 10-4
DP: Northside corner. Closer to Main St. than Maple St.
PO: [No response]
DP: officer, do you receive?
PO: 10-4, but insufficient. Dispatch, get the right coordinates
DP: Calm down, I’m on it. Stand by.
PO: 2090 to Dispatch, location incorrect, update to CAD
In addition, the police officer keeps looking for any mistakes or “screw-ups” that the dispatcher
may make or if she even slightly deviates from the dispatch protocol. In those instances, the police
officer will point out those deviations and respond in a rude manner. Over the duration of the shift,
the officer will then increase his noncompliance by repeatedly interrupting the dispatcher with
clarification questions, or by not updating the dispatcher. The below vignette illustrates another
police officer’s response following an escalation by this dispatcher:
DP: 5460 Officer, are you clear to take a 5-Zebra [code for a person with mental issues] at 1560 Eliot?
PO: Negative
DP: Are you still 10-8 [in service]?
PO: 10-4 [message received, understood], with 5465. I sent an update 10 minutes ago, at 19:08
DP: Stand-by. Any info on robbery at 454 Franklin?
PO: 5465 entered it. Check the updates.
DP: Is there a weapon involved?
PO: [in a mocking tone] They took a shot, we updated to 10-72 [Gun involved], so yeah, weapon is
involved I guess. Check CAD. Sarge, do you copy that?
DP: Calm down … calm yourself down
28
PO: Party’s out in 5 and you have been advised. Update when you feel like, 10-7 [Out of service].
Sarge, 5460, copy that? Dispatch will update and give it out whenever…
DP: Calm down
PO: Dispatch, you pull yourself together. Party’s out and you have been advised.
DP: Sure I would, 10-4
An alternative option that the dispatchers have is to escalate the issue to their 911 shift
supervisors and request them to handle the issue. While this option is less frequently exercised by
the dispatchers, even if used, the 911 shift supervisors tend not to take any action as they are
unwilling to become embroiled in a conflict with the sergeants in the police department. As one
shift supervisor described: I am supportive [of the dispatchers] most of the times. You have seen this, dispatching is a stressful job and I
always stand behind them when they are facing a situation. But once I have shown them the rope, they are on
their own. Remembering all the [radio] codes is important, but that is just a small part of the job. Working the
radio and the human side of it is a lot more important. They need to learn how to handle the cops and keep
clearing their board. That’s what they are paid for. Work the radio, work the cops. Work the radio, work the
cops… I know that the officers can be difficult at times, but they [dispatchers] need to learn how to deal with
them. I cannot always jump in and get into an argument with the officer or the Sarge. It doesn’t look good. In
fact, it might blow-up the whole situation. [Interview, 911 Shift Supervisor, #SS1]
Furthermore, 911 shift supervisors, most of whom are also women and Black or Hispanic, believe
that it is the dispatcher’s responsibility to deal with an officer’s noncompliant behavior. The shift
supervisors did not take follow-up action, as they view the ability of the dispatchers to “work the
radio” and handle noncompliant police officers as a sign of job competence.
Consequently, the dispatchers who follow the escalating relational style, i.e., escalate the
behavior of a noncompliant police officer to supervisors through the private communication
channel, experienced subsequent difficulties in eliciting compliance from that police officer during
the rest of the shift. As shown in Table 5, out of the 2032 times where dispatchers used the
escalating relational style, 1533 instances (75.44%) did not ensue in compliance from the police
officer, while only 499 instances (24.55%) ensued in compliance. All of these suggest that the
escalating relational style enacted by the dispatchers ensued in ineffective compliance outcomes.
Publicizing through the Peer Communication Channel
When a police officer does not acknowledge and respond promptly after a dispatcher calls out
the officer’s ID#, or when an officer fails to provide a progress update or finish update to the
dispatcher, the dispatchers who enact a publicizing relational style use the peer radio channel – the
29
radio channel that the officer’s immediate peer group (i.e., the unit) is tuned into – to “out” the
noncompliant behavior of that officer to his peers. At first, these dispatchers typically do not
customize the dispatch workflow as per the needs of the individual police officers. For instance,
when an officer fails to provide an update about their job or sends a late progress update via the
MDT messenger asking the dispatcher to update the information into the system manually, these
dispatchers will often ignore those messages and not respond to the officer. When the officer
repeats such behavior and is persistently noncompliant, then these dispatchers publicize the
officer’s behavior to the immediate peer group, i.e., the police unit via the peer radio channel. The
exchange below illustrates this dynamic10:
Dispatcher (DP): 5525, what’s your status?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 5525, what’s your status? Back from Code 7? [meal break]
PO: [No response]
DP: [checks the location of the police car of 5525] Barbeque any good at [restaurant name]? Heard
their pulled pork is dope. And the potato chips…
Other PO’s: [laughter on the channel] You go girl
PO: [laughs] 832, Dispatch. Back from 7, checked out at 15:35, now 10-8 [ in service] at 16:10.
DP: [laughs] Sure you did. Right at 15:35.
Other PO’s: [more laughter] 15:30
Other PO’s: [more laughter] 15:00
DP: Alright, enough. 5525, y’all ready to talk to a downer [man or woman who is down]? A beer bottle
Betty? [phrase for a drunk woman by the sidewalk]
PO: 10-4, sure I do. What’s the location?
DP: 124 S State? Might be a frequent flier too [phrase for a missing person]. Rack up the miles.
PO [laughs]: On my way.
This exchange happened via the peer radio channel of the police unit and not through the private
radio channel or the department-wide radio channel where messages are sent to members of the
entire police force. In this way, the dissemination of information about the officer’s noncompliant
behavior is bounded to the police unit. As evident in the exchange, these dispatchers typically
enact peer publicizing in a bantering tone rather than in an accusatory or angry tone. The
dispatchers referred to this as putting on a “mommy’s voice.” As illustrated above, publicizing the
10 It is important to note here that the publicizing dispatchers are not directly informing the sergeant or the supervising
officer about a noncompliant officer, or sending a broadcast message with the ID of the officer. While the sergeant
may or may not be tuned into the radio frequency of the unit, the dispatcher’s message (about the noncompliant police
officer) is not directed toward the sergeant.
30
noncompliant behavior of a police officer in a bantering tone via the peer radio channel produced
better compliance outcomes for that particular 911 job. But more importantly, peer publicizing
also shaped subsequent compliance outcomes with that police officer during the rest of that
dispatchers’ shift. Below is a subsequent exchange with the same police officer:
PO: 832, Dispatch, clear from 124 S State and will take a quick 8 [restroom break] and then back
DP: 10-4, anything on betty?
PO: 832, Dispatch, all clear. She was just passed out
DP: Got it.
PO: 832 Dispatch, back now and 10-8, location at 300 block of Eliot and Main, at 16:50. What do you
got for me.
DP: 5525, you’re invited to a party at 39 Eliot. Multiple complaints about loud noise. Will send backup
right away, 5530 is 1500 away from 39 Eliot.
PO: 10-4 [message received, understood]
DP: Go break it [the party]. And for y’all, there is pizza at the station, thanks to 5525.
[After PO 5525 returns from that job]
PO: 832 Dispatch, clear from 39 Eliot, now returning to station, 17:25. 10-7 [out of service]
DP: 10-4. Took the boom box [from 39 Eliot]?
PO [laughs]: I wish. Ok, signing out and will update Sarge with the DIRA report
As we notice from this exchange, the officer complies with the direction that the dispatcher issues,
resists interrupting the dispatcher, and preconfigures his interaction in such a way that further peer
publicizing is avoided. In this way, the interaction order between the officer and dispatcher has
been reshaped, enabling the dispatcher to subsequently elicit compliance from that police officer.
But given that the officer is “outed” to his immediate peers, why does this practice work?
Interviews with police officers suggest that officers are aware of the ways of working-around the
protocol to get some “cool-off” time. In other words, police officers are aware that each one of
them is trying to build some slack time into their work routines, but if any of the members slack-
off too much and avoid responsibilities, then that extra unfulfilled work will be distributed to the
rest of the police officers of the unit. As this police officer continued: In this line of work, you got to build some time off or [else] you are burnt out before you know it. So we [the
police officers in the unit] all do that. Take little breaks here and there. Once in a while, have a nice lunch and a
good laugh… But we don’t overdo that, we do it in moderation. And each one of us has our own way [of how to
get around the dispatcher]. But the important thing here is when there is a need, we all step-up our game and
work hard and long hours… We also know if someone is trying to take a break or is just not willing to take up
any work. And when they [dispatchers] start outing an officer through the radio, we take a note of that, and that
is a good thing, because we know that officer will start to behave. As a unit, that is good for us. [Interview, Police
Officer, #PO5]
31
Further interviews with police officers suggest that the dispatcher’s action on “outing an
officer” through the peer radio channel gives other officers within the police unit a pathway to
‘police’ each other’s noncompliant behavior so that it does not become excessive. As this
experienced police officer mentioned “everybody [police officers] is a slacker to some degree,
whether they accept it or not. You need it. I would say it is even essential to survive in this intense,
highly stressful job. But a slacker is different from a shirker. Slacker is ok, Shirker is a problem, a
disaster waiting to happen in your unit. You don’t want that” (italics added). Thus, repeated
noncompliance is viewed by other officers within the police unit as a sign that an officer is shirking
his responsibilities and unloading his work onto others, and therefore is not a dependable and
trustworthy partner during emergency situations. As this police officer described:
You don’t want shirkers in your unit. They will not hurt you today, but sometime in the future, they will. We
don’t put on this blue uniform because we want to make money. We put on the uniform because it is a
commitment. To the profession. To your district. To your unit. When I walk into a secluded neighborhood or
knock on the door of a creepy guy’s [home], I want to be assured that there is someone else who got my back. A
shirker, from my experience, I can tell you for sure, is not that person who will have your back… If that officer
keeps getting called-out and doesn’t change, then you know that guy is a shirker and I try to be careful with
them. And I tell my folks to be careful. [Interview, Police Officer, #PO28]
Consequently, officers in a unit view the dispatchers’ peer publicizing not as a personal grudge or
score-keeping, but rather as a form of ‘playful ribbing’ or ‘prodding’ that allows other officers to
“keep a check on each other” in order to avoid a “slacker from becoming a shirker.” As this senior
police officer vividly summarized:
Policing is teamwork. It’s not at all like what they show in Hollywood movies or even Cop shows in television,
which I love by the way… It’s not about individual heroics although that does happen. It’s about the team. Your
unit, if everyone is committed and do their part and there are no shirkers in your unit, you can manage anything,
even during a busy evening with a big game going on. You can manage that… So when someone gets outed by
dispatch, we take note. And if that happens again, we try to elbow him and make fun. But not in a mean, nasty
way. That will piss him off. We don’t want him to hang his head in shame or go silent rest of the shift. That beats
the purpose… We do this gently in a fun, enjoyable way to keep a check on each other, so that the officer does
not overdo it and end up becoming a shirker, which is bad for all of us [Interview, Police Officer, #PO19]
With peer publicizing, the noncompliant officer is aware that his trustworthiness is being
implicitly assessed by other officers in the unit. That is, given the nature of the peer communication
medium and the “common knowledge” (Chwe, 2002) it generates, members of the unit “know that
others are watching [listening] the same thing” (Adut, 2018, p. xi). More importantly, due to the
use of the peer communication medium, the noncompliant officer is also cognizant that other
32
officers are ‘aware that he is aware’ about his trustworthiness being assessed. In other words,
publicizing through the peer radio channel engenders “third-order inference” (Correll et al., 2017)
about noncompliance. As this police officer described:
You want to be trusted by your unit, that’s most important. Especially if you are a new member, you want to win
their trust. That you are a dependable guy who’ll watch your partners back and not some selfish jerk who’ll run
away at the first sign of trouble. But once you got the trust, you got to keep it and not lose it just like that. That’s
even more important and difficult. I joined this unit almost 2 years back, I got to bust my balls to be trusted. I
think I earned that… But the work gets to you… so I slacked off a bit here and there. And then dispatch noticed
it and outed me, other officers [in the unit] also noticed it and had some fun with it… It was all in good spirit, so
I was not bummed or anything, but I realized I got to get my act together again so that I don’t end up losing it…
I do the same now when someone else gets outed, yesterday [officer name], he got outed for “not clearing” and
we all had fun with it. [Interview, Police Officer, #PO15]
My observations during ride-alongs with police officers suggest that such peer publicizing
incidents trigger peer control, as the police officers within a unit try to monitor and keep tabs on
each other’s behavior. For example, consider the following exchange that I observed during my
ride-along with a police officer:
Police Officer (PO): [parking his car on the shade and humming a song. It’s been around 10 minutes
since the officer completed his previous 911 job]
Dispatcher (DP): 6144, what’s your status?
PO: [reduces the volume]
DP: 6144, your status?
PO: [Ignores the dispatcher]
DP: [after a minute] 6144, officer are you clear?
PO: [Does not answer the dispatcher]
DP: [after another minute or so] There’s a casino nearby right by the corner of [location where we were
parked]. Someone won three million dollars last week, [it was] all over the papers. [unclear audio].
Should give it a try officer, if you have some free time.
PO: [Gives a puzzled reaction, sits straight back and attempts to answer the dispatcher]
Another PO: [laughter] 6144 is a blackjack pro, I heard.
Another PO: [more laughter] has a poker face too.
Another PO: Wasn’t he a dealer too way back… [unclear audio]
Another PO: Now he is into busting dealers [laughter]
PO: [Laughs] Ok then, thanks Dispatch. I’m clear from [job #]
DP: You’re welcome!
[more laughter on the channel]
PO: what do you have for me?
DP: Accident at [location details], 2 lightly injured and EMTs are at the scene. But one of the parties,
white male grey Sedan, getting into an argument and situation might break into a fight, so requesting
officer presence.
PO: On it. [officer starts driving the car to the location]
33
As this exchange illustrates, once the focal officer’s noncompliant behavior is “outed” through
the peer radio channel by a dispatcher, other officers in the unit playfully prod and make fun of
the noncompliant officer, which in turn disciplines the officer.
The bantering tone used by these dispatchers also highlights how these lower-status
professionals are attempting to ‘wrap their authority’ in humor instead of directly enforcing their
authority by correcting the police officer by pointing out their mistakes. Such a bantering tone
helps minimize the stigma that is otherwise associated with exposure. Therefore, what is implied
through the bantering tone is not just the individual noncompliant act of that particular police
officer, but rather the common ploys that might also be shared by the officers within the unit. As
the officer noted above, the unit does not want the noncompliant individual to “hang his head in
shame or go silent the rest of the shift. That beats the purpose.” Consequently, the dispatcher’s
actions did not result in public shaming of the officer: not only is the exposure limited to the
immediate peer group, but also the bantering tone reduces the stigma when someone’s
noncompliant behavior is exposed. As another police officer noted:
Some days can be very tiring, so stuff like that [referring to the dispatcher’s banter] keeps it alive. We just pull
each other's legs and laugh about it. Good fun in spotting the slacker in us [laughs]. I mean, we all do that at
some point or another, so we are all slackers that way. But we pitch in when someone else is not feeling well or
if there is a citywide event going on and you get a ton of calls, so on those days, we are hyperactive. On other
off-days, it is ok to take it a little light. We all get it, but we pretend that we are trying to call each other’s bluff
and not overdo it. [Interview, Police Officer, #PO3]
However, the bantering tone alone is not sufficient for the dispatcher to elicit compliance from
the police officer. For example, when a dispatcher used the bantering tone through the private (as
opposed to the peer) radio channel when interacting with a noncompliant police officer, in most
instances it did not necessarily result in more compliance from the police officer; instead, the police
officer continued not to acknowledge the dispatcher and not comply with her directions, thereby
making it difficult for the dispatcher to elicit compliance The exchange below, where the
dispatcher used a bantering tone via the private radio channel, illustrates this process:
DP: 2690, are you clear for a new job?
PO: [No response]
DP: 2690, 10-73 [how do you receive]?
PO: [No response]
34
DP [switches to private channel]: Officer, wanted to check if you are back from 10-17 [gasoline
stop]?
PO: [No response]
DP [checks the GPS location of 2690, then continues to use the private channel]: Officer, you at the
[convenience store name] at the [gas station name] by 1030 N Brooke St? [Pause]
PO: [No response]
DP: Are you getting the Red Bull Tangerine or the Red Bull Cranberry at [convenience store name]?
Or Red Bull sugar-free?
PO: [No response]
DP [continuing on the private channel]: I’m sure it’s not sugar-free.
PO: [static from the radio, officer is preparing to speak]
DP [continuing on the private channel]: Glazed Donuts don’t go well with Red Bull Sugar-Free….
PO: Dispatch, just stop. 10-3 [stop transmitting].
DP [continuing on the private channel]: 2690, are you clear for a new job?
PO: Check CAD
DP: 2690, Officer are you 10-8 and available for a new job?
PO: [No response]
As this exchange illustrates, it is not the bantering tone alone that produces and sustains humor,
but also the communication medium – the use of peer channel by the dispatcher – that enrolls the
immediate peers to “jump in to make fun of the [noncompliant] officer and of each other.” As we
saw in the previous example (“barbeque any good”) where a dispatcher used the peer radio channel
to publicize the noncompliant behavior of a police officer (in that case, the officer not updating
the dispatcher about returning from his lunch break), other police officers jumped in to build upon
each other’s jokes to make fun of the noncompliant police officer. Humor became a collective and
emergent outcome that is structured by the peer communication medium. As compared to the
above exchange between a dispatcher and a police officer via the private channel (“Red Bull”), the
exchange illustrates the importance of the type of communication channel in enrolling peers and
toward structuring the interaction order to elicit compliance. All of these dynamics shape
compliance outcomes. As described in Table 5, out of the 3089 times where dispatchers used the
publicizing relational style, 3006 (97.31%) ensued in successful compliance outcomes11.
11 Dispatchers used a bantering tone most of the time while enacting a publicizing relational style (97.57%, 3014 out
of 3089). Among such instances where a bantering tone was used, and the emergent and collective humor it produced
in the peer communication channel, 98.44% (2967 out of 3014) of them ensued in compliance from the officers.
Among the instances when dispatchers did not use a bantering tone while enacting a publicizing relational style (e.g.,
using an admonishing tone or a neutral tone), it still led to compliance but the success rate was relatively lower (39
out of 75 times, 52%). Similarly, out of the 3192 instances where a dispatcher used a private radio channel, a bantering
tone was used only around 194 instances (6.08%). Out of these, only 17 instances (8.76%) ensued in compliance.
35
Emotional Consequences for the Dispatchers
Findings also suggest the substantial emotional toll experienced by the individual 911
dispatchers in their attempts to elicit compliance from the police officers, ensuing in individual-
level consequences such as reduced morale, job burnout, and absenteeism. Irrespective of the type
of relational style used, all of them generated substantial emotional toll on the dispatcher, the extent
of which varied depending on the type of relational style used. I observed this variation in terms
of the following indicators: (a) visible expressions of frustration in the form of “sighs,” “gasps,”
and swear words uttered “backstage” (Goffman, 1959) right after a coordination encounter with a
noncompliant police officer (i.e., not expressed through the radio); and (b) the extent of
absenteeism in terms of the number of sick leaves taken by dispatchers and the number of times
they invoked the FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] for unplanned leave.
The dispatchers who enacted a customizing relational style suffered the most emotional toll.
These dispatchers mentioned that even to get some basic tasks done by the police officers (such as
acknowledging a 911 job, giving progress updates), they needed to “put on a mask” to “sweet talk”
the police officers and “be nice to them.” Moreover, since the police officers often take these
dispatchers for granted and tend to not respond to them and/or not follow their directions, it puts
these dispatchers under additional strain and burnout. The need to show their competence as
independent problem-solvers to the sergeants as well as to their shift supervisors also negatively
impacted their morale. The visible expressions of frustration (in terms of the “sighs,” “gasps,” and
swear words uttered) of these dispatchers who used a customizing relational style were also the
highest. Moreover, these dispatchers, on average, exhibited the most absenteeism in the form of
sick leaves and invoking the FMLA as compared to the other types of dispatchers as compared to
the other types of dispatchers: 31% more than the 911 dispatchers who enacted an escalating
relational style and 14% more than the 911 dispatchers who enacted a publicizing relational style:
When I was promoted to a dispatcher, a lot of my seniors warned me on how hard it is to work the radio and talk
to the officers. I thought they were exaggerating but I had no idea that it will be this bad. I go over-and-above
my way to make sure the officers can focus and do their job. As I told you, I fill out the forms. Run the [license]
plates. Check some addresses. I have even dialed the caller and asked them to be at their door for the officer. I
do whatever it takes that will make their [officers’] job easier. But even then, they continue to be dicks to me…
36
They dump all their shit on me. Every day is a struggle and I am not feeling motivated at all to get up from my
bed and be back at my desk. [Interview, 911 Dispatcher, #DP2]
The dispatchers who enacted an escalating relational style experienced the least emotional toll
as compared to others. Escalating helped them avoid the dialogical drama of having to “reach out
and please” the officer in order to get work done. As one dispatcher noted, such performances are
“far more exhausting” than facing the negative consequences from the officer after an escalation
incident. Escalation provided these dispatchers with a break from the ongoing moment-to-moment
performances that they felt were “fake” and over and above their professional mandate. Although
these dispatchers too experienced morale and burnout issues, the visible expressions of frustration
of these dispatchers were, however, lower than that of the dispatchers who used a customizing
relational and a publicizing relational style. Moreover, these dispatchers, on average, had taken a
fewer number of sick leaves and FMLA provision (~24% less than the dispatchers who enacted a
customizing relational style and ~13% less than the dispatchers who enacted a publicizing
relational style). As this dispatcher who enacted an escalating relational style described: Look, at one point I decided I am not going to take any of this… I will make their life difficult if y’all [they all]
try to make mine difficult. I tried to be nice to them [officers], did the song-and-dance and made them do stuff
that they are anyway supposed to do. Enough with that, because that didn’t get me anywhere and I was so tired
after my shift that I wanted to go home and crash. So one day, I decided to take them on and just inform the
Sarge, and let them deal with it. It [the issue] doesn’t disappear and they still act like assholes, but at least now
I’m not tired and pissed off anymore. [Interview, 911 Dispatcher, #DP4]
The dispatchers who enacted a publicizing relational style experienced comparatively less
emotional toll than the dispatchers who enacted a customizing relational style, but more emotional
toll as compared to the dispatchers who enacted an escalating relational style. These dispatchers
mentioned that the extent of “acting” they need to do while interacting with the officers in order
to sound “funny” is the hardest part of their job. As a dispatcher mentioned, “…it need not be this
tiring. It could be more straightforward. I tell them to give me an update, and they’all give me an
update. It should be that simple. Why do I need [to do] all this to get an officer to talk?”
[Dispatcher, #DP11]. The visible expressions of frustration of these dispatchers who used a
publicizing relational style were lower than that of the dispatchers who used a customizing
relational style, but higher than dispatchers who enacted an escalating relational style. While one
might argue that these verbal expressions of emotion could be cathartic, these dispatchers
37
nonetheless also exhibited absenteeism in the form of sick leaves and invoking the FMLA
provision – approximately 15% more than the 911 dispatchers who enacted an escalating relational
style, but ~12% less than the dispatchers who enacted a customizing relational style – suggesting
the individual-level consequences on their morale and well-being. As one such 911 dispatcher who
enacted the publicizing relational style remarked:
Our supervisors think that we are used to this and that we are good at it [working the radio and handling the
officers.] But what they are missing – or they just don’t want to know – is that it is painful to keep doing this...
Trying to be this funny “cool girl,” I mean come on. It is exhausting. If you all [officer] be an adult and just let
me do my job - let me do my fucking job - it will be better for both of us. But I don’t have that [option] anymore,
and I am just sad. And mad. [Interview, 911 Dispatcher, #DP7]
All of these findings suggest that while the publicizing relational style produced the most
effective outcome for the organization (in terms of compliance), it also produced significant
individual-level consequences in terms of the emotional toll, burnout, and reduced morale
experienced by the lower-status dispatchers.
In summary, the various relational styles enacted by dispatchers had a consequential effect on
their individual well-being. Although the escalating relational style ensued in ineffective
compliance outcomes, it generated less emotional toll; as this dispatcher described, “it felt good
y’all, to tell the Sarge… just lash it out and move on, than holding it inside, hurtin’ and fumin’ for
long, and be miserable.” [Dispatcher, DP33]. Similarly, although the publicizing relational style
ensued in better compliance outcomes, it produced a substantial emotional toll. The customizing
relational style was the least effective in terms of compliance outcomes while also generating the
most emotional toll and negative impact on the dispatcher’s morale and well-being.
A MODEL OF ELICITING COMPLIANCE IN THE PRESENCE OF
STATUS-AUTHORITY ASYMMETRY BETWEEN PROFESSIONS
I synthesize these findings to develop a model of eliciting compliance in the face of status-
authority asymmetry between professions (Figure 1) and elaborate on its theoretical significance.
--- Insert Figure 1 here ---
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Peer Publicizing to Generate Second-degree Influence
As illustrated in Figure 1, the publicizing relational style enacted by the lower-status
professional via the peer communication channel ensued in more compliance from the higher-
status professionals. Through such peer publicizing, the lower-status professional disseminates the
noncompliant behavior of a higher-status professional (i.e., alter) to his immediate peers. This, in
turn, creates “common knowledge” (Chwe, 2001) about noncompliance. Since higher-status
professionals within a workgroup gauge each other’s behavior to appraise one’s dependability and
trustworthiness (Pratt, Lepisto, and Dane, 2018), the common knowledge created via peer
publicizing triggers peer control and self-disciplining of the noncompliant individual. At the same
time, since such common knowledge is bounded only to immediate peer group but not
disseminated to the supervisors, the larger organization, or to the general public (cf. Bernstein,
2012; Patil and Bernstein, 2021), peer publicizing prevents a noncompliant act from “mutate[ing]
into a spectacle” (Adut, 2018, p.10), where the noncompliant higher-status professional could feel
that he is publicly shamed and exposed beyond his peer group boundary.
More generally, through peer publicizing, the lower-status professional generates what I refer
to as “second-degree influence.” Instead of first-degree influence where the lower-status
professional attempts to directly correct the behavior of a higher-status alter, through second-
degree influence, the lower-status professional enrolls the alters’ peers in the compliance process
and triggers them to do the influence on their behalf. Findings suggest that such indirect and
implicit influence generated via peer publicizing shapes not just the immediate compliance
outcomes, but also the subsequent interaction order between the lower-status and the higher-status
professional. Moreover, the bantering tone enables the lower-status professionals to “wrap” their
authority in humor, as opposed to direct attempts at enforcing their authority by correcting the
noncompliant behavior of the higher-status professional. Through this way, the lower-status
professionals avoid evoking status threat from the higher-status professionals.
In my research site, for instance, police officers within a unit interpret peer publicizing as a
signal that an officer is “slacking off” too much and “becoming a shirker” who will end up
39
offloading additional work to the rest of the unit, and more importantly, is likely not a dependable
partner in situations where they might be teamed together. Due to the nature of the peer
communication channel, the noncompliant officer is also cognizant that his unit is aware of, and
keeping tabs on, his behavior (Adut, 2018). This puts the trustworthiness of that individual officer
on-the-line in front of the immediate peer group with whom he interacts on an everyday basis,
which in turn prompts a reduction in subsequent noncompliance (cf. Satterstrom et al., 2021).
In addition, peer publicizing allows for a “culture of joviality” (O’Neill and Rothbard, 2017,
p.81) to flourish within the higher-status workgroup. Specifically, it enables individual members
of the higher-status professional group to build upon each other’s jokes about the “slacking ploys”
used by the noncompliant individual, and in the process, elicit compliance. Humor becomes an
emergent outcome of the interaction order structured by the peer communication medium. Such
collective and emergent humor is used to produce peer control (cf. Barker, 1993). In summary,
peer publicizing enables the lower-status professionals to indirectly – and implicitly – exercise
their functional authority through enrolling the alters’ peers in the compliance process and in doing
so, elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
Limits to Customizing
As illustrated in Figure 1, findings from the study suggest how the customizing relational style
enacted via a private communication medium, unfolding at a dyadic level between the lower-status
and the higher-status professional, can undermine the functional authority of the former.
Indeed, the very act of customizing performed in the presence of status-authority asymmetry
creates the preconditions for the higher-status professional to push the boundaries of the lower-
status professionals’ authority. For one, the higher-status professional interprets such
customizations as a signal that rules-of-the-game that undergird functional authority is malleable
and can be defied. As described previously, these higher-status professionals use such relational
accommodations from the lower-status professionals to lock them into a “giver’s role” (Leifer,
1988, p.872-873). The more the lower-status professionals have “invested in establishing a giver
role,” the more the higher-status professionals “stand to gain from [the lower-status professionals’]
40
apparent commitment to the role...convincing a public and even A [lower-status professionals] that
B [higher-status professionals] fully deserves favorable terms” (Leifer, 1988, p.872). This
imbalance in reciprocity further undermines the functional authority of the lower-status
professional doing the customizing. All of these, in turn, reduces the ability of the lower-status
professionals to elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
Pitfalls of Escalating
Findings from the study suggest that when a lower-status professional escalates the
noncompliant behavior of a higher-status professional to his supervisor, that higher-status alter
views such escalations as a form of personal score-keeping and therefore as something that is
beyond the professional realm (Brescoll, 2011; cf. Huising, 2014). Higher-status professionals
view any disagreements or conflicts which arise during work as something that needs to be sorted
out inter-professionally. As illustrated in Figure 1, escalation to a supervisor undermines the lateral
relationship between the lower-status and higher-status professionals, which in turn makes it even
more difficult for the former to elicit compliance from the latter.
More importantly, the supervisors who receive complaints about a noncompliant individual
under their watch need to act on those complaints and propose remedial action. However, they are
reluctant to do so because they do not want to be seen, or even suspected of, “playing favorites”
among their subordinates. In addition, supervisors are dependent on their subordinates to “do their
bidding” and accomplish the work tasks. In my research site, for example, sergeants and
supervising patrol officers are dependent on the police officers to manage workload, handle
contingencies, and to keep the “order of the street” for their district (Van Maanen, 1982).
Consequently, while sergeants and supervising patrol officers do sometimes even warn the
noncompliant police officers, remedial actions are typically under-enforced. Finally, when lower-
status professionals escalate issues about the noncompliant behavior of a higher-status alter to their
own supervisors (e.g., 911 shift supervisors), such an act is also often interpreted by supervisors
as the former’s lack of job competence and/or independence. As a result, escalation to supervisors
does not necessarily ensue in better compliance outcomes.
41
DISCUSSION
This study advances our understanding of how and when lower-status professionals with
functional authority could elicit compliance from higher-status professionals in the presence of
status-authority asymmetry. I now turn to discussing the theoretical contributions of this research
to the literature on professions and compliance in organizations (DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014;
Gray and Silbey, 2014; Huising, 2015; Kellogg, 2019).
First, this research highlights the mechanism of peer publicizing – and more generally, the
importance of the immediate peers of higher-status professionals – in eliciting compliance. This
research suggests that as compared to customizing or escalating to supervisors, higher-status
professionals care more about how their immediate peers (whom they interact with on an everyday
basis) will perceive them, especially in the wake of peer publicizing incidents that could impact
their reputation and trustworthiness. Consequently, enrolling the higher-status professionals’
immediate peers in the compliance process could, in turn, enable the lower-status professionals to
trigger peer control, generate second-degree influence, and elicit compliance from the higher-
status professionals. While prior research highlights the centrality of private relational work (e.g.,
customizing through scut work) enacted by the lower-status professionals in order to elicit
compliance from the higher-status professionals (Gray and Silbey, 2014; Huising, 2015), this
research suggests the limits to such private relational work in the presence of status-authority
asymmetry. Such forms of private relational work might have been effective in situations when
there is an alignment between status and authority (i.e., the higher-status professionals also have
higher functional authority). However, in contexts marked by an asymmetry between status and
authority, performing such private relational work has the potential to backfire, further
undermining the lower-status professionals’ authority, and even result in more noncompliance
from the higher-status professionals. In contrast, through peer publicizing – a form of relational
work that is enacted through a peer communication medium and therefore is not just private or
dyadic – the lower-status professional is able to enroll the higher-status professionals’ peers in the
compliance process. In doing so, the lower-status professional triggers peer control which in turn
42
helps modify the noncompliant behavior of the higher-status professional. Viewed together, this
research (a) underscores the importance of immediate peers of the higher-status professional in the
compliance process; (b) emphasizes not just the when and how of relational work enacted by lower-
status professionals, but also the where, i.e., the type and nature of the peer communication
medium through which relational work is performed and how it shapes compliance outcomes.
Second, this study identifies the concept of second-degree influence and highlights its
importance in enabling the lower-status professionals to implicitly exercise their authority and
elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals. While existing research has focused on
first-degree influence tactics such as upward influence directed at senior managers and downward
influence directed towards subordinates (Kipnis and Schmidt, 1988; Yukl and Falbe, 1990; Dutton
and Ashford, 1993; Kellogg, 2019) as ways to elicit compliance, this research suggests that in the
presence of status-authority asymmetry, there are potential downsides to first-degree influence
tactics. This includes the risk of evoking status threat as well as in creating a perception among the
higher-status professionals that the lower-status professional is not acting in a professional manner
by “going around” them and escalating directly to supervisors. Through peer publicizing, the
lower-status professionals avoid these pitfalls by enrolling the higher-status professionals’ peers
in the compliance process, and in doing so, generate second-degree influence. This, in turn,
necessitates the noncompliant higher-status professional to (re)-establish his trustworthiness to his
immediate peers that he is a team player and not a shirker. In this process, the lower-status
professionals are able to elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
Relatedly, this research highlights the role of banter and humor performed through a peer
communication medium (as opposed to a private communication medium) in eliciting compliance.
While prior research has examined the role of “putdown” humor (Terrion and Ashforth, 2002) in
improving cohesion and reducing conflicts between professional groups, they have not examined
the role of communication medium through which such humor is enacted. This research shows
that it is not just humor and banter alone, but also the communication medium through which the
humor is performed, which plays a critical role in eliciting compliance. As the findings suggest,
43
when humor is performed through a private communication medium between two actors, one with
higher-status and another with lower-status but more functional authority, it has the potential to be
viewed by the higher-status professional as ‘lame’ and ‘annoying.’ However, when performed
through a peer communication channel, humor becomes cumulative where the higher-status alters’
peers also “jump in” and build upon each other’s jokes. The cumulative nature of humor reduces
the personal ‘sting’ that a higher-status professional will experience if he is publicly exposed or
shamed beyond the workgroup boundary. These dynamics also averts the “incivility spiral” (Caza
and Cortina, 2007) that can emerge when higher-status professionals view the practices of lower-
status professionals as a form of personal score-keeping. In that sense, peer publicizing, and the
emergent and cumulative nature of humor that gets generated, occupies a middle ground between
the Scylla of “escalations and public shaming” (and the incivility spiral this might engender) and
the Charybdis of “customized relational accommodations” (which undermines authority).
Third, this research highlights the emotional toll experienced by lower-status professionals in
their attempts to exercise their functional authority and elicit compliance from the higher-status
professionals. Even to accomplish simple tasks using the authority that comes with their job
description, these lower-status professionals need to perform additional work and exert
considerable emotional labor (Hochschild, 1979). Such emotional labor diminishes their morale
and impacts their well-being (Acker, 1990; Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993). In that regard, this
study departs from prior research that attempts to identify relational work practices that produce a
“win-win” positive effect for both the individual professional as well as the organization (Huising,
2015). On the contrary, this study highlights that the relational styles and associated work practices
that might lead to better outcomes for the organization (e.g., effective compliance) need not always
translate to better individual-level outcomes for the individual professionals. In fact, it could
negatively impact the individual professionals’ morale and well-being. Therefore, this research
suggests that lower-status professionals who are effective in eliciting compliance from higher-
status professionals might also be at a greater risk of increased job burnout, reduced morale, and
even turnover, in part because of the relational style that they need to employ. More generally,
44
while prior research highlights the relational work that the lower-status professionals use to build
rapport and elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals, they have not focused on the
emotional toll on the lower-status professionals, which this research highlights.
Fourth, this study makes progress in answering how lower-status professionals can, under
organizational contexts characterized by consolidated demographics, exercise their functional
authority and elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals. Prior research has examined
how cross-cutting demographics between professional groups with differential status could enable
members of the lower-status profession to draw upon shared “non-professional” social identities
to increase trust, weaken the hold of group affiliation, and elicit compliance from the higher-status
professionals (DiBenigno and Kellogg, 2014, p. 378). However, given the pervasive nature of
occupational/professional segregation in the U.S. economy, most professional groups inside
organizations have consolidated as opposed to cross-cutting demographics (Weeden, 2004).
Moreover, the cooperative benefits from cross-cutting demographics are salient only when it is a
structural characteristic of the workgroup (Blau and Schwartz, 1984; DiBenigno and Kellogg,
2014), which makes it harder to achieve in today’s workplace. This research suggests that lower-
status professionals can instead trigger peer control through enrolling the immediate peers of the
higher-status professionals in the compliance process.
Finally, while prior research has examined how lower-status professionals without functional
authority can use various tactics and practices to elicit compliance from the higher-status
professionals (e.g., Barley, 1986; DiBenigno, 2018), less research has gone into understanding
how lower-status professionals with functional authority can elicit compliance from the higher-
status professions. Indeed, much of prior research has focused on mechanisms to elicit compliance
in contexts where the professional status-order and the bureaucratic authority-order are aligned
(Barley and Orr, 1997; Edmondson, Bohmer, and Pisano, 2001; Kellogg, 2012). This study
suggests a mechanism for eliciting compliance when there is a misalignment or asymmetry
between the professional status-order and the bureaucratic authority-order, which makes eliciting
compliance more difficult. While it might be tempting and intuitive to think that having some
45
functional authority is helpful and advantageous for the lower-status professionals than having no
such authority at all, this research portrays a more complex picture by describing the negative
reactions from higher-status professionals to such functional authority ascribed to the lower-status
professionals. The simmering tensions were visibly manifest during the moment-to-moment flow
of work where the higher-status professionals are expected to acknowledge the authority of the
lower-status professionals by listening to, responding to, and taking directions from them. Findings
from this study, therefore, suggest that it is perhaps not despite having functional authority, but
rather because of it that the lower-status professionals encounter acts of neglect and
noncompliance from the higher-status professionals (e.g., not responding, not giving update). Put
differently, the general awareness among higher-status professionals that certain lower-status
professionals are ascribed with functional authority and deemed responsible by the organization
for overseeing/directing a specific set of functions performed by them creates the structural
preconditions for noncompliance, including their grinding reluctance in following the directions
from the lower-status professionals. All of these culminates in repeated noncompliance.
Indeed, recent research, as well as news media reports, suggest that lower-status professionals
inside organizations who are ascribed with functional authority (e.g., sustainability professionals,
diversity officers, safety auditors, COVID-19 compliance officers, patient safety advocates,
magazine fact-checkers) face several challenges in exercising their functional authority in practice
and eliciting compliance from other higher-status professionals in their workplace (Currie et al.,
2018; Augustine, 2021; Miller, 2021). Given the importance of such lower-status professionals in
the implementation of organizational goals around a range of important issues (e.g., sustainability,
diversity and inclusion, social distancing/infection prevention, patient care, detecting fake news),
it becomes all the more important to not only document the everyday challenges confronted by
these professionals in their workplace, but also understand the practices and mechanisms that could
possibly enable them to elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals and help implement
organizational goals. This research points to one such mechanism – peer publicizing – that could
46
enable the lower-status professionals to elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals and
implicitly exercise their functional authority in practice.
Broader Implications and Directions for Future Research
Future research could examine the extent to which the practices and mechanisms identified in
this research could be analytically transferable to other contexts marked by status-authority
asymmetry between professions. For example, lower-status product designers need to exercise
their functional authority and elicit compliance from the higher-status engineers during the early
stages of product development (Kellogg et al., 2006; Bailey and Leonardi, 2015). Lower-status
quality control officers need to elicit compliance from the higher-status physicians during the
integrated delivery of healthcare (Currie et al., 2018). Likewise, lower-status safety auditors and
sustainability officers need to exercise their functional authority and elicit compliance from the
higher-status scientists with respect to the raw materials used in scientific labs (Huising, 2015;
Augustine, 2021). Across these contexts, exercising functional authority is found to be far from
straightforward due to the everyday acts of neglect and noncompliance exhibited by the higher-
status professionals (Huising and Silbey, 2013). Future research could further examine the scope
conditions (e.g., task interdependence, long-term repeated interactions, the role of quasi-
anonymity versus identity) that might enable or constrain the lower-status professionals toward
using peer publicizing to elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
More broadly, if we can conceptualize various forms of workplace harassment – from
microaggressions and incivility to workplace bullying and sexual harassment – along a continuum,
acts of noncompliance (e.g., neglect, non-response, not following directions) exhibited by higher-
status professionals are high-frequency events, but they are also viewed by the supervisors as minor
issues or low-intensity conflicts. Consequently, such noncompliance exhibited by higher-status
professionals are often ignored and/or not taken seriously by the supervisors. Paradoxically, it is
precisely because these acts of noncompliance are high-frequency events that the lower-status
professionals experience on a daily basis, they produce substantial emotional toll, affect the ability
of these professionals to do their job, and perpetuate workplace inequality. As one of the study
47
participants noted, everyday acts of noncompliance exhibited by the higher-status professionals
invalidated the identity of the lower-status professionals to the extent that they are “not even
acknowledged… not even recognized as a person. As if I don’t even exist anymore to them.”
Findings from this research suggest that the managers and supervisors often do not want to take
follow-up action on an escalated complaint, as they want to avoid getting pulled into a tussle.
Instead, they prefer the lower-status professional to “deal with” such issues by themselves. A
common piece of advice that supervisors give in these situations is to tell the lower-status
professional to “work it out” with the noncompliant higher-status professional. Supervisors view
such social skills to handle a higher-status professional in order to get things done smoothly
without “creating a scene” or “drama” as an important part of the lower-status professionals’ job
competence (cf. Fligstein, 2001). Interestingly, it is often the case that the supervisors are officially
responsible and in charge of resolving issues about noncompliance whenever a case gets escalated
to them. However, since supervisors do not want to get embroiled in a conflict, they are often
reluctant to take action on cases that are escalated to them (Berdahl, 2007).
Ideally, broader structural and organizational reforms are needed to create the conditions where
lower-status professionals can exercise their functional authority without any fear of retaliation
and/or additional relational work needed on their part. Yet, such structural reforms typically take a
longer time duration to be implemented in practice; even if implemented, the regulatory
professional groups could get redirected with their own agenda (for e.g., see Edelman et al., 1999;
Dobbin and Kelley, 2007). Another alternative is to institute turn-around times and service-level
agreements that clearly specify the consequences for noncompliance, and to communicate these
processes and ground rules across the organization. But prior research also suggests that higher-
status professionals find ways to work around or ceremonially comply with these processes and
rules, while not following them in practice (Huising and Silbey, 2013).
My research points to the practices and mechanisms that lower-status professionals can perform
in the short term to implicitly exercise their functional authority by enrolling the immediate peers
of the higher-status professionals in the compliance process. While the specific practices may vary
48
from setting to setting, the broader mechanism of peer publicizing to generate second-degree
influence might be a possible way for lower-status professionals to elicit compliance and navigate
status-authority asymmetry. In the context of 911 EMOs, the publicizing happened through the
peer radio channel. Future research could examine how in other contexts such as product
development, peer publicizing could happen (or not) through the use of communication tools such
as Email and Slack. For example, during initial stages of product development, the lower-status
designers can peer publicize the noncompliant behavior of a software engineer to other engineers
within the workgroup through the Slack channel or email listserv for that engineering workgroup.
The lower-status designer could also publicize the engineer’s noncompliant behavior offline, for
instance, during an in-person team meeting before the engineering manager and other non-
engineering team members come to the conference room. Future research could also explore the
role that professional/organizational norms and culture (e.g., a culture of silence and conflict
avoidance) plays in enabling or constraining the lower-status professionals to exercise their
functional authority in practice and elicit compliance from the higher-status professionals.
49
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55
TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1. Summary of Data Collection Type Description Use in the Analysis
DEMO
Observations 1900+ hours of observation:
• May 2015 – July 2015: Observed training
sessions and simulations for 911 dispatchers
• Aug 2015 – Nov 2015: Observed the 911
call-dispatch process through listening to
the conversations between dispatcher and
police officers via a headphone plug-in
• Jan 2016– May 2017: Shadowed 80
dispatchers over their entire shift for three
consecutive days
• Helped make sense of the dispatch protocols and workflow, including
the radio codes
• To better understand why 911 dispatchers are ascribed with more
formal authority during emergency coordination, even though they
are lower-status in the public safety domain
• Gain insights about the tensions and conflicts between 911
dispatchers and police officers during the coordination process
• To document the interactional practices of dispatchers when they are
dealing with a noncompliant police officer
• To understand the use of different types of radio channels by
dispatchers when they interact with a noncompliant police officer
• To record the variation in how officers responded to the dispatchers’
practices
• To understand the emotional toll experienced by the dispatchers
Interviews 127 interviews:
• 80 ethnographic interviews with 911
dispatchers
• 35 semi-structured interviews with the 911
dispatchers
• 12 semi-structured interviews with the 911
supervisors
• To better understand and interpret the experiences of 911 dispatchers
due to their lower professional status and higher formal authority
• Probing the 911 dispatchers to reflect on a recent 911 job and to
understand why dispatchers interacted with a noncompliant police
officer in a specific manner
• To understand the interpretive significance that the dispatchers attach
to police officers’ noncompliant behavior
• Gain insight about how 911 supervisors view their role, and how they
perceive the dispatchers who escalated issues to them.
Archival • Demographic characteristics of 911
dispatchers
• Education, Work Experience, and
Training Score of 911 Dispatchers
• To address alternative explanations on whether the 911 dispatchers’
demographic characteristics, tenure, or skillsets and competencies
accounted for the variation in cross-professional coordination
outcomes.
DPD
Observations 160 hours of observations:
• 34 ride-alongs with police officers
• Police unit meetings
• To better understand how a police unit functions and how individual
police officers’ respond to 911 calls for service
• To document how police officers respond to the dispatchers’
interactional practices and use of communication media
• Evidence for peer control: to understand how and why how the police
officers within a unit “keep tabs” on each other
Interviews 83 interviews:
• 52 interviews with police officers
responding to 911 calls
• 28 interviews with sergeants and
supervising patrol officers
• 3 interviews with division commanders
• To understand how the police officers view the 911 dispatcher’s
formal authority, especially when they are expected to take directions
from dispatchers
• Gain insights about how police officers assess the credibility and
trustworthiness of their team member, and the interpretive
significance they attach to persistent “slacking” behavior • To interpret how sergeants view their role, how they handle
complaints about a police officer from a 911 dispatcher, and the
rationale for the under-enforcement of remedial actions upon a
noncompliant police officer
56
Table 2: Unproblematic and Problematic Coordination Encounters: Examples
Unproblematic Coordination Encounters - Examples
1) Dispatcher (DP): 1104, are you 10-8 [available for
service] for DIST-2 at [address]?
Police Officer (PO): 787, dispatch yes I’m 10-8
2) Dispatcher (DP): 1315, what’s your status?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 1315, what’s your status?
PO: 744 10-97 [arrived on scene]. Just got in.
3) Dispatcher (DP): 3278, are you clear
Police Officer (PO): 10-4, clear.
Problematic Coordination Encounters – Examples
1) Dispatcher (DP): 2177, are you 10-8 [available for service]?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 2177, officer are you 10-8 to take up next emergency?
PO: [No response]
2) Dispatcher (DP): 2091, what’s your status?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 2091, Officer are you 10-8 [In service]?
PO: [No response]
3) Dispatcher (DP): 1912, are you clear
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 1912, Officer are you clear?
PO: [No response]
Table 3. Breakdown of Shifts, Dispatchers, and Coordination Encounters
Shift Number
of Shifts
Observed
Number of
Dispatchers
Observed
Overall Coordination
Encounters Observed
Problematic Coordination
Encounters Observed
Evening Shift 86 28 2951 1830 (62.01%)
Morning Shift 82 27 1926 1137 (59.03%)
Night Shift 78 25 1404 903 (64.31%)
Total 246 80 6281 3870 (61.61%)
Table 4. Dispatcher’s Interactional Practice and Use of Communication Media
when Coordinating with Noncompliant Police Officers
Communication Medium Private Channel Peer Channel
Interactional Practice
Customizing # of Dispatchers: 33 out of 80 (41.25%)
Evening Shift:9
Morning Shift: 12
Night Shift:12
# of Dispatchers: 5 out of 80 (6.25%)
Evening Shift: 1
Morning Shift: 1
Night Shift: 3
Escalating # of Dispatchers: 17 out of 80 (21.25%)
Evening Shift: 8
Morning Shift: 6
Night Shift:3
- Not Applicable -
Publicizing
- Not Applicable -
# of Dispatchers: 25 out of 80 (31.25%)
Evening Shift: 10
Morning Shift: 8
Night Shift: 7
57
Table 5. Lower-status 911 Dispatchers with Functional Authority Eliciting Compliance from the Higher-Status Police Officers
Breakdown of
Compliance
Outcomes
Total
Number of
Observations
Customizing to Officers via the Private
Radio Channel
Escalating to Supervisors via the Private
Radio Channel
Publicizing to Peers via the Peer Radio
Channel
Noncompliant police
officer acknowledged
a new 911 job
assignment by the
dispatcher12
1419
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer acknowledged a new 911 job
assignment by the dispatcher: 114 (8% of
the total number of observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 38 instances
– Morning Shift: 49 instances
– Night Shift: 27 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant police
officer acknowledged a new 911 job
assignment by the dispatcher: 198 (14% of the
total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 85 instances
– Morning Shift: 61 instances
– Night Shift: 52 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer acknowledged a new 911 job
assignment by the dispatcher: 1107 (78% of
the total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 428 instances
– Morning Shift: 390 instances
– Night Shift: 289 instances
Noncompliant police
officer responded to
“progress update
checks” by the
dispatcher for an
existing 911 job
1536
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer responded to progress update
checks by the dispatcher: 169 (11% of the
total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 60 instances
– Morning Shift: 65 instances
– Night Shift: 44 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant police
officer responded to progress update checks by
the dispatcher: 246 (16% of the total number
observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 87 instances
– Morning Shift: 102 instances
– Night Shift:57 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer responded to progress update
checks by the dispatcher: 1121 (73% of the
total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift:415 instances
– Morning Shift: 398 instances
– Night Shift:308 instances
Noncompliant police
officer voluntarily
provided “finish
update” after
completing an existing
911 job
915
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer voluntarily provided finish
update to the dispatcher: 82 (9% of the
total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 39 instances
– Morning Shift: 27 instances
– Night Shift: 16 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant police
officer voluntarily provided finish update to the
dispatcher:55 (6% of the total number
observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 21 instances
– Morning Shift: 15 instances
Night Shift: 19 instances
# of instances when the noncompliant
police officer voluntarily provided finish
update to the dispatcher: 778 (85% of the
total number observations)
By Shift:
– Evening Shift: 299 instances
– Morning Shift: 272 instances
Night Shift: 207 instances
12 Within the limits of the formal protocol of a 911 dispatcher mentioning an officer’s #ID twice.
58
Figure 1. A Model of Eliciting Compliance in the Presence of Status-Authority Asymmetry Between Professions
59
APPENDIX
Appendix A: Background of the 911 Dispatchers
# Gender Race Training
Score
(out of
100)
Level of Education Degree in
Criminal
Justice?
Tenure
at
DEMO
(months)
Relational Style
1 Female Black 83 Bachelor's degree No 66 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
2 Female Black 74 High School Diploma No 90 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
3 Female Black 79 Bachelor's degree No 34 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
4 Female Hispanic 81 High School Diploma No 44 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
5 Female Black 80 High School Diploma No 24 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
6 Male White 75 High School Diploma No 38 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
7 Female Black 75 Bachelor's degree Yes 5 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
8 Female White 72 Bachelor's degree No 19 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
9 Female Black 79 High School Diploma No 30 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
10 Female Hispanic 82 High School Diploma No 74 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
11 Female Black 73 High School Diploma No 24 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
12 Female Black 80 Bachelor's degree Yes 8 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
13 Female White 74 Bachelor's degree No 96 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
14 Female Black 77 Bachelor's degree Yes 144 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
15 Female Black 72 High School Diploma No 168 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
16 Male Black 88 Bachelor's degree Yes 42 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
17 Male Black 85 High School Diploma No 12 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
18 Female Black 80 Bachelor's degree No 14 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
19 Female Hispanic 91 Bachelor's degree No 23 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
20 Female Asian 83 Bachelor's degree No 54 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
21 Female Black 71 Bachelor's degree No 96 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
22 Female Black 85 Bachelor's degree No 67 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
23 Male Hispanic 76 Bachelor's degree No 22 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
24 Female Hispanic 81 High School Diploma No 132 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
25 Female Black 72 Bachelor's degree No 78 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
26 Male White 83 High School Diploma No 62 Customizing using the Peer Radio Channel
27 Female Black 77 High School Diploma No 48 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
28 Female Hispanic 90 High School Diploma No 84 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
29 Female Hispanic 90 High School Diploma No 65 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
30 Female Black 90 Bachelor's degree No 38 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
31 Male Asian 81 Bachelor's degree Yes 49 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
32 Female Black 79 Bachelor's degree No 34 Customizing using the Peer Radio Channel
33 Male Black 88 Master's degree Yes 60 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
34 Female Black 70 Bachelor's degree No 168 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
35 Female Hispanic 74 High School Diploma No 58 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
36 Female Black 86 High School Diploma No 60 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
37 Female Black 75 High School Diploma No 60 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
38 Female Hispanic 73 Bachelor's degree Yes 108 Customizing using the Peer Radio Channel
39 Female Black 79 Bachelor's degree No 84 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
40 Male Hispanic 81 Bachelor's degree Yes 96 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
41 Female Black 79 Bachelor's degree No 18 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
42 Female Black 73 Bachelor's degree No 216 Customizing using the Peer Radio Channel
43 Female White 83 Bachelor's degree No 168 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
44 Female Black 85 High School Diploma No 4 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
45 Female Black 83 Bachelor's degree No 44 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
46 Male Black 77 Bachelor's degree Yes 11 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
60
47 Female Black 76 Master's degree Yes 180 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
48 Male White 71 High School Diploma No 12 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
49 Female Black 73 High School Diploma No 30 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
50 Female White 78 Master's degree Yes 8 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
51 Female Black 81 High School Diploma No 18 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
52 Female Black 75 High School Diploma No 30 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
53 Female Hispanic 72 High School Diploma No 12 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
54 Female Black 75 High School Diploma No 11 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
55 Male Black 94 Bachelor's degree Yes 30 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
56 Female Black 73 Bachelor's degree No 120 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
57 Female White 77 High School Diploma No 54 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
58 Female Black 89 High School Diploma No 7 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
59 Female White 90 High School Diploma No 54 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
60 Female Black 92 Master's degree Yes 132 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
61 Female Black 89 High School Diploma No 14 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
62 Female Hispanic 92 Bachelor's degree No 36 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
63 Female Black 77 Bachelor's degree Yes 102 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
64 Male Hispanic 75 Bachelor's degree Yes 30 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
65 Female White 74 High School Diploma No 72 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
66 Female Black 78 Bachelor's degree No 6 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
67 Female Black 71 Bachelor's degree No 144 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
68 Female Black 71 High School Diploma No 132 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
69 Female Hispanic 88 High School Diploma No 18 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
70 Female Black 75 High School Diploma No 11 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
71 Female Black 72 Master's degree Yes 12 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
72 Female White 91 High School Diploma No 48 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
73 Male White 73 Bachelor's degree No 80 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
74 Female Black 77 Bachelor's degree Yes 108 Escalating using the Private Radio Channel
75 Female Black 70 Bachelor's degree No 90 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
76 Female Hispanic 85 High School Diploma No 59 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
77 Female Black 88 Bachelor's degree Yes 118 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
78 Male Black 79 Bachelor's degree No 16 Customizing using the Peer Radio Channel
79 Female Black 84 High School Diploma No 106 Publicizing using the Peer Radio Channel
80 Female Black 73 High School Diploma No 60 Customizing using the Private Radio Channel
61
Appendix B: Semi-structured Interview Protocol
(questions in italics are added during the second and third iterations) 911 Dispatchers:
1. Tell me about your background. What motivated you to join DEMO?
2. Did you have previous experience in the 911 field?
a. If yes, can you tell me more about your prior work experience?
3. How long have you been with DEMO?
4. Did you join DEMO as a 911 call-taker or a 911 dispatcher?
5. How would you describe the dispatch training process at DEMO?
a. What was the most difficult part of training?
b. What did you learn the most?
c. Could you recollect your visit to DPD and the ride-alongs you did as a part of your training?
d. How did it go?
e. What did you learn from your DPD visit?
6. When were you promoted as a 911 dispatcher? How different is 911 call-taking from 911 dispatch?
7. How would you describe your role as a 911 dispatcher to an outsider, say your neighbor?
8. How would you describe your role as a 911 dispatcher to someone within law enforcement?
9. Do you think they understand your role and what you do?
10. Tell me more about your work. What are the different tasks and activities you do as a 911 dispatcher?
a. What are some of the tasks you like the most?
b. What are some of the tasks you like the least? Why?
11. What is the most challenging part of your job?
12. Your work is very time-sensitive and involves multi-tasking. What are some of the ways you manage your
workload?
13. What are the major challenges you confront when you are coordinating with police officers?
a. [depending on the answer] Why do you say that “you are not respected” by the officers? If you
are comfortable sharing, can you tell me more about it?
b. Could you recollect the last incident when you felt you were not respected by a police officer?
What did you do about it?
14. Can you give me some examples of how the officers do not comply with your requests?
a. Are all officers like that? Or only some of them?
b. Why do you think officers are non-responsive and fail to give status updates?
15. What are the practices you try to follow when interacting with a police officer who is non-compliant? (e.g.,
not responding to the radio, not giving a status update etc.)
a. Do you follow different practices and tactics for different officers?
b. If not, why?
c. How often do you remember the officer whom you coordinate with?
16. In what ways do you use the police radio channels?
a. Do you have a preference for using a particular channel when coordinating with an officer?
b. Why do you use that specific channel? [private channel, peer channel]
17. How supportive are the 911 supervisors? Do you approach them for any issues?
a. Did you escalate any issues or complaints about a police officer to your supervisor?
b. If yes, when was the last time you did that? And how did it go?
c. How did the supervisor react to your escalation?
d. If no, why?
18. How supportive are the sergeants? Do you approach them for any issues?
a. Did you escalate any issues or complaints about a police officer to the Sarge?
62
b. If yes, when was the last time you did that? And how did it go?
c. How did the Sarge react to your escalation?
d. If no, why?
19. If there are a few things that you would like to change at DEMO and DPD that would make your 911
dispatch work easier, what would those be?
911 Supervisors:
1. Tell me about your background. What motivated you to join DEMO?
2. How long have you been with DEMO?
3. Did you have previous experience in the 911 field?
a. If yes, can you tell me more about your prior work experience?
4. When were you promoted as a 911 supervisor?
5. How would you describe your role as a 911 supervisor to someone within law enforcement?
6. Tell me more about your work. What are the different tasks and activities you do as a 911 supervisor?
a. What are some of the tasks you like the most?
b. What are some of the tasks you like the least? Why?
7. What is the most challenging part of your job?
8. How do you evaluate the work of a 911 dispatcher?
9. According to you, what are some of the skillsets needed to be an effective dispatcher?
10. How would you describe an ideal 911 dispatcher? What should and shouldn’t they do?
11. What are the major challenges you confront when you are supervising 911 dispatchers?
12. Do the 911 dispatchers raise any issues or complaints to you about police officers?
a. If so, can you recollect a recent example?
b. Why do you think officers are non-responsive and fail to give status updates to dispatchers?
c. How do you think the dispatcher should have handled that situation?
13. How supportive are the sergeants? Have you approached them recently for any issues?
a. Do you talk about the dispatchers’ complaint about an officer to the Sarge?
b. If yes, when was the last time you did that? How did the Sarge react to your escalations?
c. If no, why not?
14. If there are a few things that you would like to change at DEMO and DPD that would make work as a 911
supervisor easier, what would those be?
Police Officers:
1. Tell me about your background. What motivated you to join DPD?
2. How long have you been with DPD?
3. Did you have prior experience working in law enforcement?
4. How would you describe the training process at DPD?
a. What was the most difficult part of training?
b. What did you learn the most?
c. Could you recollect your visit to the DEMO 911 operations floor as a part of your police academy
training?
d. How did it go, and what did you learn?
5. How would you describe your role to someone within DEMO, say to a 911 dispatcher? Do they understand
what you do? Do they have a good sense of the situations you confront?
6. Tell me more about your work. How do you structure the different tasks and activities in your shift?
a. What are some of the tasks you like the most?
b. What are some of the tasks you like the least? Why?
c. How much of your time per shift goes into attending 911 jobs?
63
d. How do you feel about that? Do you think you have control over your schedule, and the tasks that
you do?
e. If not, why? Can you elaborate?
7. From your understanding, how would you describe what a 911 dispatcher does? What do you think are
some of the tasks that dispatchers do?
8. What are the challenges you confront when coordinating 911 dispatchers?
a. Can you give a recent example of an incident with a 911 dispatcher?
b. Why do you think that incident happened?
c. What did you do about it?
9. What are the practices you try to follow when interacting with a 911 dispatcher?
a. Do you follow distinct practices and tactics for different dispatchers?
b. If not, why?
10. According to you, what are some of the skillsets needed to be an effective dispatcher?
a. How would you describe an ideal 911 dispatcher?
b. What should and shouldn’t they do when dispatching a 911 job to officers such as you?
11. Tell me about your [police] unit? How do you operate?
12. What are some of the things you look for in your unit members?
a. What do you mean by a “team player”? Can you elaborate?
b. What are some of the characteristics of a “team player”?
c. What do you mean by “shirkers”? What are some of the characteristics of a “shirker”?
d. How do you find out if someone in your unit is a shirker? Can you give an example?
13. How and in what ways do you use the police radio channels?
a. Do you have a preference for using a particular channel?
b. Why do you use that specific channel? [private channel, peer channel]
14. How supportive are the sergeants? Do you approach them for any issues?
15. If there are a few things that you would like to change at DPD and DEMO that would make your work as a
police officer easier, what would those be?
Sergeants:
1. Tell me about your background. How long have you been with DPD?
2. Did you have previous experience in law enforcement? When were you promoted as a sergeant?
3. Tell me more about your work. What are the different tasks and activities that you do?
4. How would you describe your role as a sergeant to a 911 dispatcher?
5. What is the most challenging part of your job?
a. What are the challenges you confront when you are supervising the officers?
b. How do you go about monitoring the radio channels?
6. How do you evaluate the work of a police officer?
a. According to you, what are some of the skillsets needed to be an effective officer?
b. How do you keep tabs on an officer? What do you look for?
c. How do you deal with an officer who might be shirking and unloading work onto others in the
unit? Do you handle it yourself, or let the unit handle it? Why so?
7. Do the 911 dispatchers escalate issues to you about any police officers?
a. If so, can you recollect an example? What did you do to that escalation incident?
b. How do you think the officer should have handled that situation?
64
Appendix C: Emergent Codes, Themes, and Additional Evidence
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
Status-Authority
Asymmetry
Misalignment of professional status
and functional authority
911 dispatchers’ referring to their organization as
“we are the command center.”
911 dispatchers’ referring to why their “command
role” during 911 response is important for
emergency coordination, but at the same time
mentioning that officers are non-compliant in
responding to their requests.
Police officers describing the 911 dispatchers as
“just civilians in a fancy uniform,” “desk
jockeys,” and “they are not sworn.” Statements
from police officers about 911 dispatchers
“breathing down my neck” and how they feel
about taking directions from them.
“So when we take a dispatch decision in a certain way, the officers
need to go with it, with our judgment. That’s why we are the
command center. Of course, they can ask us to provide more info or
clarify something that they didn’t understand, but they got to go
with our decision. Only the sergeants or the district commanders
can override us if they think they are resource-constrained or if
some other stuff – like special activities or some form of training –
is going on in their district. And even there, we want them to
inform us ahead of time. [Interview, 911 Shift Supervisor]
“As dispatchers, we know that we are the ‘Command.’ Of course,
Officers don’t directly report to us, they have their own reporting
structure at DPD. But for 911 calls, we are the Command. Officers
have to listen to us, follow directions, answer our check-ins, and
update us, that’s in the rulebook, right there… But many officers
don’t even bother with it. They do what they want, they do as they
please… don’t even get me started on why they behave like this”
[Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
“I am an extremely patient person, but there are times I wish that
officers started behaving like fuckin’ adults. It’s not a big ask, just
be professional, and get back to me. I am not even expecting a
response right there immediately, but within my second ask, get
back to me. Nobody likes long radio silence, because I don’t know
if you [officer] are just getting coffee or taking a piss, or if someone
shot you” [Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
“You’re doing your PhD, right? So one day you’ll become a
Professor. Or wear a suit and tie join a company? So think about
this, how would you feel if your secretary who is supposed to help
you with stuff, is also your boss and everyday every few fucking
minutes you’re supposed to tell her where you’re whatya doing and
when you’re done! How would that feel? That’s exactly how I feel
right now… Dispatch exists for a reason, I understand that. But
they can’t keep breathing down my neck. They’re there to help me
to help us, but they can’t keep ramming it down my throat and just
keeping asking for update.” [Interview, Police Officer]
65
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
Status-Authority
Asymmetry
Lower-status 911 dispatchers unable
to elicit compliance from the higher-
status police officers
911 dispatchers’ describing the police officers’
“lack of radio discipline” by “not answering the
radio” “not giving status update” “keep cutting
them” and “cutting off each other”
High frequency of non-compliance exhibited by
police officers
Dispatcher (DP): 2030, are you clear from [job] #19355?
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 2030, officer are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: [after a minute] 2030, officer? Clear from #19355?
PO: [No response]
DP: 2030, officer are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: [30 seconds later] 2030, checking again, are you receiving?
PO: [No response]
***
DP: 4165, what’s your status? Are you 10-8 [In service]?
PO: [No response]
DP: 4165, everything 10-4 there?
PO: 744, 10-4 [everything ok]
DP: 4165, DIST at 445 Cedar, 2 Hispanic Males…
Another PO: 1519 to Dispatch, 10-10....
DP: 1519, stand by.
Another PO: [interrupting again] I will be 10-7 [out of service]
DP: 1519, stand by
PO: [interrupting] Need to change the DIRA with…
DP: 1519, stand by. Dispatch in-progress and will get back to you.
Customizing to
the higher-status
professional via
the private radio
channel
Using the private communication
channel to follow-up with the non-
compliant higher-status professional
“reach out” to and “follow-up” with the police
officer who is not responding to the dispatcher.
“I try to reach out to the officers and check if they don’t get back to
me… it takes me more time, but I feel that as a dispatcher I should
check and see if they are doing ok. So I tune to their channel and
then check with them on their status or if everything is ok. I feel
that’s the right thing do.” [Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
“If they [officers] don’t respond, what can you do about it? Well, I
try to ping them again to check if they are receiving… I want to be
nice to the officers and follow-up with them through their channel,
because who knows what is happening on their end. It is better to
check that way, so if something is going on or if they are 10-7 [out
of service] or went 10-10 [off duty] but forgot to update it, they
might let you know” [Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
66
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
Using the private communication
channel to follow-up with the non-
compliant higher-status professional.
“be nice to the officers,” putting on a “girlfriend’s
voice” when reaching out to the unresponsive
officer.
“Officers ask me to update the DIRA or run a number [license], and
I don’t say no to that. It’s hard for me to say that, I don’t know
why. I guess that’s the way I am, I have a hard time saying ‘sorry I
can’t do that’ or ‘it’s not really my job” [Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
***
DP: 1055, are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: [after a few seconds] 1055, officer are you at 600th of Oak and
Ninth for #16744
PO: [No response]
DP [switches to the private channel]: Officer, are you still at
600th of Oak and Ninth?
PO: [No response]
DP: Officer, 10-73 [are you receiving?]
PO: 10-4, receiving.
DP: are you at 600th of Oak and Ninth, or you are clear from that?
PO: [No response for few seconds]
PO: 10-9 [repeat message]
DP: Officer, you at 600th of Oak and Ninth still? Want to know if
you are 10-98
PO: Stand by
DP: 10-4 [sighs and takes a deep breath]
PO: I am out to 10-17 [gasoline] and then out.
DP: copy that
PO: Dispatch, can you update the status for #16744. Sent you the
info [via MDT]. RD is DPD10496632
DP: 10-4, can you update your status to 10-7 [out of service]
PO: [No response]
Higher-status professionals not
reciprocating and complying to the
lower-status professionals’ requests
Police officer describing that the dispatcher “got
to make adjustments” and there is “no harm in
checking back.”
“Handling an emergency call is not like working in an assembly
line. Dispatch can’t be mechanical about it, they got to make
adjustments [to their workflow] so that there is flexibility. They got
to work with us, and adjust based on the situation that we are trying
67
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
911 dispatcher being taken for granted by the
police officer, yielding in even more non-
compliance from the higher-status professional
[from observations of the subsequent interactions
between the customizing dispatcher and the non-
compliant police officer]
to handle… It’s always good if they check with us if we forgot to
update them on a job” [Interview, Police Officer]
“If I didn’t answer the radio right away, then check with me again.
That’s what I would say to dispatch. There is no harm in checking
back. What do you got to lose? Some dispatchers are good at this
and they should keep at it, it makes our job as officers easier. That’s
how it should be, because we are the ones out here toiling hard…
so it’s better if they check back at a time that works for me than just
annoying the crap out of me” [Interview, Police Officer]
Escalating to
supervisors via
the private radio
channel
Using the private communication
channel for escalations
911 dispatchers’ describing why they prefer to
“play by the book.”
Statements from 911 dispatchers such as
informing the “Sarge to take care of it” and
“escalate to Sarge” about a non-compliant officer
“If the officer is not responding, I try one more time. If he is still
not responding and has been like that then I ping the Sarge and
mention the officer ID, asking Sarge to check on the officer. That’s
how I escalate… We are dealing with emergencies here, which is
why there are rules and officers need to obey these rules. If they
don’t, too bad, but the rulebook tells me to escalate to Sarge [about
the non-compliant officer], so I do that...” [Interview, 911
Dispatcher]
“I don’t like to check with the officer again and again… to see if
everything is 10-4. I’ve checked with him already twice, so why
should I do that again? … When I escalate to Sarge, I hope that
Sarge will take care of it. Sometimes they do, but lots of times they
just don’t. I don’t understand why but I have done my job and can
move on to the next. You got to be tough in this job” [Interview,
911 Dispatcher]
Escalating to
supervisors via
the private radio
channel
Using the private communication
channel for escalations
DP: 1451, Officer are you 10-98?
PO: [No response]
DP: [waits for a minute] 1451, what’s your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1451, update status to dispatch.
PO: [No response]
DP: [after a few more seconds] 1451, how do you receive?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1451, is your reception good?
PO: [No response]
68
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
DP [switches to the private channel]: 833 to Sarge, you have a
minute?
Sergeant (ST): 833, 10-24 [standby] for a sec
DP: 10-4
ST [after some time]: 833, I can talk now
DP: Thanks Sarge. Just want to do a quick check on 1451, is she 10-
19 [returning to station] or on 10-61 [miscellaneous public service]?
ST: Ok, let me check
[after a few seconds]
ST: No, I see that she is available and clear from previous job.
DP: Got it, but I’m unable to contact 1451. Been trying for some time
now. Are you 10-25 with her? [i.e., do you have contact with 1451?]
ST: Ok, let me see if I can 10-25 her and advice. Will update you
DP: 10-4 Sarge, thanks.
[after a few minutes]
ST: 833, spoke to 1451 and she’s been advised. You can contact her.
DP: received, ok sarge. I will contact and assign for next job
[after a couple of minutes when a new 911 job appears on the
dispatcher’s CAD; Dispatcher #833 checks the location of the
incident, which happened to be close to Officer #1451’s location]
DP [on the private channel]: 1451, 484 [petty theft] at 7-Eleven by
Grand and Main St.,40s, Hispanic woman, light blue t-shirt, fled the
scene but in vicinity and 2 blocks north from location
PO: 10-4, you got any id [more identification information]?
DP: 1451, no, that’s all we’ve got and [was] reported.
PO: [No response]
DP: 1451, can you confirm you are 10-49 [proceeding to location]?
PO: Proceeding, but id [identification information] insufficient.
69
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
DP: 1451, [7-11] store manager saw her and will give more info.
Contact number is available on your PDT [personal data terminal]
and you can check with him.
PO: Negative. Can you check [with the 911 call-taker] and update?
DP: [sighs] 10-4
[Dispatcher # 833 then proceeds to message the call-taker who took
that 911 call and asks the call-taker to check with the store manager
and update the CAD with more identification info]
Escalating to
supervisors via
the private radio
channel
Undermined lateral relationship
between the professionals.
Police officers describing how they “felt betrayed”
by the escalating dispatcher.
Police officers refer to the escalating dispatchers
as “clueless” “incompetent” “unprofessional”
“It’s the incompetent ones who suck at their job that go behind my
back and complain to Sarge. Not that I’m scared or anything, but
it’s unprofessional… If a dispatcher is trying to deal with me, then
deal with me. If there’s a problem, tell there’s a problem. If there’s
an issue, speak to me… Why go tell the Sarge, it’s all unnecessary
and so stupid, and it’s a waste of time.” [Interview, Police Officer]
“Some dispatchers know their shit, they know how to work with us,
they know how to communicate. And then there are others who are
fucking clueless. They are like robots, so rigid so mechanical. They
escalate to Sarge for everything, it’s silly. There is so much
pressure in this job that they can’t handle it, so they run to Sarge
like crying babies.”
“When dispatch does that [escalate to Sarge], I don’t trust that person
any more. I feel betrayed, like you have broken the trust we had and
took things out of order. That’s not how we handle it here, at this
level you got to keep working and keep it professional… If you can’t
do that, you don’t belong here.” [Interview, Police Officer]
Publicizing to
peers via the
peer radio
channel
Using the peer communication
channel to publicize the non-
compliant behavior of a higher-status
professional
911 dispatchers’ “outing an officer” to the police
unit, where the non-compliant behavior of the
officer is publicized to the immediate peers (i.e.,
the police unit)
Dispatchers describing why they use a bantering
tone to keep it “less personal” when they “out an
“There’s a way to handle the officers, especially the ones that don’t
listen to you. Officers, what they really worry about what they
really care, is not the Sarge or the Command, but how will their
unit think of them, that’s what they worry about. It’s about their
partner and the unit…
So my approach is to inform the unit about that officer. The trick is
to slip that information to them casually, like smooth, just slip it
through… and not scream about it or complain about it.”
[Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
70
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
Publicizing to
peers via the
peer radio
channel
Using the peer communication
channel to publicize the non-
compliant behavior of a higher-status
professional
officer.” Statements from police officers on why
they “jump in” to “make fun of the officer”
Self-disciplining of a police officer due to peer
control, ensuing in subsequent compliance [from
observations of the subsequent interactions
between the publicizing dispatcher and the non-
compliant police officer]
“My instinct is to shout back [at the non-compliant officer]… but
you’ll end up making a scene and nobody, just NOBODY, likes
that... So I put my ‘improv’ hat on to say something funny and get
the unit involved… They’all make that officer respond, that’s been
my experience so far. They will pull his leg, make fun of him, or
poke each other, and then the officer starts behaving. So far it’s
worked well for me although it’s quite exhausting to do that”
[Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
DP: 1545, what’s your status?
PO: [radio static noise]
DP: 1545, are you receiving?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1545, officer, what’s your status? Are you back from 100th of
Main and District, handling a 505 [reckless driving], Grey Audi
PO: [No response]
DP: [checks the location of the police car, which shows that the
officer is still around that area] Officer, are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1545, you took the Audi for a spin? How’s that going? You like
it, test drive going well?
Other PO’s: [laughter and chat on the channel]
PO2: 1545 likes the Audi, wants that one as his patrol car…
PO3: what’s he going to do with his current one?
PO2: Dump it, I guess.
PO4 [laughter]: 1545 should write to the [Police] Chief, make Audi
the squad car…
PO: [laughs] 541, sorry about that. Clear from 505 and now 10-98
[available for next assignment]
PO3: Test drive successful. 1545 is back.
DP: [laughs] 1545, 10-4, got it. Ready for the next one?
PO2: You bet.
PO: [laughs] Alright squad, clear the air. Dispatch, ready for 1098.
What do you have for me?
DP: 415 [Disturbance] at 2011 S Washington, 5th floor, Apartment
503. Compliant from neighbor, same building Apart. 501.
PO: 10-4, on my way.
71
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
[After some time when PO 1545 returns from that job]
PO: 1545 to Dispatch, all clear from 415 at 2011 S Washington.
Report filed.
DP: 10-4, thanks Officer.
PO: Updated status to 10-98
DP: 1545, 390D [drunk, unconscious] in front of [bar name] at 908
North District, White male, mid-20s.
PO: 10-4, received and on my way.
***
DP: 1244, Officer 1545, what’s your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1244, your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1244, officer are you receiving?
PO: [No response]
DP: [checks the location of the police car, shows it’s by the Lake
Drive] Officer, are you 10-98?
PO: [No response]
DP: 1244, that gym at Lake and Cedar is apparently good. Top floor,
you can do treadmill looking at the lake…
[Laughter on the peer channel]
PO2: 1244 is an elliptical guy, not a treadmill guy
PO3: Likes squats too
PO2: It’s his leg day today
PO3: That’s right
PO4: Have never seen him at our [police] gym though
PO2: [laughter] 1244 just sneaks in and sneaks out at lunch. He is a
busy man
PO: Squad…
PO2: Protein shake?
[More laughter]
PO: [laughs] 1244 to Dispatch, now 10-7 [In service]
DP: 1244, Officer there’s a 10-70 [prowler] reported at 305 Maple
Ave [gives more details to the officer]
PO: 10-4, on it.
72
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
[PO 1244 returns from that job and gives a status update]
PO: 1244 to Dispatch, all clear on 10-70 at 305 Maple
DP: 10-4
PO: Taking a short 8 [restroom break]. Will be back in 5
DP: Received, 10-4
[after a few minutes]
PO: 1244 to Dispatch, back from 8 and now 10-7
DP: 10-4, thanks. Standby for next job
PO: Received, 10-4. Standing-by.
***
DP: 2055, are you clear from 7? [lunch break]
PO: [No response]
DP: 2055, are you back from 7?
PO: [No response]
DP: 2055, are you clear and 10-98?
PO: [No response]
DP: Officer, you watch Master Chef? Ramsay shouts at everyone,
not sure he likes any food at all. But Anthony Bourdain, he is such a
foodie…
PO2: 2055 is a foodie too, been to every restaurant at District 4
PO3: But he is picky. Has starters at one place, main course at
another, dessert at third…
PO2: coffee and snack at fourth…
PO4: He also brings his own Tupperware, just in case…
PO5: Should do a potluck
PO2: 2055 doesn’t do potluck. He has fine taste.
[more laughter]
PO: Ok ok squad…
DP: 2055, welcome back.
PO: [laughs] Dispatch, back from 7 and ready. 10-98. What do you
have?
DP: 2055, 11-25 [traffic hazard] at 3400 District and Main, DTC
breakdown, Number 27 [provides more details about the issue]
PO: Received, 10-4.
73
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
Publicizing to
peers via the
peer radio
channel
Triggering peer control and the
generation of second-degree
influence
Police officers describing what they do after
being “called out on the radio” by a dispatcher
and how “outing an officer” helps them avoid a
“slacker from becoming a shirker”
Statements from police officers about why
“shirkers” are not credible partners and
trustworthy “team players” during emergency
situations.
“Look, nobody’s a saint here. I’ve been called out, [another
officer’s name] been called out by dispatch, even [senior police
officer’s name] been called out. It happens to all of us, an officer
might be new to the job or might be at it for years, it happens to
everyone, it’s part of the package, comes with the job. So nothing
to be ashamed about… Think of it as feedback, like looking at
yourself on the mirror…
You don’t know how well you’re doing till then because you are so
used to it, so might have forgotten how things work or become
kinda lazy… So it helps to straighten things up, correct yourself, so
you are more responsive and not be seen as an offloader by your
unit. You want to be a team player… at that time you might think
that you are a team player, but maybe you are not. You should be
seen as a team player, that’s more important.” [Interview, Police
Officer, #PO]
“I’ve been a cop for some years now and have never seen a shirker
who’s also a team player. It just doesn’t happen... Shirkers are
selfish bastards. He’s out there just for himself because that’s all he
cares about. He won’t have your back or his [pointing to another
officer] back, just wants to save his own ass and then brownnose
the Sarge to get his way… So I stay away a shirker and don’t want
him as my partner… but as a unit we try hard to prevent someone
from becoming that. Yeah it’s in their character alright, but hey
anyone can become that, have seen that happen and better to
prevent that before too late” [Interview, Police Officer, #PO]
“When an officer is outed by dispatch, I pay attention to it. We all
[unit] pay close attention. Because it’s [outed by dispatch] not
random, there’s some reason to it… maybe the officer is overdoing
it, so we put the spotlight on that officer, crack some jokes…so that
the officer is back on track” [Interview, Police Officer, #PO]
Emotional Toll Emotional toll experienced by the
lower-status professionals due to the
relational work they do when
interacting with the police officers
911 dispatchers’ describing how they are tired of
“repeated follow-ups,” “putting on a mask,” and
“sweet talk” to the police officers
Statements from 911 dispatchers such as how their
functional authority is not recognized to the extent
“Sometimes I don’t know why I am doing this, why should I always
be the “nice one” to do all this checking and rechecking… I feel so
drained already and I am not even halfway through… If they
[officers] can just give me the update when I ask for it, I wouldn’t
feel this tired and drained… When I get back home, I am so dead that
I couldn’t even play with my kids” [Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
74
Overarching
Dimension
Themes
Emergent Codes Additional Evidence
(Interview Quotes, Exchanges from Observations)
they are “not even acknowledged” and “not even
recognized as a person”
“Yeah right, it sounds cool to be funny and all that when I out an
officer and I also laugh about it at that moment. But being funny is
also tiring. It’s not like they are paying me extra or anything to be
funny. I mean, I don’t get a dime extra, and there is so much fatigue
and weight-gain from this job already. So thanks but no thanks, I
would rather do my job straight faced and get done with it”
[Interview, 911 Dispatcher]
Dispatcher (DP): 6093, checking your status
Police Officer (PO): [No response]
DP: 6093, officer are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: [after some time] 6093, everything 10-4?
PO: [No response]
DP: [switches to the private channel] officer, are you receiving?
PO: [No response]
DP: 6093, wanted to check if you are 10-8 [in service]?
PO: [after few seconds] Receiving.
DP: Officer, should I clear you from # 693 [previous job]?
PO: [No response]
DP: do you want me to repeat message?
PO: 10-23 [stand by]
DP: [let’s out a sigh] 10-4
PO: [after a few seconds]: Receiving
DP: Officer, wanted to check if you are 10-98 [available to be
assigned to a new job]
PO: [no response]
DP: Officer, do you receive
PO: 10-4
PO: [sighs again] Officer, are you 10-8 [in service] or 10-98
[available to be assigned]
PO: [No response]
75
Appendix D: Addressing Alternative Explanations
Findings from the study suggest that the relational style – entailing interactional practices and
the use of communication media – enacted by the lower-status 911 dispatchers could help us
explain how and why some of them are able to effectively elicit compliance from the higher-status
police officers, while others are not able to. Nevertheless, there could be other alternative
explanations on why some of these 911 dispatchers were more effective in eliciting compliance
from the higher-status police officers than others. I address the alternative explanations below:
Lack of Knowledge about Each Other’s Work. One plausible alternative explanation is that
the police officers and the dispatchers lack of knowledge about each other’s work, which in turn
makes eliciting compliance difficult. My interview with the police officers suggests that while the
officers did not have complete knowledge about the intricacies of the 911 dispatcher’s work, they
are nevertheless generally aware of dispatch protocols, the 911 dispatchers’ workflow, and
cognizant of the functional authority that 911 dispatchers have during emergency response. As a
part of their police academy training, police officers need to visit the operations floor at DEMO
before they are deployed to a police district. Trainees spend a day at the DEMO operations floor,
observing the work of 911 call-takers and 911 dispatchers, and listening to a presentation by the
911 supervisors and managers about 911 dispatch processes and protocols. While one cannot
completely rule out the possibility that some police officers might have a better understanding of
the work of the 911 dispatchers than others, every officer I interviewed did mention that they
visited the DEMO operations floor as a part of their police academy training, observed the work
of 911 dispatchers, and are aware of 911 dispatchers’ workflow including the time-constrained
and multi-tasking nature of dispatch work. In fact, 48 out of the 52 officers whom I interviewed
even recognized the difficulties involved in the work of dispatchers, but when I did ride-alongs
with them, I observed that most of the officers were non-compliant and did not often acknowledge
the dispatchers’ call for a new job assignment or provided progress updates.
911 dispatchers are also aware of the police officers’ work. As a part of the training process at
DEMO, 911 dispatch trainees are required to do ride-alongs with police officers before they are
76
deployed to the operations floor, so that the former develops a better understanding of the latter’s
work. All the dispatchers I interviewed were aware of the nature of police work and its everyday
challenges, including the difficult situations police officers confront “on the street” and “when
interacting with the public.”
Dispatcher’s Skills and Competencies. Were the 911 dispatchers who followed a publicizing
relational style more competent and skillful than other dispatchers? With the type of data I have
collected in my ethnography, it is difficult to fully address this question. Moreover, skills and
competencies are generally harder to assess at the individual level through observational and
interview data. Therefore, I am using other indicators from archival/demographic data as proxies
for the individual dispatcher’s skills and competencies. These include the dispatcher’s (a) training
score; (b) education; (c) degree in criminal justice; and (d) tenure at DEMO as a 911 dispatcher.
Every 911 professional at DEMO needs to undergo internal dispatch training for two months.
At the end of the training program, dispatch trainees need to take an exam and go through a
simulation exercise, where they are evaluated by senior 911 trainers on a number of dimensions
(multi-tasking, knowledge of city geography and street system, radio codes, active listening,
situational awareness, communication). A dispatch trainee needs to get at least 70 out of 100 to
pass the training before they are deployed as a 911 dispatcher at the operations floor.
I find that the training score does not explain the variation in why some dispatchers chose a
certain relational style over another. Neither does it explain the variation in dispatcher’s ability to
elicit compliance from the police officers. As described in Appendix A, some dispatchers with
high training scores of 85 and above followed a customizing relational style, while other
dispatchers with low-to-medium scores followed a publicizing relational style. Likewise, the level
of education also did not explain why some dispatchers chose certain relational styles and were
more effective in eliciting compliance from police officers than others. As shown in Appendix A,
there were dispatchers with a master’s degree who enacted a customizing or an escalating relational
style, while other dispatchers with a diploma who followed a publicizing style.
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A degree in criminal justice or in a related field might have given a dispatcher more exposure
to the principles, policies, and tactics of law enforcement, and more opportunities for interactions
with cops/ex-cops (who are often part-time or full-time instructors at the Criminal Justice degree
programs). This, in turn, might have enabled the dispatchers with the socialization and pre-
knowledge required to speak the police lingo, draw upon the relational toolkits to build rapport,
and elicit compliance from the police officers. However, as illustrated in Appendix A, while some
dispatchers with a criminal justice degree followed a publicizing relational style and were more
effective in eliciting compliance, there were also several other dispatchers with a criminal justice
degree who followed an escalating or customizing relational style.
Finally, the skillsets and competencies dispatchers might have acquired through their tenure and
on-the-job learning at DEMO could have played a role in why some dispatchers were more
effective in eliciting compliance from police officers than others. As shown in Appendix A, while
there were some dispatchers with over 15 years of experience who followed a publicizing relational
style and were able to effectively elicit compliance from the police officers, there were other
dispatchers with equivalent levels of experience who followed a customizing relational style.
Likewise, there were junior dispatchers with less than 3 years of experience who followed a
publicizing relational style and were more effective in eliciting compliance from police officers.
In summary, there was no clear pattern on how a 911 dispatcher’s skills and competencies, as
exemplified through their training score, education, and tenure at DEMO, influenced their
relational style and their ability to elicit compliance from the police officers.
Demographic Characteristics. Another important alternative explanation is about the overlap
in demographic characteristics, such as gender and race, between dispatchers and police officers
and to what extent demographic factors can account for the variation in compliance outcomes.
Gender. My longitudinal observations and analysis suggest that some types of demographic
characteristics, such as gender, made a qualitative difference in shaping the tone and tenor of
interactions between the dispatchers and police officers. For example, female police officers were
less uncivil or rude to female dispatchers, but they were less uncivil or rude to the male dispatchers
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as well. Nevertheless, these officers too were non-compliant to the 911 dispatchers’ requests. For
instance, female police officers often failed to respond to 911 dispatchers, both male and female,
during a new 911 job assignment. They also failed to provide progress updates and finish updates
to the dispatchers. My ride-alongs with 3 female officers reinforced these observations. From the
field notes I took during those ride-alongs, I had noted that while the female police officers were
not rude to the dispatchers, they also expected some form of deference from the dispatchers.
Consider the below exchange between a female police officer and a female 911 dispatcher: DP: 5210, Officer are you 10-98 [available for service]?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5210, what’s your status officer?
PO: [No response]
DP: [after a few seconds] 5210, your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5210, are you receiving?
PO: [after a few seconds] Sorry dispatch, 10-4, receiving. Can you please 10-9 [repeat message]?
DP: your status?
PO: 524, 10-98.
DP: Got it. 273A [child neglect] complaint at 810 South Cedar [gives more details about the job]
PO: 10-4, received and on it.
[after 25 minutes]
DP: 5210, officer what’s your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5210, officer have you 10-97 [arrived on scene] at 810 South Cedar?
PO: [No response]
DP: Officer, are you receiving?
PO: [after a few seconds] 10-4, receiving. Sorry about that
DP: your status?
PO: 10-97 at 810 South Cedar at 19:35 [10 mins ago].
DP: 10-4, update when you are clear
PO: [No response]
[after 15 more minutes]
DP: 5210, officer are you clear?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5210, officer your status?
PO: [No response]
DP: 5210, receiving?
PO: [after a few seconds] 10-4, receiving. Can you please 10-9
DP: 5210, officer are you clear from 810 South Cedar?
PO: 10-4, clear. Thanks for checking.
DP: Ok, so 10-98 for next?
PO: [no response]
As this exchange illustrates, even though the female police officer exhibited less incivility and
even thanked the dispatcher at some instances – a behavior that I rarely observed among the male
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police officers – this officer was also not responsive and failed to comply with the dispatchers’
requests and directions. This is not to say that gender did not matter at all in the coordination
process; on the contrary, findings suggest that gender did play a role in shaping the tone and tenor
of the interactions during the coordination process. Nonetheless, in line with the sociological
scholarship on “gender as structure” (Acker, 2006; Risman, 2004; Ridgeway, 2009), findings from
this study also suggest that the gendered aspects of the profession as a whole (i.e., the profession
of police officers vs. dispatchers, the former a male-dominated profession, while the latter is a
feminized profession), possibly played a more salient role in shaping expectations of deference
that the individual professionals have of each other. Such expectations of deference between the
members of two different professions could be a plausible explanation for why female police
officers, while less rude/uncivil to the dispatchers and at times even thanked them, nevertheless
were also often non-compliant with the dispatchers’ requests. Due to the nature of ethnographic
data collection and the dilemmas inherent in field-based research designs (McGrath, 1981), it will
be difficult to make strong inferences here, but only offer plausible explanations on the role of
gender in shaping compliance outcomes.
Race. I did not find substantial variation among Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White dispatchers
with respect to eliciting compliance from the police officers. In fact, dispatchers who are racial
minorities (Black, Hispanic, and Asian) were able to elicit compliance from the police officers
slightly more [Black: 39.2%; Hispanic: 39.4%; Asian: 37.9%] than White dispatchers [37.1%].
But these findings also should not be taken to mean that race does not matter much in shaping the
interactions between the dispatchers and police officers. Similar to the “gender as structure”
approach, the preexisting racial/structural differences between DPD (and its police officers) and
DEMO (and its dispatchers) might have possibly played a role in shaping attributions and
expectations of deference. But given the study’s research design and the nature of ethnographic
data, it will be difficult to make strong inferences here. To elaborate, due to a lack of long-term
repeated interactions and the remote nature of the interactions via the (voice-based) radio
communication channels, police officers are generally unaware of the specific identity (name,
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background, etc.) of a particular dispatcher whom they interact with. But based on my interviews
and observations with the DPD police officers, they are also aware that the 911 dispatchers at
DEMO are mostly from minority communities. At the same time, they did not refer to or made
remarks about the dispatcher’s race (or discuss any sensitive topics around race) during my
observational sessions – probably because of the presence of a third-party observer such as me.
Therefore, it will be difficult to make strong inferences here based on field-based observational
data. I acknowledge that this is a limitation of field-based studies that primarily rely on
observations and interviews. Addressing the question on whether an overlap in the race of a
dispatcher and a police officer helped in eliciting compliance was even more difficult to assess.
While the gender of the police officer could be inferred by listening to the police radio (which I
noted down in my field notes), the race of a police officer was quite difficult to infer through just
listening to their voice. (It is also important to note that such inferences were difficult to make for
my field site participants too, especially in the thick-of-time during 911 emergency coordination.)
However, based on the ride-alongs I did with 5 Black police officers and 2 Hispanic officers, I
found that these officers were also non-responsive when a dispatcher calls out their #ID to assign
them a 911 job; moreover, they also failed to promptly provide progress updates and finish updates
to the dispatchers.
Variation in Workload across Shifts and Police Districts. Another possible alternative
explanation is the variation in workload across the evening, morning, and night shifts and how this
might possibly impact a dispatcher’s selection into a certain relation style over others. Indeed, one
could argue that dispatchers in the evening shift, which is the busiest shift of the day, do not have
enough time to follow-up with police officers and customize their dispatch workflow; therefore,
these dispatchers in the evening shift might have “selected out” of the customizing relational style.
However, as illustrated in Appendix A as well as in Tables 2 and 3 in the manuscript, this does not
seem to be the case. Another alternative explanation could be the characteristics of a neighborhood
within a police zone that an officer is assigned to and how this might shape the police officer’s
non-compliant behavior. It might be possible that some police officers tactically try and avoid
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going to certain neighborhoods, and therefore they do not acknowledge the dispatcher’s requests.
Moreover, police officers dislike going to certain types of calls that they term as “bullshit calls”
(Seim, 2017). However, my observations and ride-alongs suggest that an officer does not know
the location of an emergency incident or the type of that emergency before the dispatcher lets him
know of it. This suggests that an officer’s non-response to a dispatchers’ “new 911 job assignment”
is not tied to particular call-types or police zone/neighborhood characteristics. During my ride-
alongs, where I observed officers being assigned to 911 calls in both low-income neighborhoods
as well as in relatively high-income neighborhoods, I did not notice any systematic difference in
their non-compliant behavior based on the characteristics of that neighborhood.
Social Learning. Did the dispatchers who followed a publicizing relational style better at social
learning than other dispatchers? I found that due to the “always-on” nature of their job, there were
few avenues to facilitate social learning and informal knowledge sharing among the 911
dispatchers. For instance, 911 dispatchers cannot take breaks together as a group of 5 or 6 people
at the same time. Since the staffing level at the 911 operations floor must not fall below a minimum
threshold, break slots are pre-assigned to each individual dispatcher as a part of their shift schedule.
These slots are structured in a manner that only 1 or 2 dispatchers are “released” for a break at any
given point in time (whose job will be temporarily handled by a rotating dispatcher). There were
specific days such as Halloween and Thanksgiving, where the 911 operations floor hosted a
potluck, but here too, no more than 4 dispatchers are allowed to take a break at the same time due
to minimum staffing requirements. Therefore, there were fewer opportunities for social learning
and informal knowledge sharing about the practices among 911 dispatchers at DEMO.
References:
Acker, J. 2006 “Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race in organizations.” Gender & Society, 20: 441-
464.
McGrath, J. E. 1981 Dilemmatics: The study of research choices and dilemmas. American Behavioral
Scientist, 25: 179-210.
Ridgeway, C. L. 2009 “Framed before we know it: How gender shapes social relations.” Gender & Society,
23: 145-160.
Risman, B. J. 2004 “Gender as a social structure.” Gender & Society, 18: 429-450.
Seim, J. 2017 “The Ambulance: Toward a labor theory of poverty governance.” American Sociological
Review, 82: 451-475.