Decision-Making on Life and Death A case study on how critical and urgent decision-making is done by the Swedish Police Authority

Abstract

There is a growing interest in crisis management, due to an increased understanding of the dilemmas that appear when organizations face critical situations. As a result of this, decisionmaking has also been more highlighted. Previous scholars have suggested that crises are best handled by following structures, while others emphasize the importance of allowing improvisation as well. This study seeks to investigate decision-making further, to discover whether it is structure, improvisation, or a mix between both, that is mostly required to handle decision-making during critical and urgent situations. The paper uses a qualitative research method, and the data has been collected by conducting 16 interviews with senior police officers. Furthermore, an observation was made at the Swedish Police Authority’s Regional Leading Central. For analysing our data, a grounded theory method approach has been used. Furthermore, the decision-making theory, together with the sensemaking theory has been applied as our theoretical framework. Our empirical findings present the fundamental importance of having previous experience, to make decisions during critical and urgent situations. Moreover, previous experience also facilitates sensemaking. Further, the empirical findings indicate how both structure and improvisation are essential when making decisions during critical and urgent situations.