Hester Paanakker

respondents on value perceptions and attainment, their individual and collective interpretations of value divergence, and perceptions of a range of organizational effects, and to explore relationships between value divergence and outcomes in frontline public service delivery by analyzing (quotes matrices derived from) code co-occurrence and code relations. From this analysis, patterns (in the form of propositions) were derived, which were then juxtaposed with the empirical data. This inductive process was repeated many times before the final analysis was written. In the remainder of this article the results of the study are presented. Direct quotes from the interviews are presented in italics. The propositions are compared with relevant literature. 6.4 Results 6.4.1 The Severity and Manifestation Level of Value Divergence Between Prison Officers, Management and Policy Advisors From the analysis of value divergence among different levels in the prison sector, it becomes clear that respondents throughout the sector perceive a high level of value divergence. This perception spans the entire prison hierarchy, from policy advisors, managing directors, and middle managers to prison officers at street level. With the exception of one managing director who perceived mostly convergence, this constitutes 54 out of 55 respondents (98%). Four policy advisors see only subtle differences in the value approaches of different staff levels (7%). According to these policy advisors, this is an inherent feature of value divergence that does not affect good implementation negatively: abstract policy values permit and perhaps even require a certain “couleur locale” (policy advisor 4) in implementation. The remaining 50 respondents describe the value divergence as large, grave, and problematic (91%). Table 6.1 displays where, according to respondents, the experienced value divergence manifests itself. We consider the three dimensions of value divergence: value identification (which values matter), value understanding (how the meaning of these values is interpreted), and value prioritization or enactment (which values are actually emphasized in practice). From the 54 respondents who describe value divergence, all are of the opinion that value divergence is most evident, and most pressing, with respect to policy implementation – that is, on the dimension 141 The Effect of Value Divergence