Emerging Markets Theme Research Series of the SC Johnson College of Business. and LACS Research Symposium Keynote Address

Registration Link: bit.ly/PolicOrgsMexico

In this seminar, Rodrigo will discuss findings from a variety of studies his team has conducted over the past five years around questions of integral police reform in Latin America. The studies tackle three broad questions: (1) What are principles of organizational design that can inform how we envision police organizations? What types of structures, practices, and systems do police organizations need, as organizations, to meet their mandate? (2) What are trajectories of organizational development and reform that have proven to be more effective? And (3) How can police organizations systematically build citizen trust as a fundamental pre-condition for operational effectiveness?

Rodrigo Canales does research at the intersection of organizational theory and institutional theory, with a special interest in the role of institutions for economic development. Specifically, Rodrigo studies how individuals are affected by and in turn purposefully change complex organizations or systems. Rodrigo's work explores how individuals’ backgrounds, professional identities, and organizational positions affect how they relate to existing structures and the strategies they pursue to change them. His work contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that allow institutions to operate and change. Rodrigo has done work in entrepreneurial finance and microfinance, as well as in the institutional implications of the Mexican war on drugs. His current research on the topic of the talk is funded with generous support from the Merida Initiative, explores how to build effective, resilient, and trusted police organizations in Mexico.

Rodrigo teaches the Innovator Perspective at Yale SOM; he sits in the advisory board of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT; he spent the 2014-2015 academic year advising the Mexican government on the US-Mexico bilateral relationship; and sits in the Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy.