Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

Ryan  Raffaelli; Tiona  Zuzul; Ranjay  Gulati; Jan   Rivkin

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Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing

by Ryan Raffaelli, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati and Jan Rivkin

Abstract

This twelve-year qualitative study examines how Director Robert Mueller and his senior team profoundly transformed the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Drawing on 138 interviews within the FBI and Mueller’s testimonies to Congress, we trace how the FBI shifted from being a law enforcement agency, focused on solving crimes after they occurred, to being an intelligence agency, centered on preventing attacks before they occurred. Our data uncover the critical role that cognitive framing played in the transformation: three times senior leaders reframed the FBI in ways that reflected and guided the agency’s internal changes and that accounted for and shaped the reactions of internal and external stakeholders. By comparing these three reframings, we uncover a novel theoretical distinction between two different types of framing. Outcome framing focuses on explaining “what” an organization does and centers on the organization as optimized towards achieving specific results, while process framing focuses on “how” an organization undertakes its work and centers on the organization as optimized towards deploying particular processes. We explore how outcome framing and process framing serve as different but complementary elements of leading strategic organizational change.

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Government and Politics; Organizational Change and Adaptation;

Language: English

Format: Print

62 pages

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Citation:

Raffaelli, Ryan, Tiona Zuzul, Ranjay Gulati, and Jan Rivkin. "Transforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Outcome and Process Framing." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-084, January 2016. (Revised September 2019.)