NCJ Number
80096
Date Published
1980
Length
40 pages
Annotation
Organization theory is used to understand and assess efforts to improve court performance through changes in management structure.
Abstract
Characterizing the courts in formal organization terms permits the identification of those factors which must be considered when designing a court structure. To illustrate the concepts, the discussion focuses on court unification--the dominant approach to reform in the States. The reforms promoted under this rubric are an attempt to design a formal organization through the manipulation of such structural components as trial court jurisdictions, financing, budgeting control, administrative responsibility, and rulemaking authority. The essay begins with a general review of organization theory as it relates to the courts, and then it discusses two key concepts drawn from the writings of James Thompson (1968): core technology, the basic production process of an organization; and institutional issues, which are associated with the place of an organization in its environment. These concepts are applied to the courts in a form which lays the foundation for the essay's final section, which examines the criteria for the design of judicial management structures. The essay's major conclusion is that no single organizational design for the courts will be appropriate for all circumstances, nor is it necessary for all parts of a complex organization to conform to the same structural principles. Issues regarding the presence or absence of a management substructure, the use of a bureaucratic or organic approach to management design, and the degree of vertical or horizontal centralization must be resolved according to the needs of each organizational level of the courts. Four notes and 43 references are listed. (Author summary modified)