Decision Making in a Hybrid Organization: A Case Study of a Southwestern Drug Court Treatment Program

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 27-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly M. Baker

This article presents a case study of decision making in a drug court located the southwestern United States. This study seeks to fill a gap in research on decision making by attending to the ways that drug court officials navigate the demands of a court that is dedicated to both therapy and criminal justice. This analysis differs from previous research by viewing the drug court as a “hybrid organization” and asking how the staff members interact in the decision-making process. Additionally, this research provides an opportunity to investigate the concerns over collaborative decision making raised by critics. The data from this case study reveal that as a hybrid organization, the drug court staff often divides along institutional lines by allowing the counseling staff to manage treatment and the judge to manage punishment. When tensions arise, they are resolved by the structure of the court, which is hierarchical rather than collaborative.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Hartmann ◽  
Georg Wenzelburger

AbstractAlgorithms are increasingly used in different domains of public policy. They help humans to profile unemployed, support administrations to detect tax fraud and give recidivism risk scores that judges or criminal justice managers take into account when they make bail decisions. In recent years, critics have increasingly pointed to ethical challenges of these tools and emphasized problems of discrimination, opaqueness or accountability, and computer scientists have proposed technical solutions to these issues. In contrast to these important debates, the literature on how these tools are implemented in the actual everyday decision-making process has remained cursory. This is problematic because the consequences of ADM systems are at least as dependent on the implementation in an actual decision-making context as on their technical features. In this study, we show how the introduction of risk assessment tools in the criminal justice sector on the local level in the USA has deeply transformed the decision-making process. We argue that this is mainly due to the fact that the evidence generated by the algorithm introduces a notion of statistical prediction to a situation which was dominated by fundamental uncertainty about the outcome before. While this expectation is supported by the case study evidence, the possibility to shift blame to the algorithm does seem much less important to the criminal justice actors.


Author(s):  
Kasey Barr ◽  
Alex Mintz

This chapter examines the effect of group dynamics on the 2016 decision within the administration of President Barack Obama to lead the international coalition in a mission to liberate Raqqa, Syria, from the Islamic State. The authors show that whereas the groupthink syndrome characterized the decision-making process of the US-led coalition’s decision to attack Raqqa, it was polythink that characterized the decision-making dynamics both in the US-led coalition and within the inner circle of Obama’s own foreign policy advisors. Through case-study analysis, the authors illustrate that groupthink is more likely in strategic decisions, whereas polythink is more likely in tactical decisions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194277512199005
Author(s):  
Suetania Emmanuel ◽  
Clinton A. Valley

Effective leadership is foundational to the success of all organizations. This qualitative case study aimed to explore exemplary principal leadership in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). The study was based on Kouzes and Posner’s model of exemplary leadership. Interviews were held with school principals, teachers, and nonteaching staff members in three schools in USVI. The principal leaders in the USVI were found to exhibit the five practices of exemplary leadership as postulated by Kouzes and Posner. The study recommends that the Education department in USVI should develop guidelines and professional development opportunities to enhance exemplary leadership practices among principals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-103
Author(s):  
Wasia Hamid ◽  
Tanveer Ahmad Khan ◽  
Mohmad Saleem Jahangir

The present study investigates the level of empowerment among tribal women in terms of their participation in the decision-making process and to identify the factors that affect their level of participation. Fifty women from the Gujjar community of Kashmir Valley were selected through a purposive sampling technique. The interview and case study methods were employed for collecting data from the potential participants. The study revealed that tribal women’s right to make decisions was confined to minor household issues only. A significant positive correlation was also noted between family size, type of family, age, level of education, employment status and participation of the tribal women in decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Wasef Abuezhayeh ◽  
Les Ruddock ◽  
Issa Shehabat

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate and explain how organizations in the construction sector can enhance their decision-making process (DMP) by practising knowledge management (KM) and business process management (BPM) activities. A conceptual framework is developed that recognises the elements that impact DMP in terms of KM and BPM. The development of this framework goes beyond current empirical work on KM in addition to BPM as it investigates a wider variety of variables that impact DMP. Design/methodology/approach A case study is undertaken in the context of the construction industry in Jordan. A theoretical framework is developed and assessment of the proposed framework was undertaken through a questionnaire survey of decision-makers in the construction sector and expert interviews. Findings The outcomes of this research provide several contributions to aid decision-makers in construction organizations. Growth in the usage of KM and BPM, in addition to the integration between them, can provide employees with task-related knowledge in the organization’s operative business processes, improve process performance, promote core competence and maximise and optimise business performance. Originality/value Through the production of a framework, this study provides a tool to enable improved decision-making. The framework generates a strong operational as well as theoretical approach to the organizational utilization of knowledge and business processes.


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