Organizational structure in American police agencies : context, complexity, and control

Summary: "Although most large police organizations perform the same tasks, there is tremendous variation in how individual organizations are structured. To account for this variation, author Edward R. Maguire develops a new theory that attributes the formal structures of large municipal police agencies to the contexts in which they are embedded. This theory finds that the relevant features of an organization's context are its size, age, technology, and environment. Using a database representing nearly four hundred of the nation's largest municipal police agencies, Maguire develops empirical measures of police organizations and their contexts and then uses these measures in a series of structural equation models designed to test the theory. Ultimately, police organizations are shown to be like other types of organizations in many ways but are also shown to be unique in a number of respects."--Jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 0791487903
ISBN: 9780791487907
ISBN: 9781417519378
ISBN: 1417519371
Physical Description: 1 online resource (xvi, 287 pages) : illustrations.
remote
Publisher: Albany : State University of New York Press, ©2003.

Content descriptions

General Note:	OldControl:muse9780791487907 Multi-User
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	What is organizational structure? -- Explaining organizational structure -- Police organizational structure -- A primitive theory of police organizational structure -- Methodology and descriptive statistics -- Testing the theory.
Restrictions on Access Note:	Restrictions: NLC students and staff only.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note:	Access restricted by subscription. Access requires VIU IP addresses and is restricted to VIU students, faculty and staff.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.