Title: Analysing courts as a professional service operations management environment

Authors: Petra Pekkanen; Tiina Puolakka; Timo Pirttilä

Addresses: School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland ' School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland ' School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland

Abstract: The study provides an analysis of courts as professional service organisations and explores the specific features and challenges connected to operations management in courts. The analysis is based on the data and findings of case studies conducted in five courts. The data is analysed based on the perspectives identified in professional service operations management literature: nature of customer, nature of professional work and nature of work processes. The results indicate that the special nature of the court customer, the emphasised need for independency and autonomy of the judges, as well as great variation in product requirements pose distinct challenges to operations management. Improvement opportunities are discussed based on the identified challenges. Possible areas for improvement include for example orderliness and planning possibilities, as well as approaches aiming at improving the goal-orientation of operations.

Keywords: operations management; service sector; professional service; court.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2018.089831

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2018 Vol.29 No.3, pp.332 - 358

Received: 02 Mar 2016
Accepted: 10 Jun 2016

Published online: 13 Feb 2018 *

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