Bureaucratic Structure

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  Human Resource Management (Role & Importance)

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Orange Apple

    (Publisher)

  ____________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ____________________ Chapter- 6 Bureaucracy Bureaucracy is the combined organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations. As opposed to adhocracy, it is often represented by standardized procedure (rule-following) that guides the execution of most or all processes within the body; formal division of powers; hierarchy; and relationships, intended to anticipate needs and improve efficiency. A bureaucracy traditionally does not create policy but, rather, enacts it. Law, policy, and regulation normally originates from a leadership, which creates the bureaucracy to implement them. In practice, the interpretation and execution of policy, etc. can lead to informal influence - but not necessarily. A bureaucracy is directly responsible to the leadership that creates it, such as a government executive or board of directors. Conversely, the leadership is usually responsible to an electorate, shareholders, membership or whoever is intended to benefit. As a matter of practicality, the bureaucracy is where the individual will interface with an organization such as a government etc., rather than directly with its leadership. Generally, larger organizations result in a greater distancing of the individual from the leadership, which can be consequential or intentional by design. Definition Bureaucracy is a concept in sociology and political science referring to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules are socially organized. Four structural concepts are central to any definition of bureaucracy: 1. a well-defined division of administrative labour among persons and offices, 2. a personnel system with consistent patterns of recruitment and stable linear careers, 3. a hierarchy among offices, such that the authority and status are differentially distributed among actors, and 4.

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  Information Technologies and Social Orders

  • Carl J. Couch, Mark D. Johns(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  6

  Bureaucratic Structures

  Bureaucracies are information technologies in the same sense that assembly lines are material technologies. Both are social arrangements that endure despite changes in personnel and that use standardized procedures to achieve collective objectives. The collective objective that informs the actions of factory workers is the production of goods; the collective objective that informs the actions of bureaucrats is the management of information. Bureaucracies are second-order technologies that use first-order information technologies (numeric concepts, calendars, written languages, computers, etc.) to manage information.

  Bureaucratic Structures emerge out of the record-keeping activity of an encompassing social system. An extended family acquires bureaucratic elements when one family member has the responsibility of keeping a record of one type of family resource, a second another resource, and both are subordinate to a third member. Just as record keeping is always an adjunct of other activities, Bureaucratic Structures are always adjuncts of larger social structures. Each bureaucracy accumulates and preserves information for an organization. No bureaucracy is an autonomous social unit. Bureaucrats are not authorized to direct the activity of the organization they service but they often influence the actions of the encompassing organization by controlling the flow of information.

  In mature Bureaucratic Structures each person has specific responsibilities, is accountable to a specific other, and has a rank in a hierarchical order. Some bureaucrats accumulate information, others preserve it, others dispense it, and still others supervise those who manage it. The primary objective of Bureaucratic Structures is to provide information to their encompassing organization so that the organization can more effectively accomplish its objectives.

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  Organization, Policy, and Practice in the Human Services

  • Bernard Neugeboren, Simon Slavin(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Although roles are specified in rules, there is usually considerable opportunity for discretion. This situation holds in general. As we have seen, rules by definition allow for discretion, which may result in behavior quite different from that which is officially prescribed. The concept of the informal system (Blau and Scott 1962:6–7), which was emphasized in the human relations model (see Chapter 3), highlights the unplanned aspects of organizational life—the patterns of relations which have evolved on the basis of human interaction and diverge from the “blueprint” of the classical model. The distinction between official and operative structures is important in the day-to-day functioning on both administrative and practitioner levels. Understanding this distinction can help one to “understand the system” and appreciate opportunities for action. Both kinds of structure must be taken into account. The knowledge that a secretary or chief clerk has considerable power can be instrumental in facilitating one’s functioning in an organization. Similarly, understanding the official rules and regulations permits one to make decisions from a base of legitimacy and authority. As has been suggested repeatedly, structure can be a facilitating factor in organizational life if one understands its purpose and develops the skills of “using the structure.” Bureaucratic Structure Any discussion of organizational structure must touch upon the principles underlying the type of structure that exists today in most human service organizations namely, the Bureaucratic Structure. The Bureaucratic Structure, which was originally described by Weber, has been discussed here under management models (see Chapter 3)

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  Thinking Beyond Technology

  Creating New Value in Business

  • J. DiVanna(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  All involve division and coordination of tasks; all transform inputs into outputs; all involve inform- ation processing; and all require an uneven distribution of legitimate authority. The essence of bureaucratic organization is the production of standardized, predictable, replicable performance by many different people and /or groups. 49 In other words, we create bureaucracies to administer the activities that are expected to be executed by the business processes in a normative state. This often hierarchical alignment of resources is primarily designed to codify activities in order to achieve an economy of scale. Hammer describes the incongruity that business management faces when considering the structure and function of organizations: Modern organizations have learned that the notion of economy of scale has severe limits. With size come diseconomies of scale. As organizations grow, multiple layers of administrative bureaucracy inevitably appear and it becomes difficult for any individual to have an overall understanding of what’s going on. Breaking a large organization into several smaller ones avoids this problem, but at the possible price of inconsistency. 50 The concept of ‘reengineering’ coupled with the new array of inform- ation and telecommunications technologies increased the range of altern- atives for business to rethink the relationship between organization and process. The matter in question is the overall proportional relationship between the complexity that an organization acquires over time due to changes in the competitive climate and the administrative control of infor- mation needed to govern the process.

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  Organizations

  Management Without Control

  • Howard P. Greenwald(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Team positions in a recreational football Bureaucracy —— 343 league reflect specific tasks and expectations, but the players are in no way bureaucrats. All organizations are rationalized to some extent, coalescing around recognizable objectives and deliberately allocating human and material resources in their pursuit. Bureaucracy, though, represents an extreme. It is the most highly rationalized and formalized of organizations. Bureaucracy defines the activities required of and permitted to members in an unusually minute fashion. The formalization characteristic of bureaucracy requires a high degree of role specificity. This can be observed in the numerous and detailed job descriptions that characterize bureau-cracies. Universalism, affective neutrality, and achievement orientation contribute to the bureaucracy’s ability to allocate resources in a technically objective manner— a hallmark of rationalization. A Definition of Bureaucracy Bureaucracy defies a simple definition. Organizations of this kind have existed for thousands of years and in many countries. Bureaucracies assume different qual-ities under the influence of the social forces and cultures that surround them, but a core definition of bureaucracy applicable everywhere can be specified. This defini-tion conjures up the routinized, regimented, and emotionally cold colossi familiar across national boundaries and generations: Bureaucracies are organizations char-acterized by rules binding on the actions of all members; hierarchical supervision; specialization by personnel; prohibition of personal gain other than fixed salaries; and continuous operation over time. Operating Characteristics Modern management science owes much of its understanding of bureaucracy to a German thinker of the early 20th century named Max Weber. A scholar of tremendous depth, Weber made a study of organizational structures throughout the history of the civilized world.

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  The Contingency Theory of Organizations

  • Lex Donaldson(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Throughout much of this discussion size will be the main contingency, with task (i.e., task interdependence) a minor contingency. We will then discuss whether certain other causes of organizational structure are contingencies or not, in the process defining the criterion for a cause to be a contingency. Finally, we will attend to the issue of synthesizing the bureaucracy with the organic theory, in a way that follows on from, but goes farther than, the brief synthesis offered at the end of Chapter 1. Bureaucracy Theory Bureaucracy theory (Blau, 1970, 1972; Child 1973a) in its modern form emerged from a series of empirical studies. However, from the outset of modern research, thinking about bureaucracy was strongly influenced by the Weberian model of bureaucratic organizational structure, which omitted the idea of participation that is so central to organic theory. Weber (1968) held that there was a general, historical tendency for administration to move toward the bureaucratic type. The Bureaucratic Structure features full-time, salaried, career administrators who are appointed on merit, technically qualified, arranged in a hierarchy, and subject to rules and discipline (Weber 1964, pp. 333-334). Bureaucracy possessed several advantages including efficiency, predictability, reliability, and the “stringency of its discipline” (Weber 1964, p. 337). The development of Bureaucratic Structure is promoted by a number of factors, including size and communications technologies (Weber 1964, pp. 338-339). Bureaucratic theory led to a number of empirical studies that used qualitative methods to make case studies of organizations (Crozier 1964; Gouldner 1954; Selznick 1949)

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  Management Under Differing Value Systems

  Political, Social and Economical Perspectives in a Changing World

  • Günter Dlugos, Klaus Weiermair, Wolfgang Dorow(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Bureaucratic Structures 539 The convergence/divergence argument hinges on industrializa-tion, on the consequences which may or may not ensure from the spread of manufacturing technology. So factories become the primary situation in which to look for relevant evidence. If the convergence argument is right, then factories more than anything else, more than schools or stores or hospitals or villages or families, would be virtually identical whatever the society they happen to be in. If the divergence argument is right, then even factories should show some differences and if they do then other sectors of society may be presumed to do so much more. Thi s is why the research described here concentrated on factories. It focuses on what may be broadly termed the bureaucratization of factories. It does so partly because of the availability of methods for studying this, and partly because it is here in organizational analysis that the firmest base of established concepts has been built up with which clear comparisons can be made. The meaning of the word bureaucracy stems from its definition by the German scholar Max Weber (1947); with a sweeping histo-rical vision, he foresaw at the outset of the twentieth cen-tury that in time bureaucracy would become the dominant form of organization. By bureaucracy, he meant an organization whose activities had been broken down into defined sets of tasks allocated to the occupants of specialist offices or jobs. The work of those appointed to these offices, who would be selected for their potential competence, would be controlled by a hierarchy of successive layers of jobs in which each had authority over those below. All would be governed by rules and procedures. These rules and procedures would be stated in writing, and would apply impersonally to everyone.

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  Building the Virtual State

  Information Technology and Institutional Change

  • Jane E. Fountain(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Brookings Institution Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER FOUR Bureaucracy The reduction of modern office management to rules is deeply embedded in its very nature. Max Weber, Economy and Society INGE THE INDUSTRIALIZATION of the United States in the late nineteenth century, government has required a complex administrative and policymaking machinery in order to manage its day-to-day operations and implement legislation. The rhetoric of 'J3ost-bureaucracy notwithstanding, this administrative machinery, and the career public servants within it, continues to be an essential intermediary between elected officials and society. It transforms the often vague and ambiguous decisions and judgments of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary into operational and organizational rules and programs. Its attributes and vitality are more than ever of crucial concern to govern-ment and, ultimately, to citizens. In an industrialized society and economy, the state is central to contemporary political life. 1 This chapter develops ideas first published in 'The Virtual State: Toward a Theory of Federal Bureaucracy in the Twenty-First Century,in Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye Jr., eds., democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World (Hollis, N.H.: Hollis, 1999). I am grateful to the Visions of Governance in the Twenty-First Century Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, for finan-cial support and to the faculty associated with that project for early comments on many of the points discussed in this chapter. 44 S BUREAUCRACY 45 It is commonplace to claim that information technology changes the structure of organizations. Attention to network organizations signals one significant move away from bureaucracy. The reduction of red tape and flattening of hierarchies in government over the past decade have signaled further change. Yet few researchers interested in technology have addressed the Bureaucratic Structure, or the modern state, in much detail.

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  The Customer's Victory

  From Corporation to Co-operation

  • F. Dupuy(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  So long as economic activity does not change too quickly, bureaucracies get along fairly well. But things are changing quickly.’ 2 So why has this disjointed, compartmentalized mode of function- ing taken the upper hand over other forms of organization? Robert Reich explains it as follows, 3 based on the American situation: American bureaucratic companies were organized around the model of military bureaucracies for the efficient deployment of plans developed well in advance. It is perhaps not by chance that war veterans who entered the major American companies in the 1950s very naturally re-created at the centre of these compa- nies the military model of a bureaucracy. They were set up along the lines of a military hierarchy, with chains of command, control methods, rank, divisions with division leaders, and procedures outlining the decision-making process. If you have a question, check the manual! After presenting Reich’s thesis, Rifkin adds: ‘The managerial system of business organization is a giant oaf, a powerful producer capable of creat- ing sizable quantities of standardized commodities, but lacking the flexi- bility to make nimble adjustments so as to adapt to rapid fluctuations in domestic or global markets.’ 4 52 3 F. Dupuy, The Customer’s Victory © François Dupuy 1999 The story of an evolution One key idea stands out in these quotations: the bureaucratic form of orga- nization belonged to a moment in history during which products (either goods or services) were scarce. In this sense, a bureaucracy is intimately linked to mass production and, no doubt, to a democratic way of thinking. It corresponds to the arrival of a new age in the evolution of humankind: in economic terms, by making available to the greatest number the goods and services to which they may legitimately aspire; and in politics, by setting up a state of human rights which presupposes rules and procedures and their application.

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  Sociology, Work and Organisation

  Seventh Edition

  • Tony Watson(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Noting that ‘interests, influence and the resulting politics … are the very stuff of decision-making in organisations’, Hickson (1999) asks, ‘How else could it be when organisations are made up of so many people with diverse viewpoints and are surrounded by so many people who have a stake in what they do?’ But organisational politics do not come about simply as a result of the diversity of human interests in an organisation, and organisational power is more than a matter of what von Zugbach (1995) calls ‘deciding what you want and making sure that you get it’. A sociological analysis of politicking looks at how it is related to the broader structures and processes of which it is a part. It can be seen as an inevitable outcome of the way organisations are designed.

  The Bureaucratic Structure of organisations, as a reading of Weber’s ideal-type of bureaucracy would reveal, provides not only a control mechanism but a potential career ladder and thus a reward mechanism for individuals. Burns (1961) in early and influential work on micropolitics pointed out that organisational members are ‘at one and the same time co-operators in a common enterprise and rivals for the material and intangible rewards of successful competition with each other’. The Bureaucratic Structure thus has both an integrative and a disintegrative aspect. The fact that the career rewards available to individuals are necessarily scarce ones means that those who are officially intended to work co-operatively are likely to find themselves in conflict with each other.

  Snapshot 5.11

  The narrowing ladder in the Ministry of Technology

  I thought that life in the civil service would be much more civilised than the dog-eat-dog world of business that I had read about and seen in films when I was a student. And it did feel like that when I joined the technology ministry. There were seven of us new graduates in the department I joined and we all became very good friends. We went out a lot together and we helped each other out at work. But after a year or so, I noticed that one of my friends was choosing not to pass onto me certain pieces of information which would have prevented my getting into difficulty with my seniors. I then realised another friend was listening a lot to my ideas about work but was not sharing with me any of her own ideas. I spoke to my father about this. He is very experienced in government service, and he said to me that I should have recognised that the Bureaucratic Structure we work within is not just a ‘management device’ but is also a career ladder. And he drew this ladder on the paper napkin of the restaurant where we were eating. The ladder he drew had wide rungs at the bottom and narrower and narrower ones as you moved up. ‘Didn’t you realise’, he asked me, ‘that your friends are both your work colleagues and your career competitors?’. You are not all going to move up in the next round of promotions and these two friends are simply manoeuvring to get up onto the next career rung ahead of you.

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  Reinventing Hierarchy and Bureaucracy

  From the Bureau to Network Organizations

  • Thomas Diefenbach, Rune Todnem By, Thomas Diefenbach, Rune Todnem By(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  This will start to be built into company structures. Gently, the middle manager will stage something of a comeback’ ( 2002, p. 118 ). Taken together, these developments pointed to a return of that which dared not utter its name: ‘Bureaucracy, after many years of decline, will be on the rise again’ ( 2002, p. 118 ). The Economist baulked at its own conclusions, however, stating that this (re)discovery of bureaucracy had ‘nothing at all to commend it’, despite the logic of its own analysis pointing in the opposite direction: that bureaucracy was a tool to solve a problem – one relating to the disasters that deliberate attempts to transcend bureaucracy had brought into being. Even now, during a remarkable economic and regime crisis ( Crouch, 2008 ; Valukas, 2010 ), whose anti-bureaucratic roots are not too difficult to discern or trace, bureaucracy is still a word that appears to be unnameable to positive political coding ( Olsen, 2008 ). It is represented as so thoroughly ‘out of time’ that to invoke its name is to be labelled at best nostalgic, and at worse, irrelevant. As Peters (2003) has indicated, contemporary public administrators find it increasingly difficult to give voice to the values of Weberian public bureaucracy without appearing to be anachronistic. And yet, the values of bureaucracy – hierarchical integrity or integrality, due process, thoroughness – are continually attested to, if nearly always (with certain honourable exceptions) indirectly or otherwise elliptically. In this chapter, we focus on public bureaux, instituted to pursue distinctive purposes on behalf of the state, and examine some of the consequences attendant upon attempts to make them less hierarchical and more flexible in the name of various epochal imperatives of ‘change’ or ‘modernization’.

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