Bureaucracies
Bureaucracies are formal organizations characterized by hierarchical structures, standardized procedures, and specialized roles. They are designed to efficiently manage complex tasks and ensure consistency in decision-making. Bureaucracies are prevalent in government agencies, corporations, and other large institutions, and they play a crucial role in implementing policies, delivering services, and maintaining order in society.
8 Key excerpts on "Bureaucracies"
eBook - ePubHuman Hierarchies
A General Theory
- Melvyn L. Fein(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...7 Bureaucracies and Professionalism Organizational Hierarchies Up to this point we have been investigating the historical evolution of society-wide hierarchies. But many hierarchies are of more limited scope. They entail networks bounded in their extent and circumscribed in their membership. Sometimes called organizations, and at other times institutions, when individuals find themselves in these groups, their ranking systems can be as salient as those of greater size. Indeed, in the modern world, most individuals belong to a plethora of organizations or, at minimum, are required to interact with a variety of them. They, therefore, find it necessary to orient themselves within a multitude of hierarchical structures, many of which are grounded in divergent tests of strength. Moreover, in some of these they may rank toward the top, whereas in others they are located at the bottom. Although this dissonance can be disorienting, they have no choice but to cope with the vagaries of contradictory placements. Of particular interest nowadays is the increasing formalization of organizational hierarchies. Not only have these groupings multiplied in number, but they have become more precise in how their ranks are established and deployed. What has occurred is best exemplified by the proliferation of Bureaucracies. In hunter-gatherer days there were no Bureaucracies. When most people were foragers, they belonged to small nomadic troupes, the hunting bands that supplied these with meat, and tribal assemblages in which they exchanged tools and brides. Nothing in their experience resembled the contemporary corporation. Asking a huntsman for which company he worked would have drawn a blank stare. Things changed after the advent of farming. As agrarian empires spread, they demanded more extensive coordination. Specified individuals were required to work together in groups dedicated to particular activities—such as pyramid building or irrigation maintenance...
- A. Coskun Samli(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...© The Author(s) 2016 A. Coskun Samli Empowering the Market Economy through Innovation and Entrepreneurship 10.1057/978-1-137-55827-5_2 Begin Abstract 2. Older Societies Are Controlled by Bureaucracies A. Coskun Samli 1 (1) Jacksonville, FL, USA End Abstract Any organization, large or small, needs to develop Bureaucracies to fulfill its obligations or goals. In fact, it needs Bureaucracies to function. Bureaucracy is a system of administration distinguished by its clear hierarchy of authority, rigid division of labor, written inflexible rules, regulations, and impersonal relationships (Gajduscheck, 2003 ; Johnson, 2014 ; Notes, 2013 ; Weber, 2008). Bureaucracies are well represented in many functional areas of all societies from the economy itself to hospitals, schools, military, and industry, to name a few common Bureaucracies. They provide direction and order in an attempt to ease the daily transactions and interactions that occur in any existing and normally functioning society, group, or business. Bureaucracies engage protocols and develop multiple steps and measures to get final results in running a society or group. As discussed in the Introduction, the economy is a vehicle which needs to be accelerated and driven; hence in this case the government plays a very important role because it is the driver. The government, just like all other organizations in a society, is composed of and functions by multiple Bureaucracies. These Bureaucracies, which engage protocols and follow rigid procedures, could end up being positive or negative. Perhaps the problem is that Bureaucracies follow their protocols regardless of the end results. In time they become more protocol-bound rather than concentrating on solving emerging problems. In other words, they become too rigid to respond to new and unexpected problems. Without any exception, organizations grow, thrive, stagnate, and die. Perhaps this is why we no longer have the Roman, Ottoman, British, or Russian empires...
eBook - ePubFrom Max Weber
Essays in Sociology
- Max Weber, H.H. Gerth, Wright Mills(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...VIII. Bureaucracy DOI: 10.4324/9780203452196-8 1 Characteristics of Bureaucracy Modern officialdom functions in the following specific manner: There is the principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are generally ordered by rules, that is, by laws or administrative regulations. The regular activities required for the purposes of the bureaucratically governed structure are distributed in a fixed way as official duties. The authority to give the commands required for the discharge of these duties is distributed in a stable way and is strictly delimited by rules concerning the coercive means, physical, sacerdotal, or otherwise, which may be placed at the disposal of officials. Methodical provision is made for the regular and continuous fulfilment of these duties and for the execution of the corresponding rights; only persons who have the generally regulated qualifications to serve are employed. In public and lawful government these three elements constitute ‘bureaucratic authority.’ In private economic domination, they constitute bureaucratic ‘management.’ Bureaucracy, thus understood, is fully developed in political and ecclesiastical communities only in the modern state, and, in the private economy, only in the most advanced institutions of capitalism. Permanent and public office authority, with fixed jurisdiction, is not the historical rule but rather the exception. This is so even in large political structures such as those of the ancient Orient, the Germanic and Mongolian empires of conquest, or of many feudal structures of state. In all these cases, the ruler executes the most important measures through personal trustees, table-companions, or court-servants...
eBook - ePub- Jamil Jreisat(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...“Yet the discussion about bureaucracy is still, to a large extent, the domain of the myths and pathos of ideology” (Crozier 1964: 175). To examine Weber’s bureaucratic model only as an instrument of managerial efficiency and effectiveness is to lose sight of its larger significance. Weber’s “particular genius,” Brian Fry noted, “was to place administration in a broad historical context and to associate the processes of bureaucratization with the processes of rationalization in the Western world” (1989: 42). The bureaucratic model was to emphasize technical skills, knowledge, merit, justice, due process, and all those values featured in modern professional management. Thus, Weber applied the comparative approach successfully over time and space in the search for regularities and common threads. Assessments and Criticisms of Bureaucracy Despite its significant role in modern society, bureaucracy rarely enjoys a positive public image. Bureaucracy has been fending off bitter attacks from without and an erosion of confidence, if not disillusionment, from within. But, even if bureaucracy is unappreciated or reviled, it is a fact of contemporary life and of governance everywhere. The “American government, the society, and its citizens are now dependent upon vast, interconnecting web of complicated administrative systems, processes, and procedures” (Stillman 1998: xvii). Critics of bureaucracy are diverse; their rationales also vary. “Policies, organizations, and public officials have failed, all with consequences ranging from unfortunate on a local level to egregious on a global level” (Hill and Lynn 2009: xiii). At the same time, administrative accomplishments and successes are no less numerous and compelling. “As a matter of fact, the daily business of government at all levels is performed with commendable competence by officials committed to public service” (Hill and Lynn 2009: viii)...
eBook - ePub- Lawrence Scaff(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...Concerning the former, Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell have argued that the causes of bureaucratization have changed since Weber thought about these issues, with the ‘need for efficiency’ in a competitive environment now replaced by a process of ‘homogenization’ driven by widespread professionalization across organizations and the structuring of the organizational field (1983, pp. 147–8; also Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). In this view Anthony Giddens’ idea of ‘structuration’ (1984) – essentially the production and reproduction by agents of macro-level social rules and practices – becomes more consequential for organizations and their members than Weber’s conception of achieving ‘efficiency’ through bureaucratization. This shift in focus has been accompanied by a renewed concern with the problem of organizational change and a search for the mechanisms of adaptation that permit Bureaucracies to survive, evolve and prosper. Bureaucracies may indeed persist in remarkable circumstances of social disruption and political chaos, but they do so for all kinds of reasons in addition to their efficiency in managing large populations and complex economic and administrative processes. With regard to global capitalism and technological change, social theorists like Manuel Castells (2006) have argued that the technical advances in complex advanced societies, such as the proliferation and saturation of rapid electronic means of communication, can circumvent standard bureaucratic processes and render formal structures less important for efficient decision-making and management. In his view horizontal networks that are enabled by new technologies, rather than traditional hierarchical chains of command, best describe the emergent properties of the most recent forms of social communication. Alternative ways of modelling an association’s decision processes are instructive: actor-network theory and network analysis, for example...
eBook - ePub- 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)...
eBook - ePub- Jos Raadschelders(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...We will also see that ideas about proper organization evolved from practical suggestions at the work-floor level (clear instructions for the lower level functionaries; the higher up in the hierarchy the less clear) to intricate systems of organization (with clear competencies at each level). As the classical principles of organization are not only characteristic for bureaucracy, so is the fact that rules are used not exclusive for bureaucracy. Given that bureaucracy is the dominant characteristic of contemporary organization and given that bureaucratization is a dominant concept in the analysis of organizational development, we can use Weber’s ideal type as a framework. 6.2 Idealtypes, Bureaucracy, and Bureaucratization The variety of meanings in which the bureaucracy concept is used can be reduced to two main types (Van Braam 1986: 216–217): bureaucracy as a type of organization in society (Legal-rationale Herrschaft); and bureaucracy as civil service, a totality of civil servants (Bürokratische Verwaltungsstab). When some speak of a bureaucratization of the world they point to a phenomenon that is not limited to public or private organizations but permeates society as such (Jacoby 1973). Identifying the consequences of legal-rational authority for organization Weber produced a list of seventeen characteristics in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Weber 1980: 124–130), Albrow (1970: 43–45) lists eighteen characteristics, and Van Braam (1977: 459) subdivided the ideal-type into twenty characteristics. The laundry list, as Silberman (1993: 6) aptly called it, can be found in appendix 6.1. Weber claimed that bureaucracy was the most rational and efficient of all organizations...
eBook - ePubPluralism and Corporatism
The Political Evolution of Modern Democracies
- Reginald J. Harrison(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...7 Bureaucracy The purpose of this chapter is to examine the bureaucratic phenomenon as it occurs in advanced industrial societies, and to consider how its development has affected the democratic accountability of government. The basic democratic theory about the place of the administration, and the conception of a virtuous bureaucracy, is fairly clear: in the utilitarian-liberal tradition the recognised constitutional objective is to devise techniques which will ensure that the interest of the community, in which every individual has an equal share and equal rights, is secured by legislation. For this purpose there must be created an identity of interest between the legislators and those for whom they legislate. In so far as this can be secured, it is through elections, and through the absolute supremacy of the elected assembly in law making. It follows that the bureaucracy must be: subordinate malleable politically neutral subject to ministerial control through clear lines of responsibility anonymous (so that the responsibility of the politician is absolute). The sum of these qualities would seem to make the bureaucracy, as in Weber’s conception, the one perfectly rational instrument of government – for him, the defining essence of modernity. The composition of legislatures may change, and with it governments and government policy, but the bureaucracy remains, ready to serve faithfully whatever party may be in power. There are, though, certain long-standing and growing problems of bureaucracy in the practice of democratic societies. The role foisted on the bureaucracy has grown with the increased role of the state, and of course, the bureaucracy favours tendencies which promote its own expansion. As a particular consequence of this increased state role the burden of legislation by parliaments has increased and the tendency to devolve major rule-making powers upon ministers to fill out the details of legislation has grown with it...
