Compare and contrast Drucker and Whyte's analysis of corporate bureaucracy - Essay Example

Corporate Bureaucracy Peter Drucker and William H Whyte had very different analysis of corporate bureaucracy. The Organizational Man by William H Whyte focused on the behavior of the average American after the war (Whyte, 1956). He reviewed the impact of the changes that had taken place in the American society. His observation was that the American society had moved from the collectivism notion to the individualism as their idea of a perfect society (Whyte, 1956). This could be evident from the way that the people lived in suburbs as nuclear families.

This ultimately had an effect on the organization and its leadership as the different organizations tried to respond to the new way of American life. In this case, the organizations had to make some changes, for instance, there was an introduction of cheaper cars, fast foods and smaller housing units, which were meant for the nuclear family (Whyte, 1956). This also led to a situation where managers became risk averse (Whyte, 1956). This was evident from the decisions that they took in the companies.

The managers believed that if they made less risky decisions, the decisions would have no consequence on the firms, even if they had the potential of giving the best outcomes to the company. The aim was to maintain things as they were instead of changing the corporate world because, if something went wrong, they were the ones who would take the blame, and in doing this, they would maintain their jobs for a long time. This was the main reason for the bureaucracy in the companies.Whyte focused his research on many companies in finding the results indicated above.

Conversely, Drucker focused on one company in doing his investigations. Drucker had worked for General Motors for several years, and he focused on this company for his research (Drucker, 1946). He specifically reviewed what happened inside the company and how this affected the performance of the company. He also studied the management of the company and the decisions that they made in order to access what caused the success or failure of the company (Drucker, 1946). Therefore, Drucker was interested the power structure, managerial decisions and its autonomy, and how other people in and out of the company reacted to these factors (Drucker, 1946).

According to Drucker, the bureaucracy in companies started from inside the organizations where management aimed to maintain control of the organizations through centralizing power (Drucker, 1946). The management could dictate everything that was to be done and their orders were to be followed without question. He recommended that General Motors should decentralize in order to become more successful. However, the two writers agree on one thing, the management of the company is responsible for the bureaucracy in the company whether it is due to the internal or external factors and it is their responsibility to stop the bureaucracy.

In the case of Whyte, the environment that the company operates in had a big influence on the actions of the management in the company, however, in such cases; the management can make decisions that can change the state of the market. This would be taking a big risk and most managers are not willing to do this in such environments. ReferencesDrucker, P. (1946). Concept of the Corporation. New York: John Day Publishers. Whyte, W. (1956). The Organization Man. New York: Simon & Schuster.