Concept of Bureaucracy as an Effective System of An Organization - Term Paper Example

Business Introduction The work about Max Weber on bureaucracy has huge impact on public administration. Van Riper (1997 cited in Du Gay, 2000) has argued on the work of Max Weber and have stated that it does not have any influence American public administration. The word bureaucracy has been derived from two words Kratos and bureau. The meaning of the word “bureau” is power or rule. Thus, the word is defined to mean the power of office. The concept is borrowed from the field of public administration and sociology, where the rules are prepared for desk or offices. In 1946, Weber has presented bureaucracy as both generic and scientific model, which have its relevance in both public and private sector. The concept of bureaucracy has great importance in social science and organization theory as it plays a pivotal role in the world of management. According to Du Gay (2000), bureaucracy is not only organizational form that is strictly restricted for a modern society rather it is followed by every society worldwide. Organizational behavior, organizational theories and management identify the effect of bureaucracy in a formal and rational organization. The model of Weber treated as the descriptive version of organizational model of Taylor is based on the scientific management theory. The strict rules, division of labour and specialization codify one of the best ways for strict subordination. The exclusion of any personal element from the code of conduct of work is the most familiar elements, which is attributed to Fayol, Taylor and Weber. According to Udy (1959), the elements are generated from different opinions of the scholars of social sciences. These scholars considered the elements of the companies as the driving factors for increasing the efficiency levels of the organizations. The rational school for management is followed by human relations movement that proved to have significant presence of the personal elements like attitudes, emotions and values, which are shared by the workers frequently. The human relation movements actually pointed out the factors that have great impact on the efficiency of organization. The results that are obtained from the human relations have questioned the efficiency of the formal- rational organizational theorem (Du Gay, 2000). History of bureaucracy Open system theory developed for the organization relies on the theoretical approach and uses the comparative statistical evaluation process extensively. This method is applied for searching the different characteristics in an efficient organization. The success of an organization highly depends on interaction between the internal and environmental features. Thus, it can be stated that the efficiency in an organization highly depends on the competency of its internal features in order to maintain the conditions and demands of the organizational environment. During 19th century, efforts are undertaken to promote and codify ideas, which lead to increase the efficiency of organizations and manage its work properly. However, until 20th century, the ideas are synthesized in form of comprehensive theory that is related to the organization and its management. The major contribution in this field is given by Max Weber. He has observed parallels between propagation of bureaucratic form of organization and mechanization of the industry. He had a strong belief that bureaucratic form in an organization aims at scheduling the process of administrative work and equalize process that are followed in the machine. As a sociologist, Weber concentrated on social consequences of proliferation of bureaucracy. He was also concerned regarding the impact that it would have on human side of the society. Weber highlighted the bureaucratic approach which has the potential to schedule and mechanizes the different features of human life by eroding human spirit and the capacity for any spontaneous action. Additionally, Weber accepted the fact that bureaucracy can result in severe political consequences that undermines its potential to form a detailed democratic form of organization. According to Frenkel et al. (1998), Weber’s writings on bureaucracy are infused by the scepticism. He also presented other major components of a bureaucratic organization. He gave considerable attention towards the cultural values and mode of the thought, which have modernized the organizational look. The bureaucratic processes and structures have reflected the dominant cognitive orientation for the modern societies, rationality. Rationality has many meanings so it is important to depict the exact meaning of rationality in the sense in which Weber has described rationality in an organization. Weber has seen the rational thought patterns as the main element of the historical process that is associated with the disenchantment of world. Through this he described the willingness and ability of the organization for explaining the main causes of the events that are not related to the summoning of the supernatural agent (Cremer, 1980). Weber had described the rationality as a crucial part of the operation and design of any modern organizations as the mode of thought have provided most efficient way for attaining scrupulous objectives. However, at this point of time, it is very important for the organization to understand the main objectives that are pursued. These objectives result from rational thoughts. The structures of the thought process are particularly designed for the achievement of the goals, which defies the rational understanding (Du Gay, 2000; Cremer, 1980). Weber had identified the dissimilarity between application of rationality by distinguishing between substantive and formal rationality. The substantive rationality is referred as the use of rational ideas for achieving the objectives, which comply with the ethical values of the society. The formal rationality was restricted as being concerned with the quantitative accounting and calculation pertaining to the service of individual components in the economy. Nevertheless, Weber failed to recognize the ethical standards of few societies, which could not comply with the human values (Du Gay, 2000). When the theory of rationality is applied in describing and analyzing bureaucratic organizations, it is observed that rationality can embody the ways an organization can put together the manner in which the workers finish their works. With respect to this perspective, the modern bureaucracy in organization is not at all conceived to form rational organizations. However, the organizations following the procedures and structures, which reflect the attempt to employ suitable means for achieving goals at the end of the period. Among many organizational types, Weber has observed bureaucratic organization as the most efficient and predictable one which follows the theory of rationality (Du Gay, 2000). According to Habil (2011), emphasis is given on the expertise and other merits of the main features of bureaucratic organization, which is related to a separate division of labour. Different societies, which are based on industrial societies and traditional farming, have access to a number of occupational specialties. A single organization can employ a number of ways in finalizing the job titles. At organizational level, the particular tasks take into consideration the formal roles, which aims defining the responsibility of the employees. The roles are supervised by the specific rules that define the work an individual employee in an organization. Dividing the tasks is beneficial for increasing the efficiency of an organization, instead of performing the same task by a single worker (Du Gay, 2000). By dividing the work, the workers are able to develop specialized skills so as to finish work at regular basis at an uninterrupted pace. The group of workers can also encourage the invention of specialized machinery which will help in bridging the labour problems in an organization and reduce their effort. However, specialization takes into consideration need of coordination (Du Gay, 2000; Olsen, 2006). Advantages and disadvantages of bureaucracy in organisations Bureaucratic organizations help in managing a chaotic situation, which can arise due to the conflicts arising within the labour groups. In organization, the word bureaucracy relates to the strict rules and regulations. The bureaucracies take into consideration wide use of implicit and explicit procedures that helps in increasing the efficiency of the organization. The rules are developed for the betterment of the organization and are levied on the activities of employees. As a result the strictness of rules and regulations becomes a source of frustration for the employees. The frustration can give rise to endless abuses and corruption in the organization. It evaluates whether the member of the organization makes decision based on their personal connections and individual whims (Du Gay, 2000; Downs and Rand Corporation, 1967). According to Hodgson (2004), bureaucratic organizations aim at coordinating the works of the employees with the use of another property, which is distasteful to a number of authorities basically hierarchical. The framework followed by most bureaucratic of the organizations can be explained in a particular chart, which includes every position at the hierarchical level clearly indicating the subordinate or super-ordinate members (Habil, 2011; Sampson, 1983). Additionally, the coordination of work, organizational hierarchies have served a number of functions like delivering respective responsibilities and motivate workers which explains the hope of promotion (Courpasson and Reed, 2004; Du Gay, 2000; Cremer, 1980). The organizational hierarchies are particularly important in paramilitary and military organizations and they have to obey the orders that are issued by the superiors. One of the most important characteristic of bureaucratic organizations is its widespread use and reliance on the written records that are already available to the organization. The written records are necessary for the dissemination and preservation of the tax records, contracts and voter registrations (Habil, 2011; Hodgson, 2004; Du Gay, 2000; Cremer, 1980). Innovativeness can be defined as the capability of the organization to coordinate the developmental programs for their new services and goods. Meanwhile it can be elaborated that creativity is the key resources in innovating products and services. Innovativeness presupposes creativity and as a result creativity is not adequate enough to express the persistent capacities for the innovation. Cremer (1980) has observed that the intersection between innovation, creativity and bureaucracy has helped increasing the efficiency of the bureaucratic organization. The relation existing between bureaucracy, creativity and innovation is often problematic for the organization as it relates to the formation of new ideas. Bureaucratic organization portrays its dysfunctional parts where it does not take into consideration the inability to beat the instituted fixed roles and inflexibility of routines (Sköldberg, 2002; Habil, 2011; Hodgson, 2004). Conclusion It can be concluded that the changes that occur in expectations of the workers and customers accompanied by technological and economic advances have offered many features to the classic bureaucratic organization. As a result, variety of dissimilar arrangements in an organization has emerged in both public and private sectors as it is the alternative for bureaucracy; one of the arrangement can be describes as matrix organization. Apart from the hierarchical authority that extends extending from top till down, another matrix organization has horizontal and vertical dimension that holds exercise of authority in the state of flux (Maravelias, 2003; Habil, 2011; Hodgson, 2004; Du Gay, 2000; Cremer, 1980). The vertical measurement is connected with the functional departments like manufacturing, sales and personnel management. The horizontal dimension has the ability to encompass the teams, which are concentrated upon for particular projects or for certain geographical areas. A matrix bureaucratic organization has many traditional departments like purchasing, engineering and marketing; however the personnel from the departments are controlled and coordinated into teams for working on creating new product. This helps in cross-fertilization of the ideas that are generated by the engineers. These ideas are inclined towards the designing of the products, which are easy for manufacturing at a rational cost whereas the manufacturing staff will employ the production models. These production models results in high quality products, which have the ability to attract the customers and create their life easier. Thus, in a bureaucratic organization, matrix structure is set up temporarily that brings the personnel from different parts of the organization for working in new project (Habil, 2011; Hodgson, 2004). Hence, in a bureaucratic organization benefit of flexibility and its potency is employed by the personnel; it is used in form of ambiguous lines for command that compete with certain claims. These claims are associated with the authorities, which is sorted in course working of a project (Sköldberg, 2002; Du Gay, 2000; Cremer, 1980). Reference List Courpasson, D. and Reed, M., 2004. Introduction: Bureaucracy in the age of enterprise. Organization, 11(1), pp. 5-12. Cremer, J., 1980. A partial theory of the optimal organization of a bureaucracy. The Bell Journal of Economics, pp, 683-693. Downs, A. and Rand Corporation, 1967. Inside bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown. Du Gay, P., 2000. In praise of bureaucracy. London: Sage Publications Frenkel, S. J., Tam, M., Korczynski, M. and Shire, K., 1998. Beyond bureaucracy? Work organization in call centers. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 9(6), pp. 957-979. Habil, W., 2011. Rationality and Irrationality of Max Weber’s Bureaucracies. International Journal of Management & Business Studies, 1(4), pp. 2231-2463. Hodgson, D.E., 2004. Project work. The legacy of bureaucratic control in the post-bureaucratic organization. Organization, 11(1), pp. 81-100. Maravelias, C., 2003. Post-bureaucracy: Control through professional freedom. Journal of Organization Change Management, 16(5), pp. 547-566. Olsen, J. P., 2006. Maybe it is time to rediscover bureaucracy. Journal of public administration research and theory, 16(1), pp. 1-24. Sampson, S. L., 1983. Bureaucracy and corruption as anthropological problems: a case study from Romania. Folk. Dansk Ethnografisk Tidsskrift Kobenhavn, 25, pp. 63-96. Sköldberg, K., 2002. The Poetic Logic of Administration: Styles and changes of style in the art of organizing. London: Routledge Udy Jr, S. H., 1959. Bureaucracy and Rationality in Webers Organization Theory: An Empirical Study. American Sociological Review, pp. 791-795. Read More