Weber on Bureaucracy Spring 2006. One, Two, Three Ideal type “Why bureaucracy?” Superiority.

Weber on Bureaucracy

Spring 2006

One, Two, Three

• Ideal type

• “Why bureaucracy?”

• Superiority

7 Characteristics of Bureaucracy

• 1. The business is an ongoing concern

• 2. Offices function according to rules

• 3. Offices are organized hierarchically

• 4. Officials do not own tools & resources

• 5. Work and home are strictly separated

• 6. Office is not owned by the incumbent.

• 7. Business based on written documents

Business is an ongoing concern

• vs. organized group activity of the moment

• There is an “entity” or “concern” that exists independently of particular task

• Members have full-time jobs with the entity

• Basis for our thinking about “organizations” as things

Office functions guided by rules

• vs. ad hoc divisions of labor or “Three Musketeers” organization (cf. Saturday morning cartoons)

• Job descriptions. Jurisdictions. Qualifications. Authority (available means of coercion ) defined.

• This is big part of what makes an organization work like a well-oiled machine

Offices Organized Hierarchically

• vs. anybody at level 1 can boss people at level 2

• Super and sub-ordination

• Monocratic (everybody has only one boss)

• Chains of command

• Spans of control

Officials do not own tools

• Vs. private craftsperson (“must have own tools”)

• Emphasizes human capital (you come to do a job using our materials)

Work and home strictly separate

• vs., say, family enterprise (e.g. farm)

• Office distinguished from home, household from private correspondence– cf. CNE book Home and Work

• Further emphasizes impersonality of job fulfillment

Office not owned by incumbent.

• Vs. feudal titles or privs like “tax farming”

• Offices cannot be appropriated by their incumbents (inherited, sold, etc.)

• “acceptance of a specific duty of fealty to the purpose of the office”

• Salary rather than wages for officials. Career track. Fixed career lines. Grades, ranks, moving up the ladder

Written documents

• vs. “informal” organization

• Records, paper trails

• Memos and staff to process them (clerks, “paper pushers”). Office management as specific skill set

Another Way to Look at Weber

• Three groups of characteristics

1. Structure and function of organization

2. Means of rewarding effort

3. Protections for the individuals.

Structure & function of organization

• Hierarchy : orders/channels

• Jurisdictions

• Job descriptions

• Written records

Means of rewarding effort

• Salary.

• Advancement based on tenure, qualifications.

• Security.

Protections for the individuals

Job security – tenure unless “cause” (vs. serving “at the pleasure of X”)

Explicit Definitions of what is “job relevant”

Descrimination

Sexual harassment

So, “Why bureaucracy?”

• Usual associations

• Red tape, inefficient, impersonal, inflexible, slow, meaningless requirements

“…the sins generally attributed to bureaucracy are either not

sins at all or are consequences of the failure to bureaucratize

sufficiently.”

Charles Perrow

Failures of Bureaucracy

• Job descriptions unclear• Jurisdictional overlaps• Skills/credentials not matched to

requirements of job• Communication channels unclear or not

observed• Exceptions made for friends• Failure to document or inability to find

records

Superiority of Bureaucracy

• “the means of transforming social action into rationally organized action” (189b7)

• Instrument of power• Member stuck in apparatus (“cog in the

machine”)• Members generally can’t derail the organization• Resistance can’t simply break in• Mechanism can work for anybody/anything• Organization as TOOL

Failures of Bureaucracy

• Nepotism• Favoritism in hiring• “Hostile environment”• Inconsistency• Failure to follow own rules• Contradictory orders from two “bosses”• Confusion over what job has authority to

control• Corruption

Failures of Bureaucracy

• Overly tall structures (word never gets from top to bottom)

• Officials who hide behind office

• Use of paper trails to hide rather than document accountability

Other Organizational Pathologies

• Over-specialization

• Rigidity and inertia reduces innovation

• Group think

• Catch-22: rules leads to contradictions

• Goal ambiguity – allegiance to what?

Questions

• What is the relationship between “class, status, and party” and “bureaucracy”?

• How is bureaucracy “rational”?

Books You Should Read

• Perrow, Charles. Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay

• Gouldner, Alvin. Patterns of