Max Weber, Henri Fayol and Luther Halsey Gulick all addressed issues, concerning how an overall organization should be structured, bureaucratic administration, while Frederick Taylor’s theory of scientific management concentrated on techniques for increasing production (Tomkins, 2005). This essay will focus on the disadvantages and the advantages, including the effective and efficient components, of bureaucracy in public management.
Sociologist Max Weber undertook the first study of bureaucracy in the early 1900s (Tomkins, 2005). Weber’s theory of bureaucracy holds that administrative rationality is achieved by dividing work into specialized administrative functions, assigning each function to a specific office, placing clear limits on each office’s scope of authority, organizing officials on a career basis, and requiring them to carry out directives with strict discipline and in accordance with clearly defined rules (Tomkins, 2005). According to Weber, today’s government is predicated on the theory of legal-rational authority and its corresponding administrative apparatus – bureaucratic (Tomkins, 2005). Bureaucratic Administration is defined by a set of strictly defined rules that delineate the hierarchy of authority, the rights and duties of every official, and the means by which administrative duties are carried out (Tomkins, 2005). The ideal type bureaucracy, Weber envisioned, would include the following elements: fixed official duties, hierarchy of authority, system of rules, technical expertise, career service, written documentation and a spirit of informal impersonality (Tomkins, 2005). Henri Fayol was the first of the theorists to identify management as a continuing process of evolution and Gulick expanded on Fayol’s...
... middle of paper ...
...ns. The Bellefonte Business Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.examiner.com/article/the-disadvantages-of-bureaucracy-organizations
Ingram, D. (n.d.). What are the advantages and disadvantages of a bureaucratic organization structure? Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/ advantages-disadvantages-bureaucratic-organization-structure-2761.html Johnson, S. (n.d.). Advantages & disadvantages of bureaucratic organizational structure. AZ Central. Retrieved from http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/advantages-disadvantages-bureaucratic-organizational-structure-11579.html
Mack, S. (n.d.). The disadvantages of bureaucracy in organizations. AZ Central.
Retrieved from http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/disadvantages-bureaucracy-organizations-10479.html
Tomkins, J. R. (2005). Organization theory and public management. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Cenage Learning.
Often, when the discussion of American bureaucracy is broached in conversation, those holding these conversations often think of the many men and women who operate behind the scenes within the government. This same cross section of Americans is looked upon as the real power within the federal government and unlike the other branches of government, has little to no oversight. A search of EBSCO resulted in the following definition, an organization “structure with a rigid hierarchy of personnel, regulated by set rules and procedures” (Bureaucracy, 2007). Max Weber believed that a bureaucracy was technically the most efficient form of organization, one structured around official functions that are bound by rules, each function having its own specified competence (2007). This wide ranging group of Americans has operated within the gaps, behind the scenes, all under the three core branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The division of government into three branches and separate powers gives each branch both exclusive powers and some additional power...
Hall, Daniel E. Administrative Law: Bureaucracy in a Democracy. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.
Modern Bureaucracy in the United States serves to administer, gather information, conduct investigations, regulate, and license. Once set up, a bureaucracy is inherently conservative. The reason the bureaucracy was initiated may not continue to exist as a need in the future. The need or reason may change with a change in the times and the culture needs. A bureaucracy tends to make decisions that protect it and further it’s own existence, possibly apart from the wishes of the populace. It may not consistently reflect what might be optimal in terms of the needs and wants of the people. Local governments employ most of the United States civil servants. The 14 cabinet departments in the U.S. are run day-to-day by career civil servants, which have a great deal of discretionary authority.
The mainstream view of bureaucracy identifies problems of poor motivation, poor customer service and resistance to change, while the critical view accuses its instrumental rationality and narrow focus on efficiency to not only be demotivating but also dehumanising. With regard to post-bureaucracy, the mainstream approach critiques its problems of fragile control, risk and bias, while the critical perspective contends that its method of normative control is still an exertion of power over employees carried out by senior
1.A) There are many provisions within the bill of rights that protect individuals who try to influence politics. One of which would be Citizens right to assemble. Freedomd of assembly is the right of people to hold a public meeting and form addociations without interference by the government.It is found within the First Amendment. It mentions how Congress shall make no law against the right of the people to peacefully assemble. A second provision within the Bill of Rights could be, The Freedom of Press. Freedom of the Press is the right to circulate opinions in print without censorship by the government. The First AMendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or the press. B) Interest groups engage in a variety
Public Administration involves the development, implementation and management of policies for the attainment of set goals and objectives that will be to the benefit of the general public. Since Public Administration involves taking decisions that affect the use of public resources there is often the question of how to utilize public resources for maximum public good. The National Association of Public Administration has identified four pillars of public administration: economy, efficiency, effectiveness and social equity. These pillars are equally important in the practice of public administration and to its success. This paper seeks to explain the role of each of the pillars in the practice of public administration.
Weber’s uses his theory of Bureaucracy to point out that it is what society is becoming and how it creates social older in society. This theory is
Similarly in Weber’s bureaucratic approach, organizations are divided into different echelons with each varying in its degrees of influence. Each unit being commanded by the one above it, a system that promotes stability and has a predictable line of communication. Both approaches of management rely heavily on regulated control. Whether governing task scientifically of people authoritatively. A solid form of control is mus...
Max Weber mentions that bureaucracy is characterized by impersonality (Weber, 1997), and this is another reason why it is an irrelevant phenomenon in the study of organizations. The relationships between the executive officials and their juniors in an organization that adopts a bureaucratic system of leadership in usually impersonal. Although impersonality of bureaucracy is praised as important in promoting equality by some scholars, it is a bureaucratic characteristic that cause infuriation in organizations as individual treatment of people is overridden by generalization, something that Gajduschek (2003) attests to. An important point to bear in mind is that offended employees are ultimately unproductive employees. Bureaucracies are often
The study of public administration only continued to grow over the course of the next two decades. As the study of public administration expanded, so did the development of s...
Since its emergence as a field of study, there have been some important contributions to public administration. Its goal has always been to improve productivity which then improves workplace performance. All of the contributions have been aimed at completing the work with the highest level of efficiency and at the lowest cost.
Traditional public administration is traced back to the works of scholars like Max Weber, Woodrow Wilson and Fredrick Taylor. This form of administration was mostly influenced by Max Weber with his bureaucratic model and theory. Max Weber was a well-known sociologist born in Germany in the year 1864. He came up with his bureaucratic model as a way to try to improve management in organizations. ‘Weber emphasized on top-down control in the form of monocratic hierarchy that is a system of control in which policy is set at the top and carried out through a series of offices, whereby every manager and employee are to report to one person in top management and held accountable by that manager’ (Pfiffner, 2004, p. 1).
According to Sapru R.K. (2008) p370-371 the traditional ideal of public administration which inclined to be firm and bureaucratic was based on processes instead of outcomes and on setting procedures to follow instead of focusing on results. This paradigm can be regarded as an administration under formal control of the political control, constructed on a firmly ranked model of bureaucracy, run by permanent and neutral public servants, driven only by public concern. In emerging nations the administration was true bureaucracy meaning government by officers. In this perspective Smith (1996) p235-6 perceived that“the bureaucracy controls and manages the means of production through the government. It increases chances for bureaucratic careers by the creation of public figures,demanding public managers, marketing boards.
Politics-Administration Dichotomy essentially has a two part meaning; there are two functions of government for this idea, as the name implies politics, and administration. The argument about the dichotomy between politics and public administration has been around for several years with no overall consensus on why they should be distinct from one another. Looking critically at both sides of the idea, there are ways to demonstrate an accurate presentation of the administrative agencies working and there are also ways they have proved to be inaccurate. There are just as many downfalls to a politicized bureaucracy. There will be more benefits to the politics-administration dichotomy view with the concept put in place by Woodrow Wilson. He simply promotes a clear distinction between politics and administration and supports the idea that they are interdependent of one another, and they require one another for the appropriate balance between democracy and efficiency. The idea of Wilson’s concept will allow agencies to gain the most efficiency through interdependence of politics-administration.
Bureaucracy is an organizational design based on the concept of standardization. “It is characterized by highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulations, tasks that are grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follows the chain of command” (Judge & Robbins, 2007, p.