Introduction The City of Smallville, Illinois is currently demonstrating the classical Theory of Bureaucracy theoretical framework. The Theory of Bureaucracy was identified by Max Weber. Tompkins (2005) describes this theoretical framework as a divided organizational structure that consists of fixed official duties, hierarchy of authority, systems of rules, technical expertise, career service, and written documentation. This organizational structure can be depicted within the City of Smallville because there is a strict top-down communication structure. The employees are not incorporated within the decision making processes and they cannot express their concerns with the upper level management. Some organizational structure recommendations …show more content…
The system of rules provides specific technical methods in which employees must complete their responsibilities (Tompkins, 2005). This strict oversight limits the employee’s performance and might increase frustration amongst the organizations members. The City of Smallville denotes this concept because they lack opportunities within their work process. This type of environment limits the employee’s capabilities and does not provide professional development. The fourth concept is career service. Max Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy hired employees who strictly chose public service as a career (Tompkins, 2005). In addition, Max Weber believed that public servants should not be able to express personal or political favoritism (Tompkins, 2005). The City of Smallville reflects this concept because employees are not allowed to share policy recommendations that could potentially align with one party over the other. Max Weber’s last concept is documentation. An organization that includes documentation tends to maintain record of all the organizations policies, decisions, and administrative actions (Tompkins, 2005). At the moment we are not aware if the City of Smallville maintains official documentation of all activity, but it should because this type of documentation will allow the employees and administrators to implement …show more content…
According to Tompkins (2005), the Pre-Human Relations Theory introduced a more humanistic approach into management and organizational theory (Tompkins, 2005). Mary Parker Follett believed in the importance of collaboration between individuals because it will allow the members to meet their own professional development (Tompkins, 2005). This was also expressed within her views of power and authority. She believed in power-within rather than power-over (Tompkins, 2005). Applying this organization theory into the City of Smallville will allow the employees to undergo professional development by enhancing their skills and capabilities. In addition, Mary Parker Follett identified a couple different motivational strategies, which consisted of legal compliance, instrumental rewards, job identification, and goal congruence (Tompkins, 2005). In order to improve motivation within the City of Smallville, the City Manager should focus on providing instrumental rewards. This concept consists of rewards for performance, considerate leadership, and group acceptance (Tompkins, 2005). The rewards for performance technique will improve the employee’s performance, because if an employee has high performance they could be eligible for an increase in pay. This will allow the employees to become more motivated within the
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.
Max Weber, German sociologist, social theorist, and economist, explicated the theory of bureaucracy in which he details the monocratic bureaucracy “as an ideal form that maximized rationality” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 48). He provided his most complete exposition of theory in his 1922 tome Economy and Society (Casey, 2004). This classic form of bureaucracy is characterized by the following (a) well-defined official functions; (b) specialization of function; (c) clearly defined hierarchy of offices; (d) rules governing performance, which require training to administer; (e) impersonal treatment of clients, in that all are treated equally; (f) merit as the basis of promotion or appointment; (g) compensation based on rank; (h) separation of personal and company assets and interests; (i) discipline and control of daily work; (j) files and record keeping for decisions, acts, and rules (Bolman & Deal, 2008; O’Connor, 2011). There are numerous shorthand versions of Weber’s theory including Harmon and Mayer (1986) in Organization Theory for Public Administration and Heady (2001) in Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (O’Connor, 2011).
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.
Bureaucracy is a specific type of secondary group that are everywhere in one's life. Max Weber identified Bureaucracy with six different types of characteristics. Areas in my life that have been Mcdonaldized can first fit in with the Specialization part. Specialization is where all members of a bureaucracy are assigned specialized roles and tools, an example of this in my life can fit in with voluntary work I do in hospitals. Everyone who voluntaries to work each have their own roles to help out with. When I go to stores or to restaurants Hierarchy is something I see the most. The reason as to why is because both stores and restaurants have supervision by higher-ranking managers and bosses. Another area in my life that has been Mcdonaldized is my school. My school fits under Rules and regulations because responsibilities are written down and are clearly stated. Almost student who starts school is given a handbook, the handbook has our responsibilities written down on
Though the bureaucracy began simply, with George Washington’s creation of the Department of Foreign Affairs, over the last 226 years, its size and power have increased exponentially. From homeland security to the delivery of mail, this “fourth branch of government” possesses a wide scope of responsibilities. However, the necessity for such a structure often comes into question. According to Max Weber, who believed that “the bureaucracy was likely to acquire an ‘overpowering’ power position, the bureaucracy is an “inevitable consequence” of modern day life (“The Rise of the Bureaucratic State”, Wilson). A specialized bureaucracy provides valuable expertise, an asset which the Founders did not take for granted, as they had suffered a committee
Bureaucracy has been the main form of organisation for over a century and can be characterised by the following: functional specialisation, employees carrying out one function of activity as their primary role; hierarchy of authority, those in superior positions having authority based solely on the virtue of the position itself; a system of rules, the tasks of the organisation following a formal set of procedures and practices; and impersonality, individuals being treated on the basis of the rules rather than emotions and personality (Knights & Willmott, 2012). The mainstream perspective states that a bureaucratic organisation’s central aim is to maximise efficiency, objectivity and fairness and can be thought of as a ‘machine’ with the people making up the components (Knights & Willmott, 2012). This view attributes three problems to this rule-centred organisation: poor motivation, poor customer service and a resistance to innovation and change (Knights & Willmott, 2012). Employees in bureaucratic organisations tend not to be committed to their
Weber believed that bureaucracy created stable, and predictable actions and outcomes because it allowed organizations to work in a rational manner, like a machine, and helped account for the fact that humans had only limited intelligence. Though Weber discussed the perfect model of an organization, bureaucracy allows for even imperfect organizations to function in a more reliable and predictable way because it’s structure controls how individuals behave.
Organizations in today’s world need to adapt and overcome many obstacles that are predictable as well as unpredictable. Max Weber outlines the five basic principles of bureaucracy which are as follows: The Division of Labor, Hierarchy of Authority, Written Rules and Regulations, Impersonality Principal, and Technical Qualifications. These basic principals were designed to maximize productivity and assert authority over subordinates in the workforce. (Weber, 1968) In present day the basic principles of Weber’s bureaucratic design are still visible in just about every organization. The only variable is to what extent they are applied.
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
Research has shown that motivation in an employee is an important factor which determines his performance. Motivation is the “driving force within individuals” (Mullins, 2007, p. 285). It is the concerned with finding out the reasons which shape and direct the behaviour of the individuals. The people act to achieve something so that they can satisfy some needs (Gitman and Daniel, 2008). It is important for the manager to understand this motivation of individual employees in order to inspire them and devise an appropriate set of incentives and rewards which would satisfy the needs that they have individually (Kerr, 2003). Once these needs are expected to be met in return for some specific behaviour or action, they would work more diligently to have that behaviour in them and to achieve that objective (Meyer and Hersovitch, 2001). Since it would lead to early and fuller achievement of the company objectives as the individual would work more diligently, it would lead to better organizational performance (Wiley, 1997).
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).
Motivation is the process of getting someone to act on a particular situation. According to (Adelhardt, S, K. 2015, December 2) lack of motivation in the workplace is the most problematic subject for all managers, because it leads to decreasing productivity, performance and yet it increases the chances of employee resignation. Many employers suppose that managers these days are struggling to motivate their employees due to lack of significantly vital experience as well as knowledge in the employee engagement developing process. One of the successful strategies that managers can use to increase employee inspiration is by offering an attractive remuneration and benefits to their employees. Remuneration and benefits such as an extrinsic bonus
A German sociologist Max Weber was the first person who describe about the term bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a means to create efficient institution staffed with trained experts who work permanently, whose jurisdiction is prearranged by laws and regulations, and whose responsibility comprises of applying plain broad rules to specific circumstances (Weber, 1946).
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.