Bureaucracy

Max Weber
Characteristics of Bureaucracy:
 There exists a distribution of activities to be followed for
the purposes of the bureaucratic ruled object which
constitute official duties.
 In order to give commands to discharge these official
duties, rules are backed by compulsive means to ensure
that commands are followed.
 For the regular and continuing fulfillment of official duties
to occur, and that they are performed accordingly,
persons with generally regulated qualifications are in
place.
 These three elements constitute
“bureaucratic authority” in public and legal
government. In private economic business,
they are termed “bureaucratic management”.
 There exists the principle of office hierarchy
and levels of authority.
 Theofficial receives regular compensation—in
the form of a salary, normally fixed, and a
pension for old age security.
 The official is established within a “career”
inside the hierarchical order of the public
service.
The Life Cycle of Bureaus
Types of Bureau:

Bureaus are generally created in one of four different ways.

 First, a bureau can be formed by what Max Weber called
the routinization of charisma. A group of men brought
together by their personal devotion to a charismatic
leader may transform itself into a bureaucratic structure
in order to perpetuate his ideas.
 Second, a bureau may be deliberately created by one or
more groups in society in order to carry out a specific
function for which they perceive a need.
 Third,a new bureau can split off from an existing
bureau.

 Fourth, a bureau may be created through

“entrepreneurship” if a group of men promoting a
particular policy (such as communism) gains enough
support to establish and operate a large nonmarket
organization devoted to that policy.

All of these types have three things in common: the bureau

is initially dominated by advocates, it normally goes
through an early phase of rapid growth, and it must
immediately begin seeking sources of external support in
order to survive.
The Struggle for Autonomy:
No bureau can survive unless it is continually
able to demonstrate that its services are
worthwhile to some group with influence
over sufficient resources to keep it alive. If it
is supported by voluntary contributions, it
must impress potential contributors with the
desirability of sacrificing resources to obtain
its services. If it is a government bureau, it
must impress those politicians who control
the budget that its functions generate
political support or meet vital social needs.
The major reasons why bureaus inherently
seek to expand are as follows:

 An organization that is rapidly expanding can

attract more capable personnel, and more easily
retain its most capable existing personnel, than
can one that is expanding very slowly, stagnating,
or shrinking.

 The expansion of any organization normally

provides its leaders with increased power,
income, and prestige; hence they encourage its
growth.
 Growth tends to reduce internal conflicts in an
organization by allowing some (or all) of its
members to increase their personal status without
lowering that of others.

 Increasing the size of an organization may also

improve the quality of its performance (per unit
of output) and its chances for survival.

As bureaus grow older, they tend to develop more

formalized rule systems covering more and more of
the possible situations they are likely to encounter.
 The older a bureau is, the less likely it is to die.
This is true because its leaders become more
willing to shift major purposes in order to keep
the bureau alive.

 The best time to “kill” a bureau is as soon as

possible after it comes into existence.

 In general, the older a bureau is, the broader the

scope of the social functions it serves.
The Death of Bureaus
 Normally, organizations die because they fail to perform
social functions of enough importance to make their
members or clientele willing to sacrifice the resources
necessary to maintain those functions.
 Such an inability can occur for three reasons:
1. the specific functions per formed by the organization
decline in relative importance;
2. the functions remain important but the organization is
unable to perform them efficiently;
3. or the functions remain important but some other
organization performs them better.