FORMAL ORGANIZATIONS: BUREAUCRACIES

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FORMAL ORGANIZATIONSBUREAUCRACIES
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DEFINITION

• A bureaucracy is an organizational model
  characterized by
• A hierarchy of authority
• A clear division of labour
• Explicit rules and procedures
• Impersonality in personnel matters
• THE MOST USED MODEL OF ORGANIZATION IN BUSINESS,
  EDUCATION, GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION.

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• Bureaucracies became needed as organizations
  (businesses/government) grew larger.
• It is hard to imagine today, bud a hundred years
  ago bureaucracy meant something positive. It
  connoted a rational, efficient method of
  organization- something to take the place of the
  arbitrary exercise of power by authoritarian
  regimes. Bureaucracy brought the same logic to
  government work that the assembly line brought to
  the factory. With the hierarchical authority and
  functional specialization, they made possible the
  efficient undertaking of large complex tasks.-
  David Osborne

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SHORTCOMINGS OF BUREAUCRACIES

• Inefficiency and Rigidity
• Monopolization of Information
• Goal Displacement
• Bureaucratic Personality
• Trained Incapacity (Thorstein Veblen)
• Resistance to Change

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• Office Space Fed up with the Bureaucracy