Max Weber, who was also referred to as the German sociologist[A1] , suggested that bureaucracy is a constitution of well-organized hierarchies that are necessary in the maintenance of law and order, elimination of favoritism and maximization of efficiency. The word bureaucracy is a borrowed word from the field of sociology that generally means power. Weber was the first one to endorse it into the modern society because the forms had started to spread to even the large institutions. It is both a generic and scientific model that can work in the private and public sectors (Weber, 1946[A2] ). For instance, Weber the structure in bureaucracy goes hand with material concentration type of management in the hands of the master[A3] .
During the late 1800s, he criticized a lot of organizations that were seen to run their businesses like families. He also observed that the employs were rather loyal to their supervisors and employees rather than the organization itself. That is the reason why he came up with the formalized and rigid structure of governance referred to as bureaucracy. One of his beliefs is that the power given to a supervisor should be based on the level of professional competence and the adherence to the rules and regulations that govern a given organization.
Nevertheless, Weber also viewed unfettered bureaucracy as a big threat to one’s freedom because of the potentiality of trapping individual’s rational control (Henslin, Possamai, Possamai-Inesedy and Marjoribanks,2015[A4] ). He observed all the common three types of power which are charismatic, traditional and rational-legal which is also termed as bureaucratic, and endorsed the latter. There are several features of the latter type of power which have been given by Weber. The first feature is the administrative class which is responsible for the maintenance of the coordinative activities of the members. Selection of individuals in the administrative class should be based on the level of competence, salary received is on the basis of the position and the class should not have proprietary interests in the organization[A5] .
The second feature is the hierarchy. It is termed to be the basic and most fundamental bureaucratic feature in any organization whereby the lowest office is subjected to maximum control by the higher office. Under the hierarchy feature, communication must happen in respect to each and every position, that is from the highest to the lowest form of power without elimination of any position in between. Moreover, there is also the impersonal relationship which means that individuals are only governed by the official rules. Hence, one is freed from emotions, sentiments and personal involvement in workplaces. Other features include division of work, official rules, and official records.
Bureaucratic management approach is also based on six major principles that are applied. Firstly, there is proper division of labor whereby a balance between power and responsibilities is maintained. There is also the separation of personal property from the official one, assets owned by an individual are separated from the official property. Other principles include promotion on the basis of qualifications, application of rules base on the chain involved and strict application of the complete rules[A6] .
There are several benefits that come in the bureaucratic type of rule. One, the respective duties and responsibilities are brought up very clear hence cases of conflicting job duties are very rare. When the labor is divided respectively, workers are able to specialize and become experts in their jobs. Promotions are also based on merits hence encouraging one to be smart in the performance of duties. However, the system has disadvantages such as suffering from a lot of paperwork, workers get used to a given system hence introduction of new system becomes so hard and non-development of belonging to an organization (Al-Habil, 2.010).
Max Weber’s approach worked as the best solution to the problems that were incurred in the traditional system of administration. He stressed that the form was the more stable because both the superiors and subordinates are independent. For that, the subordinate can challenge some of the decisions made by their leaders in reference to the rules and regulations set. Therefore, the type of governance is able to take care of many complex operations as compared to the traditional systems. Most times, criticism from customers can happen due to the kind of services given. Weber felt that the problem was not with mismanagement of resources but the frequent increase of power among the officials. From the corrections made over the years, there has been the shift of power from the leaders to bureaucrats.
The Weber theory has also faced criticism due to his claim that bureaucratic organizations worked on the basis of rational-legal authority. Thompson (1961) also notes that the ability of organizations is decentralized whereas authority is centralized. He further notes that Weber overlooked on the structural resolution of the authority-ability quandary. Moreover, from the examinations done by Udy (1959) on 150 organizations, he did not find any correlation between the rational attributes and bureaucratic ones. However, the theorists of the recent years have approved Weber’s theory by insisting that the earlier ones misread and distorted most of his views. According to Finer (1941), the modern theorists argue that he is the one who realized that formalization could degenerate formalism and concentration of power on top positions could lead to imprisoning of the low-level works.
Theorist Weber believed that the human civilization among the humans is a result of evolution from the primitive to the to the rational and complex stages (Sager and Rosser, 2009). He argues further by stating that bureaucracy grows due to society's needs to be provided with education, health, and social services. Stillman (2000) also quotes him that “the proper soil for bureaucratization of administration has always been the development of administrative tasks”. Nevertheless, he argues that the key features that Weber identified above cannot give an organization efficiency in the performance. Michel Crozier supports the argument by saying that some of the bureaucratic features such as hierarch and impersonal official rules may it hard in the correction of a mistake from the lesson learned of the previous one.
Under democracy, Weber writes that individuals select a leader whom they fully trust then later the leader dictates by commanding them to obey his own rules. Hence, it gives Weber and other scholars of PA a major concern (Hummel, 1998). Passive democratization is described to be controlled by the bureaucratic elements whereby task completion is controlled. Whenever the control outcomes are too few, dander bounds on the elite status. Thompson explains that at given times, the bureaucrats use behavior patterns to dominate over people. The latter leads to disconnection of the citizens from their professionals. Alexander and Richmond’s views on rigidity holds that the elite’s governance entails the rule by philosophers and experts. Elite governance limits democracy because the determination of the right action is inclined to professional training and science by the professionals.
Even if Weber believes that efficiency and rationality are achieved through bureaucracy, one has to acknowledge that he also minded the various the shortcomings such as “an oppressive routine adverse to personal freedom”. Also, he believes that it can limit one's freedom of understanding activities of an organization. The scholars that are in the public administration field have failed explaining the difference between representative governance and bureaucracy due to the irreconcilable differences on the impossibility of modern-day governance. The changes observed in the American society are of the indication that the problems administrators have to deal with do not fit the authority and hierarchy based structure.
Lastly, there is the big need to restructure the bureaucracy for the benefit of adoption to the new and complex problems that might come up. Sadly, the issue will remain in the debate in the PA field for a long time because there has been no consensus concerning on ways in which restructuring can be done.
Reference List[A7]
Al-Habil, W.I., 2.011. Rationality and irrationality of Max Weber’s bureaucracies. International Journal of Marketing & Business Studies, 1(4), pp.106-110.
Finer, H., 1941. “Administrative responsibility in democratic government”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 1: pp. 335-350.
Henslin, J.M., Possamai, A.M., Possamai-Inesedy, A.L., Marjoribanks, T. and Elder, K., 2015. Sociology: A down to earth approach. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Hummel, R., 1998. “Bureaucracy”, The International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration: 307.
Sager, F. and Rosser, C., 2009. Weber, Stillman, and Hegel: Theories of modern bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 69(6), pp.1136-1147.
Senigaglia, C., 2011. Max Weber and the parliamentary bureaucracy of his time. Parliaments, Estates & Representation, 31(1), pp.53-66.
Thompson, V., 1961. “Modern Organization”, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Friedrich, C.,1940. “Public policy and the nature of administrative responsibility”, In C. J Friedrich (Ed.), Public Policy: 3-24. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Van Riper, P., 1997. “The American Administrative State: Wilson and the Founders”, In R. Chandler (Ed.), A Centennial History of the American Administrative State, pp. 3-36.
Weber, Udy M., 1946. “Bureaucracy”, Oxford Press.
[A1]“refer to” means his nickname, is his nickname ‘German sociologist’?
[A2]Insert page number pls
[A3]Unclear sentence
[A4]Page number
[A5]Too difficult to read, please paraphrase
[A6]You talk about six major principles but mention only 4 or 5, it’s even unclear how many of them you write about. Also, if you speak about one principle in details, do the same for all principles, or just mention all of them, no specifications
[A7]The customer asked for 10 references
