Max Weber's Bureaucracy: Ideal Type and Dysfunctions

Bureaucracy and Ideal Type Dysfunctions

Max Weber developed the first interpretation of the emergence of modern organizations. For him, organizations are a way of coordinating the activities of human groups or management of the goods they produce. Developing organizations depends on controlling information. Organizations have a strong hierarchy, where power tends to be concentrated at the top. According to Weber, all large organizations tend to be bureaucratic. Bureaucracy means "office desk to write," or "rule." Accordingly, bureaucracy means "government officials." Bureaucracy is often associated with paperwork and inefficiency. However, other authors have dealt with this reality from another point of view, as a model of care, precision, and efficient management.

For Weber, the expansion of bureaucracy is inevitable in modern societies. However, he also thought that bureaucracy has notable flaws. Weber constructs an ideal type of bureaucracy. An ideal type is an abstract prepared by the accentuation of certain real features to identify their most essential features.

Features of Ideal Bureaucracy:

• There is a clear hierarchy of authority. A bureaucracy is like a pyramid, with the positions of highest authority at the top.
• Written rules govern the conduct of officials.
• Staff members are full-time employees. Each job in the hierarchy is assigned a defined and fixed salary.
• There is a separation between the official duties within the organization.
• No member of the organization has the material resources with which it operates. Workers are separated from the control of the means of production.

Weber believed that the closer an organization is to the ideal type of bureaucracy, the more effective it will be in achieving its objectives. However, he acknowledged that it could be ineffective, and too many bureaucratic jobs were boring and offered few opportunities for developing creativity.

Formal and Informal Relations

Formal relations within organizations are very important. They are established among the people following the rules of the organization. In a classic study, Peter Blau studied informal relationships in a public body. The rules did not allow officials to consult colleagues at the same level as them. Most officials, however, avoided consulting their supervisors because they believed this could indicate a lack of competence on their part and reduce their chances of promotion. Hence, they consulted each other. This not only provided specific advice but also reduced the anxiety of working alone. Among those who had developed the same rank, a set of loyalties emerged. The group could develop informal procedures, giving more scope for initiative and responsibility. In all organizational levels, informal networks tend to develop.

The Dysfunctions of Bureaucracy

Merton said that bureaucrats are trained to strictly follow written rules and procedures. They are not encouraged to be flexible. Merton feared that this rigidity could produce a situation where the rules are respected at all costs, even though it may be best for the entire organization to opt for another route. Merton's second concern was that, in the end, meeting the bureaucratic rules could become more important than the goals of the organization. One of the main weaknesses of bureaucracy is how difficult it is to deal with cases that need special treatment and consideration.

Burns and Stalker distinguished two types of organizations: mechanistic and organic. Mechanistic organizations are bureaucratic systems in which there is a hierarchical chain of command, communication flows vertically through clear channels, and each employee is responsible for a particular task. The work in these systems is anonymous. By contrast, organic organizations are characterized by more straightforward and general targets that are more important than fulfilling responsibilities narrowly. Decisions are not the exclusive jurisdiction of those above.