Bureaucracy Theory Of Management

Weber's theory of bureaucracy (1958) is one of the most popular themes of the studying of organizations. He identified the legitimate of power with authority. 'Power' means the ability to ask people to accept the orders; 'Legitimation' means people regard this power as legitimate so as to obey the orders. Weber identified this authority as three types:

Charismatic authority, where the rule can be accepted because the leader has some outstanding personal quality.

Traditional authority, where is obeyed for a respect of the old order.

Rational-legal authority, where is designed to achieve particular goals though a basis of rules and procedures. (Mullins 16-20)

To Weber meant: "the fully developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as dose the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production." (Huczynski 35-74) Bureaucracy administration is constituted by hierarchy, continuity, impersonality and expertise. Weber considered that bureaucracy is an ideal-type (1958) of the structure in organization, which means the bureaucratic organization is capable of achieving the maximum efficiency which just likes a machine. Bureaucracy organization was a system of administration which can achieve a continuous basis according to prescribed orders. (Neil 15)

Weber believed that 'the decisive reason for advance of bureaucracy organization has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organization' (Gibson 41-52). Even in the modern technology and business, this approach explains the technical knowledge which is completely indispensable to an organization becomes the main source of the superiority of bureaucracy organization. It makes no difference whether the organization is organized on a capitalistic or a socialistic foundation. (Chowdhury 14)

The machine modes of bureaucracies exist in every organization: the government, the military, and the business etc. "Bureaucracy can be taken to apply to all sizes and types of formal organizations." (Wilsom 12-23) But there are some limitations of the bureaucracy theory when the machine type of organization is in a changing environment. The organization operating in a stable environment tends to adopt the bureaucracy, with firm hierarchies, rules and regulations. On the other hand, the organization operating in a changing environment tends to adopt organic structures which enable them to respond properly and rapidly to the environment. Another limitation is that all the organizations are too different to construct a universal theory of organization.

Also it is complained by many people that the machine type of organizations are totally complex and time consuming, for instance, the 'red tape' still exist in most of the organizations in china, the official institution especially (Buchanan 49-50). For example, applying for approval of manage a product to the official involves a great deal of red tape. Everyone has to go through all the official patterns and suffer a lot of complicated procedures to get approval of the authorities. Such red tape has delayed the progress of the program. The type of everyday life is not suit with this framework.

Scientific management theory of Taylor

Scientific management, developed by Taylor, has had a great influence on factory, business and office management practice. Scientific management may be summarized as:

Establish a ...