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1. APPLICATION OF MAX WEBER’S
“BUREAUCRACY” IN TODAY’S
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
Management Practices Term Paper
MPUHWEZIMANA ARSENE
USIU - AFRICA
Student ID: 660663

2. Contents
Analysis of The Theory of Bureaucracy by Max Weber ...............................................................................................2
Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................................2
Biography of Max Weber ..........................................................................................................................................2
What Is Bureaucracy?................................................................................................................................................2
Bureaucratic Management Theory.............................................................................................................................2
Merits of Bureaucracy: ..............................................................................................................................................5
Demerits of Bureaucracy:..........................................................................................................................................6
Application of Bureaucracy in Today’s Business Environment ....................................................................................7
Application of Weber’s three types of power:.......................................................................................................7
Bureaucracy in Everyday Life...................................................................................................................................9
Example # 1: Government Bureaucracy:...............................................................................................................9
Why do people view government bureaucracy as a bad thing? ...........................................................................11
Example # 2: Business / organizations Bureaucracy: ..........................................................................................11
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................................14
When is Bureaucracy Appropriate in Today’s management world? .......................................................................14
References ...................................................................................................................................................................15

3. Analysis of The Theory of Bureaucracy by Max Weber
Introduction
The emergence of the management process and organization theory took place in two forms: Fayol’s identification
of the principles and elements of management and Weber’s search for an ideal way of organizing. From different
backgrounds and perspectives, both Fayol and Weber attempted to develop methods for managing large-scale
organizations. Fayol stressed education for management rather than technical training, the importance of planning,
organizing, command, coordination, and control. Weber sought to replace authority based on tradition and charisma
with legal authority and to prescribe an impersonal and merit basis for selecting, hiring and promoting employees.
Both Weber and Fayol had history’s misfortune of being overshadowed by others and having to wait until after their
deaths to receive proper credit for their roles in the ongoing evolution of management thought.
Biography of Max Weber
Max Weber (1864-1920), is said to be the 'father of bureaucratic management theory.' Weber was a German
sociologist and political economist that viewed bureaucracy in a positive light, believing it to be more rational and
efficient than its historical predecessors.
What Is Bureaucracy?
Bureaucracy is the personnel and administrative structure of an organization. Business, labor, religious, educational,
and governmental systems depend on a large workforce arranged in a hierarchy to carry out specialized tasks based
on internal rules and procedures. The term is used mostly in referring to government administration, especially
regarding officials in the federal government and civil service. It is often used derogatorily to suggest waste,
inefficiency, and red tape. (Microsoft Encarta,2009).
The term ‘bureaucracy’ has been widely used with invidious connotations directed at government and business.
Bureaucracy is an administrative system designed to accomplish large-scale administrative tasks by systematically
coordinating the work of many individuals. Weber has observed three types of power in organizations:
1. Traditional authority: Power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns.
2. Charismatic authority: Power legitimized by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and
obedience.
3. Rational-legal Authority: Also known as bureaucratic authority, is when power is legitimized by legally
enacted rules and regulations such as governments.
He has emphasized that the bureaucratic type of power is the ideal one. (Smriti Chand, 2010) Primarily prescriptive
in nature, Weber’s writings strike an interesting contrast with the practitioner-oriented recommendations offered by
Taylor and Fayol. Weber’s major contribution was an outline of the characteristics of what he termed bureaucracy,”
that is, government by bureaus (German Buro, 1979).
Bureaucratic Management Theory
The problem that Max Weber wanted to solve:
Max Weber found out that most workplaces used relationships, kinship or customs to lead and make decisions
(Traditional authority). He then found out that this was a Misuse of Authority in this way:

4. • Particularism (also called favoritism): employees were hired or fired for a variety of non-organizational
reasons such as religion, race, sex, and relational or family connections. He called it particularism because
particular groups of persons were having a disproportionate influence in organizations and governments.
Solution:
He wanted a more rational approach of running organizations through:
• Classified leadership structure
• Clarified rules for decision making
In terms of authority, he wanted what he called “Legal-Rational Authority”, which meets these criteria:
• The legitimate authority of leadership positions should be formalized and fixed to those positions.
• Consistent with societal law, organizations should be run by formal rules and policies
• Authority resides in the position or office.
He developed a model that would address that problem and called “Bureaucracy”. For an organization to be
bureaucratic, it has to meet these principles:
1. Division of Labor: The complex work of the organization has to be broken down into simple jobs. They
have to divide their work into small tasks and put assign them to different departments and different people
(each person/department specializing in his/her specific work).
2. Hierarchy of Authority: Accepted chain of command to direct the individual’s effort towards
organizational goal accomplishment.
3. The framework of Rules: Effort directed and coordinated by rules.
4. Impersonality: Hiring and promoting people on the basis of objective merit rather than favoritism (on the
basis of what they know, and not who they know).
5. Participants view employment as a career; tenure protects against unfair arbitrary dismissal. As long as
you meet your job performance metrics, you keep it.
Detailed examination of “Bureaucracy” management theory:
Weber's theory of bureaucratic management has two essential elements. First, it entails structuring an organization
into a hierarchy. Secondly, the organization and its members are governed by clearly defined rational-legal
decision-making rules. Each element helps an organization to achieve its goals.
Weber developed the principles of bureaucracy—a formal system of organization and administration designed to
ensure efficiency and effectiveness. A bureaucratic system of administration is based on five (5) principles which
are:
1. Managers Formal Authority:
It is the power to hold people accountable for their actions and to make decisions concerning the use of
organizational resources Bureaucratic organizations generally have administrative class responsible for maintaining
the coordinative activities of the members. Main features of this class are as follows:

5. • People are paid and are whole-time employees,
• They receive a salary and other perquisites normally based on their positions,
• Their tenure in the organization is determined by the rules and regulations of the organization,
• They do not have any proprietary interest in the organization,
• They are selected for the purpose of employment based on their competence.
2. Positions should be Arranged Hierarchically,
This is so that employees know whom to report to and who reports to them. The basic feature of the bureaucratic
organization is that there is a hierarchy of positions in the organization. Hierarchy is a system of ranking various
positions in descending scale from top to bottom of the organization. In the bureaucratic organization, offices also
follow the principle of hierarchy that is each lower office is subject to control and supervision by the higher office.
Thus, no office is left uncontrolled in the organization. This is the fundamental concept of hierarchy in a
bureaucratic organization. This hierarchy serves as lines of communication and delegation of authority. It implies
that communication coming down or going up must pass through each position. Similarly, a subordinate will get
authority from his immediate superior. However, this hierarchy is not unitary but sub-pyramids of officials within
the large organization corresponding, etc. functional divisions exist.
Thus, there are offices with the same amount of authority but with different kinds of functions operating in different
areas of competence. For example, the Government organizations, we can observe separate offices looking after
particular functions. This happens in business organizations too.
3. Tasks and Authority associated with various positions in the organization should be clearly specified
for managers and workers to know what is expected of them.
The work of the organization is divided on the basis of specialization to take the advantages of division of labor.
Each office in the bureaucratic organization has a specific sphere of competence.
This involves:
• A sphere of obligations to perform functions which have been marked off as part of a systematic division of
labor;
• The provision of the incumbent with the necessary authority to carry out these functions
• The necessary means of compulsion are clearly defined and their use is subject to definite conditions.
Thus, division of labor tries to ensure that each office has a clearly-defined area of competence within the
organization and each official knows the areas in which he operates and the areas in which he must abstain from the
action so that he does not overstep the boundary between his role and those of others. Further, the division of labor
also tries to ensure that no work is left uncovered.
4. Managers Must Create a Well-Defined System of Rules, standard operating procedures, and norms
so that they can effectively control behavior within an organization.
A basic and most emphasized feature of the bureaucratic organization is that the administrative process is
continuous and governed by official rules. A bureaucratic organization is the antithesis of ad hoc, temporary, and
temporary and unstable relations. A rational approach to organization calls for a system of maintaining rules to
ensure twin requirements of uniformity and coordination of efforts by individual members in the organization. These
rules are more or less stable and more or less exhaustive. When there is no rule on any aspect of the organizational

6. operation, the matter is referred upward for the decision which subsequently becomes precedent for a future decision
on a similar matter. Rules provide the benefits of stability, continuity, and predictability and each official knows
precisely the outcome of his behavior in a particular matter.
5. Appointment and Promotion Base on Competency not Base on Sentiment.
A notable feature of bureaucracy is that relationships among individuals are governed through the system of official
authority and rules. Official positions are free from personal involvement, emotions, and sentiments. Thus, decisions
are governed by rational factors rather than personal factors. This impersonality concept is used in dealing with
organizational relations as well as relations between the organization and outsiders.
Merits of Bureaucracy:
Weber identified the essential characteristics of his “ideal” bureaucracy and believed that specific advantages would
accrue to undertakings that embodied them. These characteristics and sample advantages include:
a. Division of Labor: Labor is divided so that authority and responsibility are clearly defined. The division of
labor assists workers in becoming experts in their jobs. The performance of employees improves
considerably.
❖ Advantage—Efficiency will increase through specialization.
b. Managerial Hierarchy: Offices or positions are organized in a hierarchy of authority.
❖ Advantage— A clear chain of command will develop from the highest to the lowest level of an
organization (Fayol’s scalar chain principle), defining different levels of authority, and thus
individual discretion, as well as enabling better communication.
c. Formal Selection: All employees are selected on the basis of technical qualifications demonstrated by
formal examination, education, or training. The selection process and promotion procedures are based on
merit and expertise. It assists in putting the right persons on the right jobs. There is an optimum utilization
of human resources.
❖ Advantage—Employees will be hired and promoted based on merit and expertise, thus, benefiting
both them and their employers.
d. Career Orientation: Although a measure of flexibility is attained by electing higher-level officials who
presumably express the will of an electorate (for example, a body of citizens or a board of directors),
employees are career professionals rather than “politicians.” They work for fixed salaries and pursue
“careers” within their respective fields.
❖ Advantage—The hiring of “career” professionals will ensure the performance of assigned duties
without regard for extraneous pressures, as well as ensure continuity of operations across election
cycles.
e. Formal Rules and Other Control: All employees are subject to formal rules and other controls regarding
the performance of their duties. The rules and procedures are decided for every work it leads to,
consistency in employee behavior. Since employees are bound to follow the rules etc., the management

7. process becomes easy.
❖ Advantage—Efficiency will increase as formal rules and other controls relating to employee
performance are enforced.
f. Impersonality: Rules and other controls are impersonal and uniformly applied in all cases. The enterprise
does not suffer when some persons leave it. If one person leaves then some other occupies that place and
the work does not suffer.
❖ Advantage — When rules and other controls are applied impersonally and uniformly, involvement
with personalities and personal preferences is avoided. Subordinates are thereby protected from
arbitrary actions of their superior.
Demerits of Bureaucracy:
Although Weber considered bureaucracy to be the most efficient means of organizing, both his own experience and
subsequent research have shown that it often results in certain disadvantages. These include:
I. Some people will still attempt to take advantage of their authority and misuse it.
II. Red Tape: Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that
is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making. It is usually
applied to governments, corporations, and other large organizations. This refers to an overemphasis on
structure, policies, and procedures that slows and prevents needed action. Generally, Bureaucracy slows
down the decision-making process. Much of the urgencies may fail to be dealt with because of the
constraint of rigid and inflexible rules and regulations.
III. Hinders innovation: employees have to follow formal rules while doing their job, this doesn’t give them
the freedom to innovate and be creative in their work.
IV. Rules and other controls may take on the significance of their own and, as consequence, become ends in
themselves. Employees, for example, may accuse budget personnel of being more interested in applying
rules and regulations than achieving a firm’s primary goals.
V. Extreme devotion to rules and other controls may lead to situations in which past decisions are blindly
repeated without appreciation or concern for changed conditions. Such “bureaucratic rigidity” results in
managers being compensated for doing what they are told and not for thinking. The result is “rule by rules”
rather than common sense.
VI. Whereas delegation of authority to lower levels may increase operational effectiveness, it may also
encourage an emphasis on subunit rather than overall goals, thereby prompting subunit conflict and
decreasing effectiveness. A typical example can be found in many universities where conflicts over which
department is going to offer what courses often result in unnecessary duplication of subject offerings, as
well as the unnecessary expenditure of resources.
VII. Although rules and other controls are intended to counter worker apathy, they may actually contribute to it
by defining unacceptable behavior and, thus, specifying a minimum level of acceptable performance. That
is, it is possible, once rules have been defined, for employees to remain apathetic, for they now know just
how little they can do and still remain secure. This is commonly known as “working to the rules,” because

8. what is not covered by rules is by definition not an employee’s responsibility. Within an educational
setting, statements such as “all students must attend at least 50 percent of the classes during a term to pass”
or “the minimum requirement for graduation is a C average on all course work undertaken” are in
frustrations of this phenomenon in that they clearly define minimum levels of acceptable behavior.
Unfortunately, a typical administrative response in such circumstances is to enact additional bureaucratic
rules (such as mandatory class attendance) and, in turn, further aggravate an already poor situation. Unless
care is taken, however, such a situation may result in a “vicious circle of bureaucracy,” because once
employees discover the appeasing effect of rules, they may push for even more controls to further restrict
management’s power. Therefore, rules may be functional in one sense, but in another (unintended) sense,
they permit employee involvement without requiring emotional commitment.
Application of Bureaucracy in Today’s Business Environment
Bureaucracy has been adopted by many organizations and governments to resolve current management
issues/problems.
Application of Weber’s three types of power:
Authority refers to accepted power—that is, the power that people agree to follow. People listen to authority figures
because they feel that these individuals are worthy of respect. As a recall, Weber identified three forms of authority;
Traditional, Charismatic and Rational-legal authority.
4. Traditional authority: Power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns.
o Source: Legitimized by long-standing customs, culture and society norms.
Real-world examples:
1. Patriarchy: a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and
descent is reckoned through the male line.
Let me first examine some advantages and disadvantages of this kind of authority:
I will start with the advantages:
• It keeps the authority in the country/family: In our African culture, when a man a woman gets married, a
woman joins the family of a man. By keeping authority in the hands of men helps to keep political/family
power in the hands of those will stay in the country/family. For example, when a Kenyan girl marries a
Rwandan man, our culture will tend to push the woman to the Rwandan side more than the Kenyan side. If
she had the governing authority in Kenya, she would have to give it up to follow her new wedded husband
to Rwanda.
• It solves authority/power conflicts: Let’s take an example of a kingdom (which is a form of patriarchy), it
is well known that the first son (or daughter in some modern cultures like England) of the current king will
be the next king. They clearly show the line of succession, which leaves no room for fights over authority
and power.
Now for the bad parts of patriarchy:

9. • Competency of the head of patriarchy: In most cases, the head of patriarchy (the one who is given
authority) isn’t the most competent person available. They are many more neglected people (women and
beta-males) who can do much better, but can’t be given authority because they weren’t born first or don’t
meet some other ridiculous factors of patriarchy.
• Women’s happiness: It would be quite an understatement to say that women probably would NOT be
happy over losing their political powers. Not all women want to be damsels-in-distresses. Some of them
genuinely want to be as active as their male counterparts. In pure patriarchy, these women would be very
unhappy.
• Wasted potential: Some women (representing underprivileged and neglected people under patriarchy)
genuinely have talent at things that they would not be allowed to pursue under patriarchy. In pure
patriarchy, all of their talents would be wasted. They might be a woman who can use the authority much
better than a man who inherited it. Women have proved to be as useful and wise as men, and neglecting
their potential is a waste that costs patriarchies more than they gain.
• Bad for men as well: Patriarchy isn’t such a hot thing for men either, because patriarchy favors the alpha-
male. Under pure patriarchy, beta-males suffer as much as women. The majority of men aren’t happy under
patriarchy either. In fact, men who fail to live up to the patriarchy’s expectations of a man will become very
unhappy.
I experienced patriarchy in my family. My father was the head of the household before dying, and after passing
away, the authority was transferred to our firstborn. I really don’t think that he was the most competent person
available to lead our family forward, I think our second-born (my sister) was more competent than him. In our
family meetings, she’s the one who always comes up with more constructive ideas and shows us how to implement
them to solve our problems. I think our family would be doing a lot better with her as the head of the household.
2. Charismatic authority: Power legitimized by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and
obedience.
With this kind of authority, the sharpest person claim authority. Similarly, to patriarchy, this kind of power waste the
potential of shy and introverts. In most cases, the most charismatic person isn’t the most competent person to lead
the way.
Let use my family again as a real-life example. Our 3rd
born (my brother) is the sharpest, most charismatic member
of our family. If power was to be transferred based on charisma, he would be the head of our family, and as I
mentioned before, our sister is more competent than all of us.
3. Rational-legal Authority: Also known as bureaucratic authority, is when power is legitimized by legally
enacted rules and regulations such as governments. There are rules that govern the transfer of authority, and
it must be given to the most competent person available. There are descriptions of what the person should
have to be given the authority, and all competent people are given equal chance to compete and authority is
legally given to the rightful most competent person available. This makes sure that authority is given to the
finest person available who will use it to provide the finest results.
In the real world, we know that most countries were ruled by patriarchy in the form of kingdoms, but now they have
adopted democracy and chose rational-legal authority over both patriarchy and charismatic authority. Presidents,
heads of counties, … are elected, and authority is given to the person who shows competence.

10. Coming back to my family, if we had used this form of authority, we would be having my sister as the head of the
family. She’s Cleary the most competent person based on the rational reasons I told you.
As a conclusion, Max Weber was right when he said that the best form of authority is “Rational-legal Authority”.
One of the pillars of bureaucracy is that there should be formal rules that govern each position’s authority.
The problem of a lack of competent leaders in today’s business environment can be solved by applying this
“Rational-legal authority” theory to make decisions and appoint business managers.
1. Some family businesses fail not because of their business model, but because of not having good managers.
You will see businesses that are founded by people and then when they retire, they pass the leadership
authority (CEO position) to their sons/daughters without considering their competence. The authority is
businesses should be based on rational-legal guidelines to avoid the
Bureaucracy in Everyday Life
Interested in some real examples of bureaucracy and how it used to in today’s businesses? We’ve already seen the
definitions and theoretical examples, but now let me give you an example of when I faced bureaucracy in real life:
Example # 1: Government Bureaucracy:
Why do governments need bureaucracy?
The reason why governments use bureaucracy is that they are huge complex organizations. There is so much work
to be done to achieve the government’s goal which is the welfare of citizens. The tax has to be collected, national
parks have to be managed, laws have to be voted, people have to be protected by soldiers and police, etc.
What do u do when you have so much work to do? You hire people to do the work. Given that governments have a
lot of work to do, they also hire a lot of people, hence needing an efficient and effective management structure to
manage all those people. This is where bureaucracy comes, and here’s how it solved problems by using it’s 5 pillars:
1. Division of Labor: The complex work of the governments is broken down into simple jobs, and assigns
them to different departments and different people (each person/department specializing in his/her specific
work). Examples include:
• Security: security tasks are given to police and defense forces. Within police, tasks are further
divided into small tasks, and that’s how we get traffic police, internal security police, etc. Within
the defense forces, tasks are divided further too, resulting in Marine forces, Special forces, Aerial
forces …
• Finance: finance works of the government include tax collection, budgeting for the country,
national bank management … those tasks are also divided into small tasks and assigned to their
specific departments resulting in having national bank managers, revenue authority (for tax
collection), Ministry of finance, etc.
This gives us an idea of how the division of work is done in governments. This is done to make sure that
every task has a specialized person doing it so that no essential work is left undone. Other importance of
the division of labor include:
• Increasing productivity
• Having the right man in the right place: giving each employee tasks that best suit his/her skills
• Needing only one set of skills and tools to get work done, rather than many.

11. 2. Hierarchy of Authority: Accepted chain of command to direct the individual’s effort towards
organizational goal accomplishment. The chain of command is organized so that each person has a
supervisor who holds authority over him/her. Supervision is important when you want the work to get
done. The decision comes from the top and makes their way down the hierarchy. After dividing work and
assigning it to people, governments make a hierarchy of command and result in something that looks like
this:
3. The framework of Rules: Effort directed and coordinated by rules. There are formal rules on how work is
done, on how government services are given. This prevents people who hold authority in government
positions to misuse it and makes sure that work is done perfectly.
Forex: there are formal rules that govern how tax is collected and how much should be collected which
prevents tax collectors from misusing their power to illegally collect money from citizens for their own
benefits. It also makes sure that tax is collected so even if the tax collector is your wife, she will enforce the
rules to collect tax from you. Rules make sure that everyone is given equal opportunity, and that work is
done effectively.
4. Impersonality: Hiring and promoting people on the basis of objective merit rather than favoritism (on the
basis of what they know, and not who they know). We’ve seen the importance of hiring a competent person
over particularism.
5. Participants view employment as a career; tenure protects against unfair arbitrary dismissal. As long as
you meet your job performance metrics, you keep it. This provides an incentive for government employees
to give their best so that they can keep their jobs, and in return retain competent employees.

12. Why do people view government bureaucracy as a bad thing?
When people hear “bureaucracy”, they hear slow processes and implementation. This is because most people want
quick services from the government, and this makes them see only the negative sides of bureaucracy (the demerits
that we saw). They mostly experience the Red Tape: As we saw, Red tape is an idiom that refers to excessive
regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents
action or decision-making.
Let me use this real-life experience with bureaucracy to explain why people view it as a bad thing, while it’s actually
the best solution to government problems:
My student visa application process:
• I’m Rwandan, but I wanted to study in Kenya at USIU – Africa because I wanted quality education that I
couldn’t get in Rwanda. To Study in Kenya an international student, I had to get a student pass. Here’s the
complex process that I passed through to get it which will show you why I viewed bureaucracy as a bad
thing:
o I signed up as a prospective USIU student via an online admission application.
o I completed all of my personal data as required including uploading scanned documents.
o All of my documents were verified by USIU admission officers in charge.
o After seeing that I’m qualified, I got admission.
o To move to Kenya, I needed a passport. I passed through a well-defined process to get a Rwandan
passport and moved to Kenya.
o I entered Kenya on a tourist visa, and I needed a student visa to be allowed to study and stay in
Kenya. I then started the application process with the help of the USIU international students’
department.
o They transferred my data were to Kenya Immigration officers.
o The department of immigration verified my documents again and got a notification that my
application was received.
o My application was transferred to other departments in charge of student visas and reverified my
documents, and I got another notification that it is in process.
o I’m waiting for the departments in charge of producing legal students pass documents to produce
them, and they told me that it will take about 4 months.
That process was pretty frustrating, right? Rigid rules & processes slowed down something as simple as getting a 1
paper student pass. It is going take a total of 6 months to get it, while if it wasn’t for bureaucracy rules, I could get it
in 2 to 3 days. That why we all view bureaucracy as a bad thing.
However, after learning about bureaucracy, I know that it is there to prevent the misuse of power, and fraud. If the
process wasn’t governed by rigid rules, people would falsify documents and get services that they don’t deserve. In
addition, people would misuse their positions to favor some people or to unfairly prevent some people from getting
that service.
Bureaucracy good for governments because the merits outcompete the demerits.
Example # 2: Business/organizations Bureaucracy:
The same concept we saw on governments is applied to organizations. You will see that most of the organizations
such as businesses, schools, hospitals, NGOs, etc. have an organizational structure that looks like this:

13. This is a result of applying the bureaucracy theory to solve their problem of managing a lot of people. Labor is
divided and allocated to different departments. The hierarchy of command comes from top to bottom. There are
formal rules that govern how work is done, and people are hired based on competence.
Here’s an example of how I experienced bureaucracy in my former job and viewed it as a bad thing before knowing
why it is important:
I was in the marketing department and had a business trip. Upon return, the total cost of his business trip was only
$400. It was time for the administrative paperwork of the business trip. These are the documents I need to prepare:
• Statement letter of budget use signed by my direct superior and program coordinator.
• Payment statement letter (SPP-LS) which must be signed by a commitment-making official.
• Document of budget use details which is signed by commitment-making official
• Copies of tickets, hotel bills and food bills.

14. • Cover letter signed by the treasurer
This example of an internal bureaucracy procedure shows the amount of work I had to do to justify the use of $400
only. Now imagine what I would have done for a big project of millions of dollars. I was wondering why I can’t just
go to the accountant and show her the bills and move on.
However, if these rigid rules weren’t in place, here are some ideas of what would happen;
• I would falsify the documents and misuse the company’s budget. However, given that I had to get
signatures to form the treasurer, supervisor, head of the department, hotel…, the process made sure that all
expenses were authentic and business-related.
• Competence of employees: everyone at my job was hired based on his/her competence. The treasurer was a
certified accountant, my supervisor was an experienced marketing specialist … this made sure that
everyone was able to do his/her job effectively. Hiring an incompetent accountant, for example, would
result in having useless financial reports that could lead to making wrong financial decisions.
• Hierarchy of authority: my budget had to be approved by my supervisor. This made sure that it was
reviewed before being approved to check if I will use the money in business-related expenses, not personal
expenses that would bring loss to the company.

15. Conclusion
Bureaucracy was proposed by Max Weber as a solution for the administration, coordination, and control of large
organizations. It made a great contribution to the proper organizing of large social or corporate systems through the
specialization of roles, standardization of procedures and coordination of employees. It provides a series of
documents that describe the working procedures as well as rigid rules and regulations to make organizations run
properly. Even in today’s organizations, documents such as manuals, handbooks … are provided to make employees
know exactly their roles.
When is Bureaucracy Appropriate in Today’s management world?
At present, many large organizations still organize their management in the form of bureaucracy to avoid chaos.
It is appropriate for organizations that:
• Are large and need a rigid management style that makes sure that everything is done formally.
• Organizations that have a clear role which doesn’t need much innovation and creativity. Such
organizations are like governments, schools …
It is not appropriate for organizations that:
• Need quick response and less hierarchical structure than a set of rigid procedures.
• Need creativity and innovation from their employees to compete with their counterparts.

16. References
Daniel, A. & Arthur, G. (2009). The evolution of management thought, 6th ed. Printed in the United States of
America
Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mies (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 196— 294. (Originally published in 1922.)
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, ed.
Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1947), p. 337. (Originally published 1922.)
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Vincent de Gournay in 1745. See Fred Riggs, “Shifting Meanings of the Term ‘Bureaucracy,’” International Social
Science Journal 31 (1979), pp. 563—584.