Employing bureaucratic structures

Utilizing bureaucratic systems

Description

Organizing a complex social structure such that it is segmented and hierarchical in form and each segment's sphere of legal competence is clearly defined; duties are discharged according to definite rules and subject to close supervision, descriptions and control. Personnel are selected on the basis of technical competence, generally remunerated in fixed salaries and under tacit or formal contracts. The primary occupation and the professional career of the incumbents are the bureaucratic office.

Claim

Bureaucracy is a sufficiently complex form of organization to handle all of the details involved in contemporary administration.

Counter-claim

Bureaucracy is based on a pre-modern world view that is inconsistent with the emerging paradigm.

The separation between decision makers and implementers results in the implementer's being caught in the paradox of being closely supervised to follow regulations and having the burden of responsibility for the success of a programme.

Bureaucracy so organizes any activity that no-one experiences the burden of responsibility for the whole, leading to financial deficits, a sense of powerlessness at even the top most levels, and gross demotivation.