Max Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy and Its Characteristics

In the traditional society, people usually don’t adopt rational thinking. It can be stated because people do not think logically or apply any form of reasons before performing a job/task. It has been observed that people usually do a particular thing in traditional society as it has been always done in that manner only. Thus, by thinking in this way people are usually against trying anything new and does not experiences any improvement. Rational thinking as described by Weber is nothing but the increasing concern of modern society with efficiency, calculability, dehumanization and predictability (Whimster and Lash, 2014).

Weber describes that in modern society, people are more concern towards achieving outcome with the application of least amount of effort. Rationalization is also associated with the desire to predict their future and take the actions accordingly. A person who thinks rationally, usually thinks logically and search for a reason in performing a major task. Rational thinkers as per Weber are more concerned towards determining the statistics and take their decision on the basis of numerical data (Niskanen, 2017). In other words, it can be clearly stated that rational thinkers are quiet calculative in nature and performs any action by effectively calculating the pros and cons of their actions. It was also stated by Weber that dehumanization is another major concern of the rationality. This is because rational thinkers focuses more on performance as a result of which they believe in adopting technologies as a substitute to man power. Thus using this example, it can be clearly understood that rational thinkers does not focuses over feelings and emotions rather they are interested towards achieving the desired outcome and improving the overall performance of the business.

Based on the above discussion, it can be clearly stated that rationalization is recognized as a scientific study as well as a form of technological advancement developed in regard to ease the work of everyone. The development of rationalization put an end towards the traditional society and lead to the development of a modern society. Furthermore, it transformed the society and lead to the development of the behavior that were guided by practicality as well as reasons. This leads to an increase in the performance outcome of the people (Gal, 2015). The development of capitalism which later on contributed towards the development of bureaucracies, slowly spread into each aspects of the society. The development of bureaucracy lead to an improvement in the performance of the business organization. It supports the business organizations to accomplish a task in an efficient manner.

Bureaucracy was described by Weber using six characteristics, of which the first one was specialization. Based on this characteristic, an organization divides its labor into different sections and assign them with a particular task in which they have knowledge in regard to obtain the best results. The second characteristic was the hierarchical design of the bureaucracy which was organized in a high to low order. It is usually comprised of a chain of command who are responsible to carry out different tasks at one time and maintain the quality of task. The third characteristic is rules and regulations which are necessary to guide the actions of each of the employee. It develops a basic protocol to be followed by each of the employee which supports to obtain similar results. The fourth characteristic put forwards technical competency which is used to monitor the performance of business with the use of predetermined sets of standards in regard to identify the competency of the task. The fifth characteristics as identified by Weber was impersonality which focuses on treating everybody equally and applying rules on everybody in regard to maintain uniformity in the results. The last characteristic identified by Weber was the use of written form of communication in form of emails and other digital storage system. This characteristics of bureaucracy supports to maintain documentation of each of the event taking place within the business which can be used to identify loopholes in entire process and alter the outcomes.

Irrationality is recognized as thinking without including rationality. Irrationality also includes the behavior of the people which includes certain unrealistic expectations. As for example, it was observed in the video of “The irrationality of rationalization”, the boss in the video was having unrealistic expectation from the two of the employees that without any prior training or practice, they will be able to wrap the candies quickly. However, as per rational and bureaucratic thinking; a simple protocol was followed to wrap certain amount of candies within a particular time span. But while the application of this thinking, the speed and tactics of packaging was not considered which ultimately made the entire process irrational. Thus, based on this video it can be stated that proper application of rationality is needed along with certain consideration which may affect the entire process such as the speed and working tendency of humans.

According to Weber, bureaucracy increases due to society's conditions on education, health, social services and collecting taxes. So work should be categorized in order to attain the things wanted by society. Although Weber argues that rationality and efficiency can be achieved through bureaucracy, he was aware of the shortcomings it can possess. Weber understood that bureaucracy stands in the way of personal freedom and makes it difficult for an individual to recognize their activities in an organization.

References

1. Gal, M., 2015. The Afterlife of Weber’s Bureaucratic Model. PoloncaKovač, p.41.
2. Nicholson, T.A.J., 2017. Organization and bureaucracy: An analysis of modern theories. Routledge.
3. Niskanen, J., 2017. Bureaucracy and representative government. Routledge.
4. Whimster, S. and Lash, S., 2014. Max Weber, rationality and modernity. Routledge.