BUREAUCRATIC THEORY OF ADMINISTRATION: CHARACTERISTICS - JOB - 2025

The bureaucratic theory of administration determines that to obtain optimal results, every company must include the division of labor, a hierarchical structure, impersonal relationships between members and rules that regulate its operation.

This theory proposes a rationalized work structure different from personalistic, authoritarian or traditional methods, so that the operation of any organization reaches an efficient and optimal performance.

It was born from the hand of the German sociologist Max Weber, who considers himself its founder. For him, bureaucracy meant a set of characteristics that every formal organization of people must include.

That the administration of a group is carried out in a rational way means that all the means and components are adjusted in the best possible way, in order to achieve certain ends or objectives.

We speak of the administration bureaucracy because it is about the rationalization of the administrative structure of any human association.

The administrative activity that occurs in any group, including the management of the home and the family, groups together all the tasks of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling activities.

Weber and the theory of administrative bureaucracy

Bureaucracy was a theory devised by Weber that proposed a type of organizational functioning that did not exist for his time.

Rather, Weber used his theory of bureaucracy to advance a conception of large-scale group work, which ultimately ended up shaping much of the prototype according to which multi-domain labor organizations are designed in the contemporary world.

For Weber, bureaucracy was the most rational form of organization and the only one that guaranteed the highest degree of discipline, continuity, calculability, precision, rigor, and trust, qualities desired in any human enterprise. He considered it as a device with a high degree of technical efficiency.

Main features

Division of work

The division of labor is one of the most distinctive features of the bureaucratic structure proposed by Weber, and today it has been widely accepted and established in all bureaucracies and administrative structures.

It is the process by which all the work of the organization is organized and distributed in a rational way, to achieve higher levels of efficiency.

According to this scheme, different areas of action or competence are established, and complex activities are divided into separate and simple tasks, so that the work structure works through a set of sub-processes with different work areas and levels of importance.

Each worker has a defined position, with a specific field of competence and with strictly specified duties.

This helps the work to be done more efficiently: it is more productive for tasks to be divided between several people, than for a single person or a small group to perform a series of complex tasks.

On the other hand, thanks to the division of labor, tasks can be standardized, which means that the specific way in which they should be performed is defined without leaving room for improvisation or disorder.

When it comes to recruiting more workers for the organization, this feature facilitates their training.

Thanks to the division of labor, the specialization of the worker is also generated, which implies that their selection is based on their aptitudes to carry out the function assigned to their position. This seeks to increase the performance and efficiency capacity of each employee.

Hierarchical authority structure

The hierarchical structure determines that there are low-level functions, under the control and supervision of another higher-ranking function, so that the existence of several control units according to the areas of operation is guaranteed, in which employees have a only boss responsible for guaranteeing work.

In other words, the hierarchical line establishes a line of command and authority that is in charge of ensuring compliance with the organization's operating rules, responding to the different levels of professional training of the workers.

Thus, the hierarchical authority structure encourages and demands that employees must be obedient and respond to superior orders.

Rules of operation

The operating rules are a set of generally written rules that establish everything related to the organization, division of functions and modes of action within the company.

They are the established framework that must exist in every bureaucracy and within which the organization's activity must occur. Therefore, in these rules the rational ways of acting are decreed.

A clear example of the operating rules of the bureaucracy is found in the organic laws of the different countries, in which everything related to the formation and operation of public institutions is established: objectives, structure, division of tasks, general functions and specific to each of its members, among others.

The operating rules of the bureaucracy are established seeking the obedience of the workers or officials.

The implementation of abstract, general and clearly defined operating rules helps to avoid the need to generate instructions for each specific case, so that a formal and objective rationality is established, separated from the individuality of each of those who make up the organization.

Impersonal relationships between its members

In its ideal form, the rules on which the bureaucracy is based make the relationships and interactions that take place between its members clearly those established in the norms. For this reason, kinship, friendship or charismatic authority relationships are set aside.

This dimension of the bureaucracy is the result of the rationalization of the structure and the work environment, given that the objective of the administrative bureaucracy as a form of organization is precisely the purely rational management of the structure for maximum efficiency.

The work rules, together with the hierarchical structure of authority and the delimitation of work, generate that the labor relationship within the organization is impersonal in nature.

The operation of the company is not subject to the subjectivity and individuality of the members that comprise it; on the contrary, a kind of rational and objective formal personality is generated, which aims to organize work under the best possible method.

The main form of interaction within the bureaucracy is through the office or file; that is, by means of written notifications, and these are produced between the offices and also between the subjects.

On the other hand, workers must concentrate solely on fulfilling the objective duties of their position, beyond their personal beliefs.

Criticisms of the bureaucracy theory

There are different criticisms of the elements that make up the theory about the bureaucratic functioning of the administration.

Various critics affirm that the formalistic impersonality generated by pre-established rules and routines can generate an attachment to routine that inhibits creativity and capacity for innovation.

On the other hand, the word "bureaucracy" or "bureaucratic" has come to denote pejoratively certain processes, such as procedures with excessive paperwork and steps that are not very understandable to the public, excessive rules and regulations, little capacity to quickly or efficiently respond to problems, little capacity to adapt, among others.

However, despite the limitations of the bureaucratic proposal, its elements have influenced the evolution of other organizational theories, such as the structuralist theory, which has developed from the structure proposed by Weber with some changes and improvements.

Even so, organizational theorists such as Richard Hall have found that the ideal characteristics of bureaucracy actually present themselves to varying degrees in each organization.

Each element varies on a continuous scale that goes from a minimum to a maximum, for which Hall establishes that there are varying degrees of bureaucratization in each company or association.

A company can be highly bureaucratized in terms of the division of labor, but little bureaucratized as it does not have clear rules that regulate its operation.

References

1. Baca, L.; Bokser, J.; Castañeda, F.; Cisneros, I. & Pérez, G. (2000). Lexicon of Politics. Retrieved October 12, 2017 on the world wide web: books.google.com
2. Britannica Encyclopaedia. Bureaucracy. Retrieved October 12, 2017 from the world wide web: britannica.com
3. Chiavenato, I. (2004). Administration: Administrative process. Colombia: Mc Graw Hill
4. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. Bureaucracy Accessed October 12, 2017 on the world wide web: wikipedia.org