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Bureaucracy As A Hierarchy Of Authority

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Bureaucracy is a structure that governments or large corporations usually use to instruct the order of things, based on the ideas or preferences of the individual in charge. Usually, these individuals are self-appointed, of a particular class of men who are often rich in money and stature, self-made or men who inherited their net worth. I mention men, because in most societies, bureaucracy is set, determined and led by men. However, women hold positions of power in some instances. Bureaucracy was the method that our founding fathers used to set order while working to establish our great nation and it gave a great foundation for understanding and building pride in output and outcomes. A more formal definition comes from Merriam-Webster, which defines bureaucracy as “a large group of people involved in running an organization, but are not elected” and “a system of government or business that has many complicated rules and ways of doing things”. Additionally, according to Max Weber, a “bureaucratic organization is one that establishes a hierarchy of authority, a unity of command and the ability to specialize labor by dividing the work among its subjects”.

One of the characteristics of bureaucracy outlined by Max Weber is the importance of an established hierarchy of authority and unity of command (p.44). It speaks to the concept of a firmly ordered system of manager and subordinate in which there is direct supervision of the lower offices by the higher offices. The statement

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