MM254: Organisational Behaviour - Bureaucracy: Pros and Cons

This report analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of bureaucracy, focusing on its impact on organizational behavior. It begins by outlining the benefits, such as structured systems, clear hierarchies, and specialized roles, which contribute to efficiency and predictability. However, it also addresses the drawbacks, including potential for impersonal interactions, slow problem-solving, and resistance to change, leading to inefficiency and 'iron cage' effect. The report explores the implications of bureaucracy on employee motivation, organizational culture, and the limits of power and authority, drawing on Weber's concept of rationalization and its impact on shared values. It concludes by considering the inevitability of bureaucracy in modern organizations. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the benefits and drawbacks of bureaucratic structures within the context of organizational behavior, offering valuable insights for students of management and leadership.

Where business comes to life
Dr Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun
MM254: Organisational Behaviour
Lecture 9.2: Advantage and Disadvantages of
Bureaucracy

Advantages of Bureaucracy
• According to Weber, bureaucracy is the organisational express
rationalisation thesis
• In developed Western economies, we take many of its strength
granted:
– Expect the delivery of public services in an orderly and time
manner (with some national variation!)
– Expect impartiality in the labour market, education & courts
– Assume that professional standards will be met (e.g. medic
financial)
• Generally, we expect to plan for the future based on the assum
our environment is (to some extent) calculable and predictable

• System of rules (minimises uncertainty, affords predictab
calculability)
• Hierarchy of authority (structure, reporting lines, order,
predictability)
• Impersonality (equal, merit basis for advancement)
• Functional specialisation (structure, specialists, efficiency
• Division of labour (rational organisation, efficiency
• Technical qualifications needed to advance
3
Thought exercise: Consider the benefit
of these features

Disadvantages of Bureaucracy
• These advantages come at a cost when compared to olde
‘rational’ ways of organising ourselves
– Impersonality means interactions can be inhuman, ma
match personal circumstances
– Procedures (rules/hierarchy) can slow down practical p
solving
– It may be difficult to adapt bureaucracies to new proble
environments / business models (organisational inertia
– Functional specialization/division of labour (silo mental
• All this can add up to making actual bureaucracies seem
backward, inefficient and irrational (contra Weber)

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…Hence the common negative notions about
bureaucracy!
Bureaucracy
Impersonality
Paperwork
Power (less)Hierarchy
Time-
wasting

Ever increasing rationalization and
‘the iron cage’
• By making our environment
more calculable and
predictable, bureaucracy must
have contributed to our ability
to pursue our chosen ends
• But, Weber was not too
enthusiastic about what this
would do to society…
• He spoke of an ‘iron cage’ of
rationality trapping humanity
in the endless pursuit of
poorly defined (perhaps
meaningless) goals by
relentlessly efficient means

Implications
• The rise of bureaucracy coincides
with the decline of substantive
rationality and shared values
• This is what Weber referred to as the
disenchantment of the world
• The use of formal, quasi-scientific
methods to both understand and
control our environment reduces the
need for socially shared belief
systems (religious, spiritual,
metaphysical)
• i.e. The more people become
disenchanted and focus on
rationalising their world, the less will
be the need for socially shared
systems of meaning and values.
Which means, something is
happening to society as a result of
rationalisation.
• The way people are organised in
socio-economic relations should not
only focus on efficiency but leave
room for meaningful values.

CONTINUED
• Bureaucracy is evidence that socially shared value ra
has been replaced by a myriad of individual / subjec
belief systems and opinions
• Due to diverse organisations and societies, these va
cannot be compared with each other or aggregated,
to the fragmentation of values.
• As a result, modern men / women are cynical, trappe
procedures, never motivated by the pursuit of moral
principles.

Reflect on and draw links to Motivation, Organisation
Culture, Authority and Power.
• Can employee motivation exist in bureaucratic
environments?
• What are the limits of power / authority in a bureauc
organisational structure?
• How does bureaucracy drive or inhibit organisational
culture?
• Are bureaucracies inevitable?
9
Reflection

Where business comes to life
Dr Yemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun
Thank you for listening.