SOC 232 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Mcdonaldization, Meritocracy
Document Summary
The most common and efficient form of organization is the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy large, impersonal organization with many clearly defined positions hierarchically arranged, a permanent, salaried staff of qualified experts, and written goals, rules, and procedures. Weber"s characteristics of bureaucracies: division of labor, hierarchy of authority, rules and regulations, qualification-based employment, impersonality. Ideal bureaucracy operates as a perfect meritocracy: bureaucracy split tasks into simple and elementary activities, everyone"s decisions must be subordinated to the overall goals of the organization. Information flows from lower rungs of the hierarchy towards the higher rungs. Some organizations are changing: some organizations are increasingly interested in the whole person, some organizations are now seeking a better alignment between their employees" lives and the demands of the workplace. Interest in emotional intelligence" and a growing concern with surveillance: some organizations monitoring employees" e-mails, routine drug testing, background checks.
