HY 357 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Hierarchical Organization, Tangled
6 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is a system of organization noted for its size and complexity. Everything within a
bureaucracy — responsibilities, jobs, and assignments — exists to achieve some goal.
Bureaucracies are found at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels of government, and
even large private corporations may be bureaucratically organized. People who work for
government agencies, from high-level managers and executives to clerical staff, are called
bureaucrats. The superintendent of a large urban school district is a bureaucrat, as are the
teachers, librarians, nurses, and security guards.
The terms bureaucrat and bureaucracy have negative connotations. They bring to mind long,
difficult forms; standing in long lines; and encounters with inflexible and unsympathetic clerks.
The simplest requests are tangled in red tape, the paperwork that slows down accomplishment
of an otherwise simple task. Despite this popular perception, bureaucracy is necessary for big
governmental agencies to operate.
All bureaucracies share similar characteristics, including specialization, hierarchical
organization, and formal rules. In the best circumstances, these characteristics allow a
bureaucracy to function smoothly.
Specialization
Workers in a bureaucracy perform specialized tasks that call for training and expertise. Trained
personnel can accomplish their jobs efficiently. The downside of specialization is that
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
A bureaucracy is a system of organization noted for its size and complexity. Everything within a bureaucracy responsibilities, jobs, and assignments exists to achieve some goal. Bureaucracies are found at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels of government, and even large private corporations may be bureaucratically organized. People who work for government agencies, from high-level managers and executives to clerical staff, are called bureaucrats. The superintendent of a large urban school district is a bureaucrat, as are the teachers, librarians, nurses, and security guards. The terms bureaucrat and bureaucracy have negative connotations. They bring to mind long, difficult forms; standing in long lines; and encounters with inflexible and unsympathetic clerks. The simplest requests are tangled in red tape, the paperwork that slows down accomplishment of an otherwise simple task. Despite this popular perception, bureaucracy is necessary for big governmental agencies to operate. All bureaucracies share similar characteristics, including specialization, hierarchical organization, and formal rules.
