theoretical inadequacies of HRM ( 2001 : 1093 ). But a systems emphasis plays a
signiWcant role in this work (Sanchez-Runde 2001 ) and systems ideas are advocated,
beyond this, as a means to better integrated management performance (Broedling
1999 ), as a means for analyzing diVerent national models of HRM (Hendry 2003 ),
and as a means for linking HRM to general management (Ghorpade 2004 ).
- 2 The Weberian Strand
As has already been implied, Max Weber is a keyWgure, if notthekeyWgure, in
organization theory. It has often been commented that much of the six-or-so
decades of the history of organization theory has been a debate with Weber’s
ideas on bureaucracy. But the ‘Weberian’ ideas that were brought into early
organization theory in mid-twentieth-century America were a particular version
of those ideas that were selected and ‘framed’ in a way that resonated with the
dominant managerial interests of the time in overcoming the problems inherent
in bureaucracy andWnding ways of improving the eVectiveness of organizations.
In this early organization theory writing, scholars such as Blau ( 1955 ), Gouldner
( 1954 ), and Thompson ( 1967 ) ‘assumed that Weber equated rationality with
eYciency’ (Shenhav 2003 : 196 ), with the eVect that ‘bureaucracy was reiWed and
was used as an ahistorical framework for eVective functioning implying a per-
formative intent in his scheme’ (Shenhav 2003 : 197 ). This strand of thinking in
organization theory, which we might cheekily label the ‘counterfeit-Weberian’
strand, has to be contrasted with a much more sociological, critical, and theoret-
ically sophisticated version of Weber’s contribution to theWeld which scholars
subsequently found themselves able to make in the light of newer translations and
readings of his work (Albrow 1970 ; Beetham 1996 ; Eldridge 1971 ; Kalberg 2005 ;Ray
and Reed 1994 ; Ritzer and Goodman 2003 : ch. 4 ; Turner 1996 ).
The newer appreciation of Weber’s work recognizes that his key contribution is
to locate bureaucratized organizations in their historical and political context and
to acknowledge that, alongside whatever signiWcant advantages they oVer human
beings, they also present problems for human freedom and expression. The
contemporary, non-managerialist, Weberian strand of thinking in organization
theory, then, is one that recognizes that organizations are sites of rivalries, conXicts
of interest, and power in which a ‘paradox of consequence’ typically comes into
play: a tendency for the means chosen to achieve ends in the social world to
undermine or defeat those ends. A simple example of this, in practice, might be
the well-known tendency for performance indicators or metrics (often introduced
by HR managers to monitor certain organizational behaviors with a view to
encouraging people to perform better) to set minimum standards of performance
in practice, thus actually discouraging improved performances (‘We have fulWlled
our quota of job upgradings for this month, why should we do any more?’).
116 tony watson