BUREAUCRACY- The impersonality and impartiality of
relationships among organization mem-
bers and with those outside the
organization - The importance of ‘‘official records’’ in
the form of written documents.
THE RATIONALITY OF
BUREAUCRATIC RULESWithin a bureaucratic organization, rules serve to
direct individual action in ways that promote the
technical efficiency of the organization. The dis-
tinctive feature of bureaucratic organization is not
the use of rules per se but, rather, the type of rules
employed within an organization as well as the
justification for the use of rules. Rules have been,
and continue to be, used in other forms of admin-
istration to control individual action; however, the
rules used in the other administrative forms (such
as rules based on tradition in feudal administra-
tion or on dependency in a patrimonial system)
are not necessarily based on technical knowledge
and the rational achievement of specific goals. By
contrast, within a modern bureaucracy explicit
rules are designed to assure uniformity of per-
formance in accordance with technical require-
ments. Bureaucracies denote systems of control
that attempt to ensure that the technical abilities
of individuals are effectively utilized. A concerted
effort is made to systematically exclude any factor
or element that would reduce the prospect of an
official’s or employee’s performance being any-
thing other than organizationally focused, affectively
neutral, and achievement oriented (Parsons and
Shils 1951, pp. 76–91).
THE IDEAL TYPE CONSTRUCTBy underscoring the unique features of modern
bureaucratic systems of administration, Weber
provides an ideal-type characterization of bureau-
cracies. Despite subsequent confusion as to the
value of the ideal-type portrayal of bureaucracies,
Weber did not intend the characterization to rep-
resent an accurate empirical description of bu-
reaucracies. As noted in the introduction to one of
his edited works, ‘‘Situations of such pure type
have never existed in history.... The ideal types of
Weber’s sociology are simply mental constructs to
serve as categories of thought, the use of which will
help us to catch the infinite manifoldness of reality... ‘‘(Rhinestein 1954, pp. xxix–xxx). The ideal-
type characterization is not suggestive of either
extreme cases or distinct logical categories of phe-
nomena (Mouzelis 1967). Rather, it provides a
simplification and exaggeration of empirical events
so that one can appreciate more clearly the fea-
tures of the phenomena in question. Actual bu-
reaucratic organizations may exhibit only a limited
number of these properties or may possess them
in varying degrees, a point well understood by Weber.
A GENERAL THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
ON BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONSAs a general line of inquiry, the study of bureau-
cratic structure and processes has tended to repre-
sent a ‘‘closed’’ or ‘‘rational-system’’ approach to
the study of organizations (Scott 1992). Predicated
upon Weber’s conception of bureaucracy, the ‘‘le-
gal-rational’’ features of organizations such as the
use of formal rules, the creation of specific person-
nel positions or roles, and personnel policies di-
rected at the efficient achievement of organiza-
tional goals have been the focus of study. By
directing attention toward the internal properties
of bureaucratic organizations, interest in a num-
ber of topics has arisen, including the impact of
technology on organizational structures (Thomp-
son 1967), the interrelationships among organiza-
tional features (Hage et al. 1968), the integration
of individuals within organizations (Argyris 1964;
Herzberg et al. 1959), and the increase of worker
productivity and organizational efficiency (Taylor
1911; Mayo 1933). Across this array of topics, a
general theoretical perspective prevails in which
the internal properties of bureaucratic organiza-
tions are regarded to be of cardinal importance.
By directing primary attention toward the internal
properties of bureaucratic organizations, the ex-
tent to which organizations are embedded in the
more global structure and context of society is not
fully realized. However, as bureaucratic organiza-
tions have grown in function and complexity,
assuming an ever-expanding role in society, and
displacing previous, more particularistic and per-
sonalized forms of administration, management,
and control, the vibrant interplay between the
internal properties of organizations and the envi-
ronments in which they are situated has become
more salient. Correspondingly, a more ‘‘open’’
theoretical orientation is warranted. Organizations