Sociology Now, Census Update

Why do our experiences with bureaucracies often feel so unsatisfying? Why do

we commonly criticize bureaucracies as too large, too unwieldy, and too impenetra-

ble to be efficient forms of organization?

Problems with Bureaucracy

Bureaucracies exhibit many of the other problems of groups—groupthink, stereotypes,

and pressure to conform. But as much as they make life more predictable and effi-

cient, bureaucracies also exaggerate certain problems of all groups:

1.Overspecialization. Individuals may become so specialized in their tasks that they

lose sight of the larger picture and the broader consequences of their actions.

2.Rigidity and inertia. Rigid adherence to rules makes the organization cumber-

some and resistant to change and leads to a sense of alienation of personnel. This

can make bureaucracies inefficient.

3.Ritualism. Formality, impersonality, and alienation can lead individuals to sim-

ply “go through the motions” instead of maintaining their commitment to the

organization and its goals.

4.Suppression of dissent. With clear and formal rules and regulations, there is lit-

tle room for individual initiative, alternate strategies, and even disagreement.

Often bureaucracies are characterized by a hierarchy of “yes-men”; each incum-

bent simply says “yes” to his or her supervisor.

5.The bureaucratic “Catch-22.”This phenomenon, named after a famous novel

by Joseph Heller, refers to a process by which the bureaucracy creates more and

96 CHAPTER 3SOCIETY: INTERACTIONS, GROUPS, AND ORGANIZATIONS

Does the
informal culture
of bureaucracy
enhance or detract from worker
productivity? In a classic study of a
Western Electric factory in Hawthorne,
Illinois, in the 1930s, Elton Mayo and
W. Lloyd Warner found that the informal
worker culture ran parallel to the official
factory norms. In the experiment, a
group of 14 men who put together
telephone-switching equipment were
paid according to individual productivity.
But their productivity did not increase
because the men feared that the

company would simply raise the

expectations for everyone (Mayo, 1933;

Roethlisgerberger & Dickson, 1939).

In another classic study, though,

Peter Blau (1964) found informal culture

increased both productivity and effec-

tiveness. Blau studied a government

office charged with investigating pos-

sible tax violations. When agents had

questions about how to handle a parti-

cular case, the formal rules stated

they should consult their supervisors.

However, the agents feared this would

make them look incompetent in the eyes

of higher-ups. So, they asked their

Do Formal or Informal Procedures

Result in Greater Productivity?

How do we know

what we know

co-workers, violating the official rules.

The result? Not only did they get

concrete advice about ways to solve the

problem, but the group then began to

evolve a range of informal procedures

that permitted more initiative and

responsibility than the formal rules did,

probably enhancing the quantity and

quality of work the agents produced.

Formal procedures, according to

Meyer and Rowan (1977), are often quite

distant from the actual ways people

work in bureaucratic organizations.

People will often make a show of

conforming to them and then proceed

with their work using more informal

methods. They may use “the rules” to

justify the ways a task was carried out,

then depart considerably from how

things are supposed to be done in

actually performing the tasks at hand.