History and Social Science, Part 50
Question 1: Describe the bureaucracy and its critics.
Answer 1: A bureaucracy is the administrative system of a large institution. Weber wrote extensively on bureaucracies and considered them the best way to organize groups of people to achieve grand tasks. In his vision, the bureaucratic structure would be characterized by clearly-defined hierarchies and concrete regulations, and would thus be rational and professional. In reality, however, most bureaucracies have suffered from inefficiency, incompetence, and an inability to adapt quickly. One of the most common critiques of the bureaucratic system is known as the Peter Principle, which states that individuals in a bureaucracy will be rewarded for competence with promotions until they reach a level at which they are incompetent, where they will remain.
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Question 2: Outline Parkinson’s law and the Dilbert principle.
Answer 2: Parkinson’s law is an attempt to explain why bureaucracies are inefficient despite appearing to be busy. It suggests that work will expand to fit the time allowed to it, so that relatively easy tasks may take a long time to complete if no specific deadline is issued. The Dilbert principle is a much more recent theory; indeed, it is named after the popular comic strip. It states that the proper strategy for companies is to promote incompetent employees to upper-level management positions, so that they will not have any direct contact with customers. Although both of these theories are satirical exaggerations of management practice, sociologists who study organizational practice admit that they contain a bit of truth.
Question 3: Describe committee (jury) organization.
Answer 3: One common structure of human organizations is the committee, or jury, organization. It consists of a group of people who make decisions by consensus or by a vote. Advocates of this organizational structure praise its reliability; one sociologist who studied committee behavior in depth developed a statistical proof that committees make correct decisions more often than individuals. Some critics argue, however, that without established procedural rules a committee often wastes too much time to be worthwhile. One difference between a committee and a jury is that a committee generally has a task to perform after their meeting, whereas a jury is gathered for the sole purpose of making a decision.
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