Description
The doc about literature based study on post bureaucratic challenges in organizational design.
The Post-bureaucratic Challenges in Organizational Design
A review-of-literature based study
Contents
Contents................................................................................................................ 2 Introduction........................................................................................................... 3 What is Bureaucracy?.........................................................................................3 Attaining Bureaucracy and moving beyond its’ definition..................................3 Methodology.......................................................................................................... 4 Review of Literature...............................................................................................5 Article 1 – The Rise of Post Bureaucracy – Theorists Fancy or Organizational Praxis?................................................................................................................5 Article 2 – Trust,control and post bureaucracy...................................................8 Article 3 - Weber’s fall from Grace in Organizational Theory............................10 Article 4 - Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat......................13 Article 5 Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era.............15 Analysis...............................................................................................................17 Conclusion........................................................................................................... 19 References...........................................................................................................20
Introduction
What is Bureaucracy?
The classic perspective on bureaucracy was proposed by Max Weber. He described an ideal organization – one that would be perfectly rational and would provide maximum efficiency of operation. He said it would have • • • • • • • Division of labour Well-defined authority hierarchy High formalization Impersonal Nature Employement decisions based on merit Career tracks for employees Distinct separation of members’ organizational and personal lives
But these were the ideal type of bureaucracy that Waber had envisioned. No politicking, no emotional involvement with individual personalities, no conflicts, objective decision making criteria and clear lines of authority. This was the “ideal type”
Attaining Bureaucracy and moving beyond its’ definition
One model proposed by Robert Simons in Tensions of Organization design is the crisis model based on organizational life cycle described in the exhibit 1. It says how a young organization needs bureaucracy and then suffers from its’ after effects. ( Exhibit 1) – refer to the other doc attached along (in soft copy). Please turn over (for hard copy)
Methodology
This a review-of –literature based study. To look at the topic, 5 papers as provided by the faculty have been studied. Later in the analysis part, a common link or the groad trend is tried to be established between he theroies suggested in the articles put together. However I may mention here that the scope of this project is limited beyond the 5 research articles that are taken into consideration. The 5 articles are – 1. The Rise of Post-Bureaucracy: Theorists' Fancy or Organizational Praxis? Phil Johnson, Geoffrey Wood, Chris Brewster and Michael Brookes 2. Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy – Chris Grey and Christina Garsten 3. From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory Michael Lounsbury and Edward J. Carberry 4. Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat Harro M. Ho¨pfl 5. Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era - David Knights and Glenn Morgan
6.
Review of Literature
Article 1 – The Rise of Post Bureaucracy – Theorists Fancy or Organizational Praxis?
The authors, in this article, acknowledge the complexity of dimensions associated with post bureaucracy and hence focus the discussion only on the autonomy aspect of post bureaucracy ( According to Robert Simons the bureaucratic period is characterized by stagnant autonomy). Here autonomy refers to the degree of autonomy given to the employees within a firm. Employee Responsible Autonomy becomes of paramount importance as uncertainity within the firm increases and ‘greater need for an autonomous educated worker able and willing to program and decide entire sequences of work’. Hence general principles ( and not rules), informed consent and sociotechnical participation of employees become important. This kind of system is then integrated on the basis of culture ideologies and modalities. Only then are the concepts like delegation, peer appraisal and Work council, become important and well-accpeted. Further on the authors attempt to study the extent to which there has been in employee’s self-management and employee responsible autonomy in post bureaucracy considering the importance of it discussed till now. They also recognize 3 intervening factors - organizational size, national economic setting and sectoral specific factors . Based on these 3 hypotheses have been used for the research purpose Hypothesis 1: Responsible autonomy is widespread, and becoming increasingly prevalent. Hypothesis 2: Responsible autonomy is more widespread in cooperative economies than liberal market economies. Hypothesis 3: Responsible autonomy may vary from sector to sector, and according to the size of firm.
Methodology
The following methodologies have been used • •
•
4 waves of the Repeating Cranet survey has been used to assess prevalence of various mechanisms Close ended questions instead of open ended questions
2 broad alternative ways used for assessing the concept is 1. The degree to which an employee can impact firm’s policies
2. Exploration of the effects of national institutional contexts.
Sample
Data from the UK, Germany, Sweden and Denmark are used as they represent all types of economy each.
Findings
Hypothesis 1 passes the test because : 1. There was evidence that responsible autonomy was becoming more widespread in terms of most of the measures selected. However, with
collective voice and flexitime, the path oscillates rather than increases smoothly. This may be due to use of flexitime arrangements especially in SMEs.
2. Works councils can play a crucial role in ensuring that other forms of responsible autonomy work in the manner intended.
Hypothesis 2 also passed the test as: 1. Measures to promote responsible autonomy proved more common in CME economies than in the UK. While CMEs rely on production strategies, LMEs look at maximizing shareholder value. 2. much vaunted experiments in responsible autonomy in LME-based organizations have often proved fragile and transitory 3. But peer appraislas was more commonly found in LMEs to implement individual incentive system. This needed breaking collectives contracts witht he help of tools like peer appraisals. 4. The relationship between the incidence of project teamwork and crossfunctional tasks was not significant Hypothesis 3 also passed the test on account of 1. Firms operating in a specific sector will tend to adopt similar practices to minimize transaction costs 2. Both firm size and sector significantly affected the propensity of firms to make use of mechanisms to promote responsible autonomy Thus apart from the three confirmation of hypothese the research has also successfully invalidated the very first premise on which the entire research had started – Responsible autonomy is an exclusive feature of post-bureaucracy only.
Larger organizations use more of responsible autonomy than smaller ones.So it says that - high levels of responsible autonomy may indeed be encountered in an organization that in other respects meets the criteria of a bureaucratic organization.
While HRM-related dimensions of responsible autonomy means that the associated technical and organizational-structural dimensions are not covered, other than in the broadest possible context of size and sectoral effects: this does constitute an important limitation to this study. It is highly possible that the other web of factors in post bureaucracy could throw important light on the findings to give it a new meaning.
Article 2 – Trust,control and post bureaucracy
This article revolves around 3 concepts – trust, control and bureaucracy. The author defines post bureaucracy as the state of organizations where they have flatter hierarchy, more flexibility and more permeability. The author emphasizes the importance of inter-organizational trust – an issue which has not been talked about much. He draws a link between the post-bureaucratic period and trust. He says that as hierarchies become flatter, trust gains more and more importance. Control can be of various types. Since the human relations movement, it has been realised that people do not necessarily behave with economic rationality to the organization. Their behaviours are guided more by the social motivations.There is interdependedncy between an individuals’ cognitive system and the social system. Both depend on each other while social systems also depend on an individual’s expectations.This brings into picture, duality. Trust can also be of various types and need not necessarily have a positive moral connotation attached. The author says that trust is a specific form of power.
Since we have seen a post bureaucratic era, trust has gained importance. But here it is important to mention that it not so that bureaucracies functioned in the absence of trust. It was more implicit and hidden then. Trust and bureaucratic control – the author says that bureaucracy solves the problem of trust. However everytime formal rules need not be followed. Earlier members of family were employed to take care of trust. The problem starts from the managerial level itself.The rules become such that trustworthiness takes on a ‘natural’ appearance and the specifically bureaucratic means through which this trustworthiness is constructed becomes obscured The erosion of bureaucratic trust
Post bureaucracy – the author goes on to define post bureaucracy in terms of its’ emphasis on expertise and not speciality. There is a shift to interdependency and consensus. The rewarding system has evolved and organizations are coming close to the customer. Employees are like equal partners. Time space has become flexible and employees are likely be on short term unlike before. Commitment to values of an organization is at question. Trust and post bureaucracy – The meaning of trust changes with employees having to work in temporary groups. It calls for predictability of actions and conformity to routines and communities. Trust is by choice. Texts help to shift to different organization forms. Homogenizations enables transfer of skills. The post bureaucratic structure has enabled servicing global customers and being flexible to working situations. Professionalism ensures trust. Commitment to work provides a basis for trust. Trust is essentially the degree of predictability. Hence, corporate culture only yields trust if there is a continuous relationship between the organisation and the employees. And so, the concept of trust becomes more important with the rising amount of temporary workers.
Article 3 - Weber’s fall from Grace in Organizational Theory
This article traces how research orientations have led to the fall of grace of Weber. Weber’s Approach to Organizations and Organizing – He was the ‘founding fathers’ of organizational theory and coined ‘bureaucracy’ that came about with capitalism. All of this and the structure and the social reality was a result of the historical processes related to markets, trade, technology, political and legal structures, religion, and socio-cultural ideas and institutions. In addition, he also analyzed intra-organizational power and conflict, and how systems of authority were connected to broader socio-historical dynamics. Weber described 3 types of administrative systems
Traditional authority emerged into rational authority with help of macro historical changes relating to caplitalism.In turn, these rational ideas were established under lots of mingled social, economic, religious, and political developments, including the development of bureaucracy. It is also claimed that Weber’s work may not have been fully explored. An Analysis of Weberian Scholarship in Organizational Theory – this study was conducted as under to fathom the usage of Weber by theorists across time and space.
Results - Between 1956 and 2002, 238 articles in ASQ cited Max Weber; of these: • • • 140 (59%) were coded as intra- organizational 58 (24.4%) were classified as social organization 40 (16.6%) were coded as organization-environment
Beyond the time line mentioned below, there was a steady increase of 15% upto 2002.The author has also further analysed the results on the basis of 3 time
periods.
Limitations • • Analysis was concentrated on those articles that specifically cited Weber. Therefore, it does not capture the cumulative effect of a theorist like Weber. Analysis does not include in-depth textual analysis
The Relevance of Weber for Contemporary Organizational Theory – Weber’s hint towards link between society and intra-organizational processes has given three areas where such a multilevel Weberian perspective would be particularly valuable – post industrial organization, social movements and organization and economic sociology. The author further delves to explain in each of these areas. In conclusion, the paper says that Weber’s historical analyses of capitalism, domination, authority, and bureaucracy are as relevant today as they were during the transitions to industrialization, urbanization, and rudimentary forms of market capitalism in his lifetime.
Article 4 - Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat
This article focuses on the usage on post bureaucracy to • • Highlight how post bureaucratic organisations differ from bureaucratic forms Identify fundamental changes in the times we live in
Post bureaucracy has definitely set-in and hybridity is one attractive way of accepting that things are not quite what they were in western organisation and management (Clegg and Courpasson, 2004). The article enumerates the work of Weber with the help of his 13 points as features of bureaucracy.This is again carefully analysed to bring out the discrepancies and lacunae in Weber’s accounts. The following are the main observations. 1. Unusable accounts due to • • • biased towards governmental/state aided organisations absence in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft of connective tissue linking together the various “components” of bureaucracy, and the lack of prioritisation among them.
2. Discrepancy regarding what is “essential”, or definitive of the ideal typical bureaucracy 3. Differences in opinions on contractual nature of employment 4. Decreasing mention of link of discipline and bureaucracy in the latter works 5. Indecisiveness about the role of communication in bureaucracy 6. Ambiguity about bureaucratic knowledge Weberian bureaucracy in post-bureaucracy literature:It says that Weber’s discussion has variable content with few fixed points. Sometimes informal invocations even ass or subtract items according to comvenience. Everything in the basic principles of bureaucracy is similar to any hierarchical arrangement, with the addition of Weber’s insistence that in “modern” bureaucracy the whole is governed by the rule of law. The use and utility of ideal types is also very ambiguous as pointed out by the author. The definition of what is “an ideal type” is yet to be frozen upon even by
Weber. Problems of ideal typification include the methodology and substantiability. Regarding methods It is elaborated that the ideal type is not a result of examining facts. Also, an ideal type is not a check-list, but a theory.There were also no symbols, legitimization or theories. The paper further explores to bring about the idea that bureaucracy was not an “emerging form of organisation” in Weber’s time. Exemplary bureaucratic organizations and their theorizations were by then centuries old. Furhter on , this misinterpretation of ideal type is replicated whenever bureaucracy, or post-bureaucracy, is identified by means of bullet-points or check-lists. A clear concept of bureaucracy is needed to properly understand post bureaucracy. The author says it is impossible to have an organization without an herarchy and so invoking Weber’s extremem form of hierarchy for something which is natural is not fair. In this light post-bureaucracy should then be absence or absolute deviation from Weber’s hierarchy which obviously cannot exist.
Article 5 Organization Theory and Consumption in a PostModern Era
In this the author tries to draw a relation between consumerism and the sociology of organizations. He gives a new angle of looking at organizations and looks at power and identity in the modern day society. In the previous times, the need to study consumption patterns was triggered due to the social circles that existed in the society. The political economy argues that currently we are in the ‘functional specialization era” where consumers are demanding a variety in the product offerings. This calls for a shift from mass production to a more flexible system. Increased concern for analysis of consumption process.While history says that a consumer society is born.Post modernism brings in extensive consumption beyond need as “Baudrillard – hyper reality”
The author says that the organizations considered the external environment as structure takers and not structure makers. Thus interdependence between market and organization theory was ignored. Economics, OB and marketing were divided.Obviosuly, this mindset is not sustainable and managers were encouraged to take risks and reshape the environment. Weber’s ideology states that organizations also contribute to the reproduction of environmental conditions like issues of class, politics, gender, race, technology as elements of social life
are reproduced in organization as well as by them.
The issue to be debated upon is whether taking consumerism into account will enable a better understanding of organization theories and their evolution? The author uses models and studies of various other scholars to examine this. The main points of Warde’s analysis of competition are as under. The focus of the discussion has been on the identity aspect which entails the social values.
The author studies the relationship between the economic value of a product and the extent to which organizational costs constitute the total cost. This is how the organization system enters economics and consumption cycle of the product. The article further explores historical connection with the help of operationalizing costs and price mentality. It talks about commodification using the insurance as an example. Various processes in construction of exchange value and also relvant to organizational analysis are also explored. Some of them include -
•
•
Development of financial and accounting tech Intra organizational relations thru which tech become widely used, etc.
Talking about Organizations & use values the author delves into true needs and false needs and that values are constructed socially. Culture is a definite influencer. A corollary is formulated - organizations are implicated in constituting
‘needs and use values’
On the identity dimension, the author uses internal and external aspects of the identity to explore the effects on organizations. One example is embracing of environment consciousness by every industry coming on ‘green’ bandwagon. It says that consumption contributes to your identity. Further on it has been said that the consuming class or the bourgeois behind their facades they are the most violent destructive ruling class in the society. They destroy what they build. Finally it has been argued that organizations should turn outward and consider changes happening in the society. For Marx & Weber the organization was central to their theory of society because of happenings in production. But in current situation post modernists say that we should pay attention to consumption too.
Analysis
The papers present quite a holistic picture of all that exists on bureaucracy after Weber. If put together, we see how first theorists agree that bureaucracy has been fading away and we are in the post bureaucratic era of the corporate world. There are attempts to draw parallel between bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy as seen in Article 1. It shows how a post bureaucratic phenomena like autonomy can exist only but in a bureaucratic organization. Thus the theorists is trying to integrate the past with the present and it is an attempt to find the roots. Further on, another theorist studies the importance of trust and how it has evolved through the 2 generations. It also uses the concept of control and flatter hierarchies. Essentially this is also an attempt to understand how we have moved on and what is it that differentiates post bureaucracy from the bureaucratic regime. Both these articles have an implicit acceptance of Weber’s theories. However, a contrast opinion is presented by the articles thereon. In Article 3, the author is sceptical about Weber’s theories and tries to find out how much relevant other scholars have found it over the years. He does so by a crude survey of the citations of Weber in scholarly articles. The results are significant as they establish a clear fact that definitely, Weber has been patronized and abandoned over the years gradually. It is like he has run his own product lifecycle. This again emphasizes that current corporate culture is not looking at bureaucracy. The world has moved on. The 4th article is absolutely extreme point of view. Here the theorist attempts to find fault with the entire theory of Weber and establishes the weak foundations on which Weber himself had laid his principles. He further on claims that the entir e organization structure is a simple concept that can do without bureaucracy and when there is no bureaucracy how is one supposed to understand post bureaucracy. Not only this, but he also defies the work of all the other theorists saying that the meanings drawn of Weber’s theory may be subjective and hence they all are a opinion in themselves instead of referring to something singular. So through the first four articles we see a movement from a extreme positive to a extreme negative attitude towards bureaucracy. This is illustrated as under.
However here I would like to add that though all the opinions do bear some weight in their own respects, it would be unfair to claim the whole theory of Weber to be redundant. It was a theory like any other which was meant to be improved upon like any science theory is. Ideality assumed by Weber was definitely a hypothetical situation, the absence of which raises further questions on the applicability and credibility of his theories. Considering that in place, ofcourse through the centuries there has been a definite obsolescence and corporate culture has moved on. As rightly pointed out thorugh Article 5, organizations were failing to look outside towards the real customers – the hub of all activities. I would rather say, the hub was mistaken to be the organization instead of the consumer all this while. But consumerism and realisation of the organizations on this deficiency has been one of the key drivers of moving to post bureaucratic period.
However this is only one of the many factors that has led to the revolution. The shift cant just be attributed to only consumerism but definitely we have seen an increase in the number of companies that have become consumer focussed.
Conclusion
Weber gave a definite point to relate all future structures to even though it must have been with a shaky foundation. Bureaucracy has successfully managed to be the sole referring point for all organization structures and the most widely used comparative system organizational theory. This is true even though we have moved on to the modern post bureaucratic era. It is true that post-bureaucracy cannot be defined without understanding bureaucracy itself. However what needs to be emphasized is that in my opinion, there is no definition of postbureaucracy. It’s explanation is drawn from the negation of bureaucratic structure. There has been a definite rise in consumerism. Consumerism has been established in the field of economics thorugh concepts like EVA ( economic value added) which is calculated for every activity that a firm undertakes. EVA essentially calls for calculating the impact of a certain organizational move on the consumers and the bottom line. In finance, this has been termed as ABC( Activity based costing). This entails calculating the profit from each transaction by taking the worth of actual resources devoted to that particular activity and not just standard methods of allocation. Strategists and others simply calls this as the value added.every organizational activity is now measured thorugh the ultimate value added and not just to achieve a rule or an immediate objective. Thus, we are for sure moving towards modern times of post bureaucracy but the reference points still has its roots in the traditional crude bureaucratic systems.
References
1. The Rise of Post-Bureaucracy: Theorists' Fancy or Organizational Praxis? Phil Johnson, Geoffrey Wood, Chris Brewster and Michael Brookes 2. Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy – Chris Grey and Christina Garsten 3. From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory Michael Lounsbury and Edward J. Carberry 4. Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat Harro M. Ho¨pfl 5. Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era - David Knights and Glenn Morgan 6. Tensions of Organization design - Robert Simons
doc_544345478.doc
The doc about literature based study on post bureaucratic challenges in organizational design.
The Post-bureaucratic Challenges in Organizational Design
A review-of-literature based study
Contents
Contents................................................................................................................ 2 Introduction........................................................................................................... 3 What is Bureaucracy?.........................................................................................3 Attaining Bureaucracy and moving beyond its’ definition..................................3 Methodology.......................................................................................................... 4 Review of Literature...............................................................................................5 Article 1 – The Rise of Post Bureaucracy – Theorists Fancy or Organizational Praxis?................................................................................................................5 Article 2 – Trust,control and post bureaucracy...................................................8 Article 3 - Weber’s fall from Grace in Organizational Theory............................10 Article 4 - Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat......................13 Article 5 Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era.............15 Analysis...............................................................................................................17 Conclusion........................................................................................................... 19 References...........................................................................................................20
Introduction
What is Bureaucracy?
The classic perspective on bureaucracy was proposed by Max Weber. He described an ideal organization – one that would be perfectly rational and would provide maximum efficiency of operation. He said it would have • • • • • • • Division of labour Well-defined authority hierarchy High formalization Impersonal Nature Employement decisions based on merit Career tracks for employees Distinct separation of members’ organizational and personal lives
But these were the ideal type of bureaucracy that Waber had envisioned. No politicking, no emotional involvement with individual personalities, no conflicts, objective decision making criteria and clear lines of authority. This was the “ideal type”
Attaining Bureaucracy and moving beyond its’ definition
One model proposed by Robert Simons in Tensions of Organization design is the crisis model based on organizational life cycle described in the exhibit 1. It says how a young organization needs bureaucracy and then suffers from its’ after effects. ( Exhibit 1) – refer to the other doc attached along (in soft copy). Please turn over (for hard copy)
Methodology
This a review-of –literature based study. To look at the topic, 5 papers as provided by the faculty have been studied. Later in the analysis part, a common link or the groad trend is tried to be established between he theroies suggested in the articles put together. However I may mention here that the scope of this project is limited beyond the 5 research articles that are taken into consideration. The 5 articles are – 1. The Rise of Post-Bureaucracy: Theorists' Fancy or Organizational Praxis? Phil Johnson, Geoffrey Wood, Chris Brewster and Michael Brookes 2. Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy – Chris Grey and Christina Garsten 3. From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory Michael Lounsbury and Edward J. Carberry 4. Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat Harro M. Ho¨pfl 5. Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era - David Knights and Glenn Morgan
6.
Review of Literature
Article 1 – The Rise of Post Bureaucracy – Theorists Fancy or Organizational Praxis?
The authors, in this article, acknowledge the complexity of dimensions associated with post bureaucracy and hence focus the discussion only on the autonomy aspect of post bureaucracy ( According to Robert Simons the bureaucratic period is characterized by stagnant autonomy). Here autonomy refers to the degree of autonomy given to the employees within a firm. Employee Responsible Autonomy becomes of paramount importance as uncertainity within the firm increases and ‘greater need for an autonomous educated worker able and willing to program and decide entire sequences of work’. Hence general principles ( and not rules), informed consent and sociotechnical participation of employees become important. This kind of system is then integrated on the basis of culture ideologies and modalities. Only then are the concepts like delegation, peer appraisal and Work council, become important and well-accpeted. Further on the authors attempt to study the extent to which there has been in employee’s self-management and employee responsible autonomy in post bureaucracy considering the importance of it discussed till now. They also recognize 3 intervening factors - organizational size, national economic setting and sectoral specific factors . Based on these 3 hypotheses have been used for the research purpose Hypothesis 1: Responsible autonomy is widespread, and becoming increasingly prevalent. Hypothesis 2: Responsible autonomy is more widespread in cooperative economies than liberal market economies. Hypothesis 3: Responsible autonomy may vary from sector to sector, and according to the size of firm.
Methodology
The following methodologies have been used • •
•
4 waves of the Repeating Cranet survey has been used to assess prevalence of various mechanisms Close ended questions instead of open ended questions
2 broad alternative ways used for assessing the concept is 1. The degree to which an employee can impact firm’s policies
2. Exploration of the effects of national institutional contexts.
Sample
Data from the UK, Germany, Sweden and Denmark are used as they represent all types of economy each.
Findings
Hypothesis 1 passes the test because : 1. There was evidence that responsible autonomy was becoming more widespread in terms of most of the measures selected. However, with
collective voice and flexitime, the path oscillates rather than increases smoothly. This may be due to use of flexitime arrangements especially in SMEs.
2. Works councils can play a crucial role in ensuring that other forms of responsible autonomy work in the manner intended.
Hypothesis 2 also passed the test as: 1. Measures to promote responsible autonomy proved more common in CME economies than in the UK. While CMEs rely on production strategies, LMEs look at maximizing shareholder value. 2. much vaunted experiments in responsible autonomy in LME-based organizations have often proved fragile and transitory 3. But peer appraislas was more commonly found in LMEs to implement individual incentive system. This needed breaking collectives contracts witht he help of tools like peer appraisals. 4. The relationship between the incidence of project teamwork and crossfunctional tasks was not significant Hypothesis 3 also passed the test on account of 1. Firms operating in a specific sector will tend to adopt similar practices to minimize transaction costs 2. Both firm size and sector significantly affected the propensity of firms to make use of mechanisms to promote responsible autonomy Thus apart from the three confirmation of hypothese the research has also successfully invalidated the very first premise on which the entire research had started – Responsible autonomy is an exclusive feature of post-bureaucracy only.
Larger organizations use more of responsible autonomy than smaller ones.So it says that - high levels of responsible autonomy may indeed be encountered in an organization that in other respects meets the criteria of a bureaucratic organization.
While HRM-related dimensions of responsible autonomy means that the associated technical and organizational-structural dimensions are not covered, other than in the broadest possible context of size and sectoral effects: this does constitute an important limitation to this study. It is highly possible that the other web of factors in post bureaucracy could throw important light on the findings to give it a new meaning.
Article 2 – Trust,control and post bureaucracy
This article revolves around 3 concepts – trust, control and bureaucracy. The author defines post bureaucracy as the state of organizations where they have flatter hierarchy, more flexibility and more permeability. The author emphasizes the importance of inter-organizational trust – an issue which has not been talked about much. He draws a link between the post-bureaucratic period and trust. He says that as hierarchies become flatter, trust gains more and more importance. Control can be of various types. Since the human relations movement, it has been realised that people do not necessarily behave with economic rationality to the organization. Their behaviours are guided more by the social motivations.There is interdependedncy between an individuals’ cognitive system and the social system. Both depend on each other while social systems also depend on an individual’s expectations.This brings into picture, duality. Trust can also be of various types and need not necessarily have a positive moral connotation attached. The author says that trust is a specific form of power.
Since we have seen a post bureaucratic era, trust has gained importance. But here it is important to mention that it not so that bureaucracies functioned in the absence of trust. It was more implicit and hidden then. Trust and bureaucratic control – the author says that bureaucracy solves the problem of trust. However everytime formal rules need not be followed. Earlier members of family were employed to take care of trust. The problem starts from the managerial level itself.The rules become such that trustworthiness takes on a ‘natural’ appearance and the specifically bureaucratic means through which this trustworthiness is constructed becomes obscured The erosion of bureaucratic trust
Post bureaucracy – the author goes on to define post bureaucracy in terms of its’ emphasis on expertise and not speciality. There is a shift to interdependency and consensus. The rewarding system has evolved and organizations are coming close to the customer. Employees are like equal partners. Time space has become flexible and employees are likely be on short term unlike before. Commitment to values of an organization is at question. Trust and post bureaucracy – The meaning of trust changes with employees having to work in temporary groups. It calls for predictability of actions and conformity to routines and communities. Trust is by choice. Texts help to shift to different organization forms. Homogenizations enables transfer of skills. The post bureaucratic structure has enabled servicing global customers and being flexible to working situations. Professionalism ensures trust. Commitment to work provides a basis for trust. Trust is essentially the degree of predictability. Hence, corporate culture only yields trust if there is a continuous relationship between the organisation and the employees. And so, the concept of trust becomes more important with the rising amount of temporary workers.
Article 3 - Weber’s fall from Grace in Organizational Theory
This article traces how research orientations have led to the fall of grace of Weber. Weber’s Approach to Organizations and Organizing – He was the ‘founding fathers’ of organizational theory and coined ‘bureaucracy’ that came about with capitalism. All of this and the structure and the social reality was a result of the historical processes related to markets, trade, technology, political and legal structures, religion, and socio-cultural ideas and institutions. In addition, he also analyzed intra-organizational power and conflict, and how systems of authority were connected to broader socio-historical dynamics. Weber described 3 types of administrative systems
Traditional authority emerged into rational authority with help of macro historical changes relating to caplitalism.In turn, these rational ideas were established under lots of mingled social, economic, religious, and political developments, including the development of bureaucracy. It is also claimed that Weber’s work may not have been fully explored. An Analysis of Weberian Scholarship in Organizational Theory – this study was conducted as under to fathom the usage of Weber by theorists across time and space.
Results - Between 1956 and 2002, 238 articles in ASQ cited Max Weber; of these: • • • 140 (59%) were coded as intra- organizational 58 (24.4%) were classified as social organization 40 (16.6%) were coded as organization-environment
Beyond the time line mentioned below, there was a steady increase of 15% upto 2002.The author has also further analysed the results on the basis of 3 time
periods.
Limitations • • Analysis was concentrated on those articles that specifically cited Weber. Therefore, it does not capture the cumulative effect of a theorist like Weber. Analysis does not include in-depth textual analysis
The Relevance of Weber for Contemporary Organizational Theory – Weber’s hint towards link between society and intra-organizational processes has given three areas where such a multilevel Weberian perspective would be particularly valuable – post industrial organization, social movements and organization and economic sociology. The author further delves to explain in each of these areas. In conclusion, the paper says that Weber’s historical analyses of capitalism, domination, authority, and bureaucracy are as relevant today as they were during the transitions to industrialization, urbanization, and rudimentary forms of market capitalism in his lifetime.
Article 4 - Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat
This article focuses on the usage on post bureaucracy to • • Highlight how post bureaucratic organisations differ from bureaucratic forms Identify fundamental changes in the times we live in
Post bureaucracy has definitely set-in and hybridity is one attractive way of accepting that things are not quite what they were in western organisation and management (Clegg and Courpasson, 2004). The article enumerates the work of Weber with the help of his 13 points as features of bureaucracy.This is again carefully analysed to bring out the discrepancies and lacunae in Weber’s accounts. The following are the main observations. 1. Unusable accounts due to • • • biased towards governmental/state aided organisations absence in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft of connective tissue linking together the various “components” of bureaucracy, and the lack of prioritisation among them.
2. Discrepancy regarding what is “essential”, or definitive of the ideal typical bureaucracy 3. Differences in opinions on contractual nature of employment 4. Decreasing mention of link of discipline and bureaucracy in the latter works 5. Indecisiveness about the role of communication in bureaucracy 6. Ambiguity about bureaucratic knowledge Weberian bureaucracy in post-bureaucracy literature:It says that Weber’s discussion has variable content with few fixed points. Sometimes informal invocations even ass or subtract items according to comvenience. Everything in the basic principles of bureaucracy is similar to any hierarchical arrangement, with the addition of Weber’s insistence that in “modern” bureaucracy the whole is governed by the rule of law. The use and utility of ideal types is also very ambiguous as pointed out by the author. The definition of what is “an ideal type” is yet to be frozen upon even by
Weber. Problems of ideal typification include the methodology and substantiability. Regarding methods It is elaborated that the ideal type is not a result of examining facts. Also, an ideal type is not a check-list, but a theory.There were also no symbols, legitimization or theories. The paper further explores to bring about the idea that bureaucracy was not an “emerging form of organisation” in Weber’s time. Exemplary bureaucratic organizations and their theorizations were by then centuries old. Furhter on , this misinterpretation of ideal type is replicated whenever bureaucracy, or post-bureaucracy, is identified by means of bullet-points or check-lists. A clear concept of bureaucracy is needed to properly understand post bureaucracy. The author says it is impossible to have an organization without an herarchy and so invoking Weber’s extremem form of hierarchy for something which is natural is not fair. In this light post-bureaucracy should then be absence or absolute deviation from Weber’s hierarchy which obviously cannot exist.
Article 5 Organization Theory and Consumption in a PostModern Era
In this the author tries to draw a relation between consumerism and the sociology of organizations. He gives a new angle of looking at organizations and looks at power and identity in the modern day society. In the previous times, the need to study consumption patterns was triggered due to the social circles that existed in the society. The political economy argues that currently we are in the ‘functional specialization era” where consumers are demanding a variety in the product offerings. This calls for a shift from mass production to a more flexible system. Increased concern for analysis of consumption process.While history says that a consumer society is born.Post modernism brings in extensive consumption beyond need as “Baudrillard – hyper reality”
The author says that the organizations considered the external environment as structure takers and not structure makers. Thus interdependence between market and organization theory was ignored. Economics, OB and marketing were divided.Obviosuly, this mindset is not sustainable and managers were encouraged to take risks and reshape the environment. Weber’s ideology states that organizations also contribute to the reproduction of environmental conditions like issues of class, politics, gender, race, technology as elements of social life
are reproduced in organization as well as by them.
The issue to be debated upon is whether taking consumerism into account will enable a better understanding of organization theories and their evolution? The author uses models and studies of various other scholars to examine this. The main points of Warde’s analysis of competition are as under. The focus of the discussion has been on the identity aspect which entails the social values.
The author studies the relationship between the economic value of a product and the extent to which organizational costs constitute the total cost. This is how the organization system enters economics and consumption cycle of the product. The article further explores historical connection with the help of operationalizing costs and price mentality. It talks about commodification using the insurance as an example. Various processes in construction of exchange value and also relvant to organizational analysis are also explored. Some of them include -
•
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Development of financial and accounting tech Intra organizational relations thru which tech become widely used, etc.
Talking about Organizations & use values the author delves into true needs and false needs and that values are constructed socially. Culture is a definite influencer. A corollary is formulated - organizations are implicated in constituting
‘needs and use values’
On the identity dimension, the author uses internal and external aspects of the identity to explore the effects on organizations. One example is embracing of environment consciousness by every industry coming on ‘green’ bandwagon. It says that consumption contributes to your identity. Further on it has been said that the consuming class or the bourgeois behind their facades they are the most violent destructive ruling class in the society. They destroy what they build. Finally it has been argued that organizations should turn outward and consider changes happening in the society. For Marx & Weber the organization was central to their theory of society because of happenings in production. But in current situation post modernists say that we should pay attention to consumption too.
Analysis
The papers present quite a holistic picture of all that exists on bureaucracy after Weber. If put together, we see how first theorists agree that bureaucracy has been fading away and we are in the post bureaucratic era of the corporate world. There are attempts to draw parallel between bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy as seen in Article 1. It shows how a post bureaucratic phenomena like autonomy can exist only but in a bureaucratic organization. Thus the theorists is trying to integrate the past with the present and it is an attempt to find the roots. Further on, another theorist studies the importance of trust and how it has evolved through the 2 generations. It also uses the concept of control and flatter hierarchies. Essentially this is also an attempt to understand how we have moved on and what is it that differentiates post bureaucracy from the bureaucratic regime. Both these articles have an implicit acceptance of Weber’s theories. However, a contrast opinion is presented by the articles thereon. In Article 3, the author is sceptical about Weber’s theories and tries to find out how much relevant other scholars have found it over the years. He does so by a crude survey of the citations of Weber in scholarly articles. The results are significant as they establish a clear fact that definitely, Weber has been patronized and abandoned over the years gradually. It is like he has run his own product lifecycle. This again emphasizes that current corporate culture is not looking at bureaucracy. The world has moved on. The 4th article is absolutely extreme point of view. Here the theorist attempts to find fault with the entire theory of Weber and establishes the weak foundations on which Weber himself had laid his principles. He further on claims that the entir e organization structure is a simple concept that can do without bureaucracy and when there is no bureaucracy how is one supposed to understand post bureaucracy. Not only this, but he also defies the work of all the other theorists saying that the meanings drawn of Weber’s theory may be subjective and hence they all are a opinion in themselves instead of referring to something singular. So through the first four articles we see a movement from a extreme positive to a extreme negative attitude towards bureaucracy. This is illustrated as under.
However here I would like to add that though all the opinions do bear some weight in their own respects, it would be unfair to claim the whole theory of Weber to be redundant. It was a theory like any other which was meant to be improved upon like any science theory is. Ideality assumed by Weber was definitely a hypothetical situation, the absence of which raises further questions on the applicability and credibility of his theories. Considering that in place, ofcourse through the centuries there has been a definite obsolescence and corporate culture has moved on. As rightly pointed out thorugh Article 5, organizations were failing to look outside towards the real customers – the hub of all activities. I would rather say, the hub was mistaken to be the organization instead of the consumer all this while. But consumerism and realisation of the organizations on this deficiency has been one of the key drivers of moving to post bureaucratic period.
However this is only one of the many factors that has led to the revolution. The shift cant just be attributed to only consumerism but definitely we have seen an increase in the number of companies that have become consumer focussed.
Conclusion
Weber gave a definite point to relate all future structures to even though it must have been with a shaky foundation. Bureaucracy has successfully managed to be the sole referring point for all organization structures and the most widely used comparative system organizational theory. This is true even though we have moved on to the modern post bureaucratic era. It is true that post-bureaucracy cannot be defined without understanding bureaucracy itself. However what needs to be emphasized is that in my opinion, there is no definition of postbureaucracy. It’s explanation is drawn from the negation of bureaucratic structure. There has been a definite rise in consumerism. Consumerism has been established in the field of economics thorugh concepts like EVA ( economic value added) which is calculated for every activity that a firm undertakes. EVA essentially calls for calculating the impact of a certain organizational move on the consumers and the bottom line. In finance, this has been termed as ABC( Activity based costing). This entails calculating the profit from each transaction by taking the worth of actual resources devoted to that particular activity and not just standard methods of allocation. Strategists and others simply calls this as the value added.every organizational activity is now measured thorugh the ultimate value added and not just to achieve a rule or an immediate objective. Thus, we are for sure moving towards modern times of post bureaucracy but the reference points still has its roots in the traditional crude bureaucratic systems.
References
1. The Rise of Post-Bureaucracy: Theorists' Fancy or Organizational Praxis? Phil Johnson, Geoffrey Wood, Chris Brewster and Michael Brookes 2. Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy – Chris Grey and Christina Garsten 3. From King to Court Jester? Weber’s Fall from Grace in Organizational Theory Michael Lounsbury and Edward J. Carberry 4. Post-bureaucracy and Weber’s “modern” bureaucrat Harro M. Ho¨pfl 5. Organization Theory and Consumption in a Post-Modern Era - David Knights and Glenn Morgan 6. Tensions of Organization design - Robert Simons
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