Panera Bread Bureaucracy Essay

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In this essay, the inner-workings and characteristics of a bureaucracy will be explained, using the example of Panera Bread, a plethora of examples will be used to adequately explain each characteristic. Bureaucracies are becoming more and more popular all around the world. This is because of many different reasons. First of all, bureaucracies are created to accomplish a certain goal in the most efficient manner possible (Larkin, 2015). They exhibit many specific traits; a division of labor, hierarchal levels of authority, written rules, written communications and records, impersonality, and replace ability. One company that is exhibits all of these traits is Panera Bread. Panera is a prime example of what Max Weber described as a bureaucracy. Using a big company such as Panera is a good example because it exhibits the pyramidal flow of authority and structure that is crucial to any bureaucracy. Within Panera there is the CEO at the very top all the way down to sales associates. Within each café there are even miniature versions of this pyramid of authority. For example, in every café there is the general manager who is at the top of the pyramid, he has all the power over that store. Next there are the …show more content…

In today’s society, there are almost always people looking for work, because of, if someone gets fired the company usually doesn’t have a hard time finding a replacement. In a bureaucracy competency is crucial, if one is not competent in their job, then they are costing the company money, and efficiency. To prevent this, Panera does quarterly reviews, during this the managers review each employee and give them points on many different aspects. To promote good work, the employees get a small raise, the amount of which depends on how well their review is. However, if a worker doesn’t meet the standards, they are let go and replaced by another

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