Weber's Ideal Bureaucracy

Weber's Ideal Bureaucracy

When Weber analyzed bureaucracies, he developed an ideal type model, which consisted of six essential features. These features described how bureaucracies function and develop. The features Weber identified are as such: specialization; hierarchy; written rules and regulations; impartiality; impersonality; recordkeeping. These features are essential to upholding the purpose of efficiency bureaucracies were created for.

Specialization in a bureaucracy means that each status or office has a set of tasks and responsibilities. This way each office has to and will only handle their responsibility; there is a clear understanding of what they have to do and they stick to it so that they do not get caught up in doing another office's duty, making their job simple so that it gets done.

The girth of the status pyramid decreases as the amount of power increases. There are more people allowed to handle the basic functions of the bureaucracies. The greater the responsibility or task, the less number of people are needed to handle it; in one or two person's hands lies the responsibility and ability to control the matter. This hierarchal approach makes getting things done quick and easy. In fewer words: "The buck stops here."

When people know exactly what they have to do, it makes it easier for them to do it. Ambiguity leads to uncertainty, miscommunication and misunderstanding which defeats the whole purpose of bureaucracy: efficiency. If no one knows what they are doing, they are like chickens with their heads cut off, squaking and ultimately accomplishing nothing. The written rules and regulations of a bureaucracy assure that such a scenario does not occur.

There is nothing more frustrating than ha...

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...ted and unusual access to your personal information?

Promotions in bureaucracies are granted when an employee does a good job with the job they are given. Just because a person can perform one job well, does not mean that they are competent enough to handle the next step. Just because someone can pack a box, it does not mean they know what they are putting in it, much less why. This is bureaucratic incompetence and there is no limit to the consequences of this, making it a disadvantage to the survival of the bureaucracy.

The hierarchy of a bureaucracy breeds oligarchy; the greatest power is concentrated within a few individuals. Impersonality within the membership leads to almost dictatorship-like practices executed by the leaders of the membership. Consequently, only the leaders' ideas and interests are addressed and/or instituted and the membership is devalued.