Critically Evaluate Weber's Understanding of Bureaucracy

Essay by walkbysun April 2006

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If recently asked what had been the most important event along with the industrial revolution during 18th and 19th centuries, people in the west should immediately replied; that is the emergence of bureaucracy of which Marx Weber had been known as the father. However, after the existence of his concept on bureaucracy and its central role in bringing a great impact on the way people lived and were organized; people started asking whether Weber's ideas continue to form the basis for organization and are still descriptive of all cases. From hence, an intense dispute around his model called "rational system" theory was tremendously raised by considering famous studies of sociologists following the opposite system known as "natural" or human relation school. This essay will therefore critically evaluate Weber's Understanding of Bureaucracy through the aspect of Weber's ideal types that reflect the structures of bureaucracy, the growth of bureaucracy or bureaucratization, and the effects of bureaucracy on individual and end with an application of Vietnamese bureaucracy.

What Singapore Institute of Management, University of London, Mc Donald and General Hospital Services have in common. Through an exploration on most general features to them, and by theorizing about the conditions for their efficiency, Weber's answer to that question would have been simple: they are all bureaucracies. According to Weber, bureaucracy is characterized by division of labor in which, bureaucratic organization is divided into different parts such as departments, sections, and positions; by hierarchy of authority where the higher the position, the higher authority it holds, and the chain of authority descends to the bottom; by written rules and regulations, impersonality expertise, and full-time salaried officers. These are Ideal Type, Weber used to measure whether an organization is bureaucratic or not. Many sociologists accepted his definition of bureaucracy and Ideal Type since they...