Weberian Bureaucracy and Its Relevance to Organisations Today: A Critical Analysis

There is probably nothing more motivating in the domain of intellectual promenades than to engage the ideas of giants; and when it comes to an interdisciplinary subject such as management, Max Weber stands out as one of its greatest thinkers. This nineteenth century German lawyer and sociologist1 did not only gaze at ancient history to excavate its relevance to the zeitgeist of the industrial revolution, but by doing so produced a leitmotif for twentieth century society and its organisations. In fact, it could be argued (as we will in this essay) that his conceptions are even relevant to the twenty first century, and possibly even beyond. This humble homage to Max Weber critically analyzes the relevance of one of his greatest contributions, namely the Weberian bureaucratic organisational model, to organisational forms today2.

To this end, the essay will take the following structure. A high level analysis based on a broad understanding of management as a discipline is developed to give pointers to the main arguments in the essay. This perspective sets the stage to delving into more critical analysis of the Weberian bureaucratic organisation, with emphasis on identifying core dimensions in organisations today. Next we will argue the same conclusion on the empirical front. Finally, the coherence of the three analytical layers is further elucidated in the furnished descriptive and prescriptive conclusions at the end of the essay.

From a big picture perspective, we can leverage our current understanding of management (as a discipline) to gauge the relevance of its theories – old and new – to today’s organisations. Even browsing through an introductory management book such as Samson and Daft (2003), one can come to appreciate that management is an interdisciplinary subject, with an eclectic sedimentary melange of theories representing the cornucopia of ideas and practices at managers’ disposal; but with no one best way or “right” answer3. On the other hand, it is also evident that recent theories (such as the learning organisation paradigm) are emphasised more than classical ones (such as Weberian bureaucracy); simply because today’s organisations have moved on from the industrial revolution to the informational one (Toffler 1984), and because fast-paced change in the form of technological advances is now the defining factor of the so called “new economy”. However, given the link between organisation and society4, and the differences in the level of economic development of world countries; it could also be argued that while first world countries are already engaging the informational revolution, other world economies are still largely dominated by its predecessor; the industrial revolution. Take for example China’s textile industry and its infrastructure of mass production factories. What type of organisation would such operations demand? The success that bureaucracy produced during the industrial revolution and up to the late twentieth century, makes it the most relevant type of organisation for such industries. Hence, at least within some contextual boundaries depending on the level of economic development of societies, bureaucracy is still relevant5.