BOLA: Power and Bureaucracy

Power and Bureaucracy

Weber's rational, legal model of organisation is an important one for members and stakeholders. They accept the purpose of the organisation as rational. The authority of role relationships, the hierarchical structure of vertical and horizontal links, the dependencies in duties, obligations and accountabilities are logical. Authority is accepted/legitimised because the structures for decision-making and action are defined with objective purpose.

However Weber modelled three forms of power giving rise to authority structures. Power vacuums and struggles for position result if these structures fail to provide a holding framework for members. The three forms are charismatic, traditional and rational-legal.

Charismatic
The organisation is based on the leader. His/her special qualities attract the support of followers who value the benefits that association with the leader brings.The leader organises, directs and distributes rewards. Harrison places such a leader as being at the hub of a wheel (representative of a power culture) from which decisions and co-ordination radiate outward. Organisational success depends on the single-mindedness and expertise of the leader and his/her inspired followers. Naturally problems result if the leader's capacities decline and followers expectations are disappointed. Infighting, factionalism and succession problems emerge. Charismatic influence may live on if the leader's values and doctrines are elevated to a higher spiritual plain and integrated by followers into a way of life.
Traditional
Roles, customs and practices have become accepted into the ritual of life. Things happen because they have always happened that way (precedent). They have symbolic and even sacred significance. Authority and position is an inherited commodity vested in those who for reasons of birth or ritual selection represent the traditional customs e.g. the monarch/dynasty, the temple, the lord- knight-yeoman and serf, the guild master and journeyman apprentice. The roles (born into) are not challenged. Rights and duties are accepted for reasons of this is the way things are done. The ideals and values of the charismatic leader are carried forward by the apostle successor. Personal servants - appointed by the leader - benefit from patronage and can become officials. Under feudalism - even they can inherit titles, demesnes and tithes subject to paying homage to the appointee leader who may withdraw or disenfranchise these rights.
Traditional values and behaviours can be found in the modern world - the authority of the father in some families is an example.Those who are totally willing to dedicate themselves to a spiritual doctrine or ideology may adopt a very powerful position - an insular reality - which cuts across secular or scientific logic. Theirs is the one right way regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Bureaucratic (rational-legal)
- authority in this structure is based on purposeful reasoning and formally defined, accepted structures of rules and procedures. The power of those in authority depends on their acceptance of due legal process and qualification
- ownership according to purposeful, agreed rules
- appointment on technically defined grounds (merit and technical expertise)
- election
- membership of a decision-making group and adherence to the rules of decision-making.

Why consider such models?

Each model simplifies how authority becomes legitimised in organisations. A family business for example is a hybrid. Incorporated as limited company, the head of the family may always become the Chairman, a bright son or daughter may be the admired, energetic entrepreneur. Employee managers and specialist staff engaged on contracts of employment do their jobs according to policies and procedures. They respect the entrepreneur and accept the traditional values and role relationships within the firm.

Well-established, modern business relies on the bureaucratic form - albeit constrained in what it can do by the bureaucratic regulation imposed by community legislators - for the community's benefit.

Roles, rights, duties and behaviour are guided by policies, rules, reporting regulations and controls, standard operating procedures, hierarchical and functionally specialised work structures.

Job holders have clear scope within which to act, instruct others or implement and adapt policy.
Delegation (devolved responsibities and tasks from the top down) provides a command and control structure of heirarchical relations vertical and lateral.
Co-operation is expected as department and staff must co-operate to achieve the purposes of policies which - all - agree are necessary (rationality).
People are appointed into their roles because they have the ability to do the job. Each accepts and supports the roles of those they report to and must co-ordinate with.
Clearly power is devolved from the top, down through a hierarchy.
records are kept of decisions made - the data of the organisation becomes independent of those who made the decisions in the first place.

The Dysfunctional Bureaucracy

The legitimate powerof a bureaucracy can be mediated from the bottom upwards. Individuals and groups may act informally in ways running counter to the impersonal, one-source of authority assumptions of the model. Such actions of course would be labelled as being dysfunctional.

Officials become overbearing.
They may apply administrative systems as ends in themselves - after all their role, position and continuity depend on them.
Individuals may protect their position and build up the power of the office.
Union activity and countervailing collective processes may emerge.

Structural regulation and control

In a bureaucracy, methods and rules are devised to support decision-making and operations. Such forms of regulation are solutions to functional problems such as processing sales transactions smoothly and efficiently. They are also solutions to political control problems.

Standardisation of methods and rules ensures that members of the organisation behave in predictable conformist ways and not personal whim. Their discretion is limited by the methods and rules that apply within the scope of their duties and responsibilities.

Divide and Rule

In a modern business, managers may pursue differentiation, rationalisation or out-sourcing as policy devices to re-assert personal control, maintain and enhance their status. They may offer reasons for the move but covertly they may have another agenda.

Divide and rule may minimise the influence of a large department or group. The efficacy of project teams (Harrison's task culture) set up to co-ordinate work across functional departments, would be significantly inhibited if project managers did not have the full co-operation of Heads of Departments. The latter could easilyset up rule-based and procedural barriers to matrix managers.

Reforming the Bureacracy

Re-redesign efforts illustrate the workings of organisational power structures. Senior managers - the top power holders - may see that the organisation's structures have become rigid. This may partly be a protection of derived power as departments and people, reluctant to make deep changes in operations and methods, cling to out-dated roles. This is ironic. Job roles and standard operating procedures were designed to control employees. But their complexity and the organisation's need to maintain operational continuity means that incremental change is preferred over radical. It is easier to close a department or unit than achieve radical change in the behaviour of employees who control their jobs and functions.

Rules, regulations and other formal procedures

Rules and regulations can be used against the bureaucracy as illustrated by the power of trade unionists if working to rule. Generally the employee does not forfeit pay. They do exactly what required by regulations.

Many such rules were designed to control empoyees, ensure safety and protect employees, the public and the railway authorities. If a major accident occurred then clear regulations/rules define responsibilities and accountabilities. Yet paradoxically in, say, a railway organisation, zealous application of rules made over decades and not modified or rescinded means that few trains would leave on time. Work done to the letter and with all rules being inflexibly applied together can render a system inoperable. Normal working requires the application of individual discretion and interpretation of rules to the situation. The individual learns integration of rules not sequencing. The procedural aspects of a bureacracy become streamlined by the skills and competences of those carrying them out.

If there is a major accident, a public investigation frequently follows. Investigators compare actual events with norms of formal regulations - who is in error - and try to record deviations in practice, gaps in rules and where negligence has occured. The accident may be an act of god. Such a probability Perrow would argue is acknowledged by the system itself.

Rules and regulations are often created, invoked and used in proactive or retrospective ways as part of power play. They give potential power to both controllers and controlled. Controllers may try to "streamline" procedures and thus lock the relationships they seek to control. They are then in a position to use the rules to their advantage. These are important sources of organisational power. They define a contested terrain

This resource was written by Chris Jarvis who maintains and develops BOLA.