Bureaucratic Structures of the Future

The future of the business organization has been analyzed by a number of theorists in recent years as they look to the beginning of a new century and a new millennium. Many find that the organization of the future will involve less bureaucracy and more small-scale community based structures, and they find evidence of this in companies that today are developing smaller-scale structures and work units with a higher degree of autonomy than would be expected in a hierarchical organization. Developing this new structure will involve shifts not only in structure but in ways of thinking about problems, opportunities, and strategies. An examination of some of the issues will lead to a consideration of what must be done to create this organization of the future.

In the past, the American business system has been hierarchical, conflictual, reactive, and has come more and more to rely on short-term planning and thinking. However, there are many who believe that the American system is shifting in response to changes in the business environment, changes leading to a more information-based approach that will of necessity be a more cooperative approach as well. Peter Drucker (1988) is one analyst who has been looking to the future of the business organization in American society, the form it will take, and the ways in which it will differ from the organization of today. Drucker sees a vision of the large business of the future as resulting fr

Related Essays

Substance Use and Max Weber's Social Theory .... in which new law is to be enacted in the future; or, second .... Opposition to rationally evolved bureaucratic structures is, for Weber, an exercise in irrationality .... (3176 13 )

Failure of Socialism in Eastern Europe .... Clearly, though, the bureaucratic structures of Communism and those of socialism have much in common and have been found either to .... Socialism Past and Future. .... (2297 9 )

City Politics Adminis. .... or other information pertinent to the case and its future. .... In the case of mass broadcasting and conventional bureaucratic structures, hierarchical language .... (2000 8 )

Weber's Sociology of Law .... new law is to be enacted in the future; or, second .... possess idiosyncratic irrationality, any opposition to evolved bureaucratic structures constitutes irrational .... (5964 24 )

Role of Nurse in Health Care .... policy can well inform bureaucratic structures, which inform .... of decentralization and outpatient structures on nursing .... made and recommending future actions, do .... (3843 15 )

society and people in the bureaucracy relate differently. In society we relate to one another primarily through the meaning we attach to our actions: "The bureaucrat, on the other hand, is restricted to those actions that his work rules permit him and that fall within the scope of his jurisdiction" (Hummel, 1982, 5). As a result, the bureaucrat ignores behavior and signals that would have meaning in a different context but which have no meaning in the bureaucratic situation because the rules say they do not. The bureaucracy in government terms and the bureaucratic structure of business differ in several respects, including types of goal, decision-making structures, and response to the external environment. In both cases, however, the bureaucracy tends to be self-perpetuating, shaped for growth and increasing size, and generally cumbersome and so slow to respond to change. DEVELOPING PARADIGM Analysts of the information-based economy that is developing find evidence of the beginning of a less bureaucratic structure. In the developing economy, the fundamental unit is not the corporation but the individual. Tasks will no longer be assigned and controlled through a stable chain of management but will rather be carried out a

Category: Business - B