首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy People usually hold negative opinion towards bureaucracy, but according to Max Weber, bureau
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy People usually hold negative opinion towards bureaucracy, but according to Max Weber, bureau
admin
2013-06-12
29
问题
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
People usually hold negative opinion towards bureaucracy, but according to Max Weber, bureaucracy has five characteristics, which entail both positive and negative influences on the society.
Division of Labor
Specialized experts are employed in each position to perform specific tasks.
Positive influence: becoming highly skilled and working with【1】______ 【1】______.
Negative influence:
Trained incapacity: workers become so specialized that they develop blind
spots and cannot notice【2】______ 【2】______.
Serious threat to the unemployed.
Sex discrimination due to unnecessary distinctions between men and women.
Hierarchy of Authority
Each position is under supervision of a【3】______ 【3】______.
Positive influence: bringing women advantage at lower levels of bureaucracy.
Negative influence: preventing women from being promoted to higher positions
Women are viewed more as【4】______than as innovators, not aggressive enough 【4】______.
to serve in higher management posts.
Written Rules and Regulations
All the work in a bureaucracy is carried out in accordance to specific rules and regulations.
Positive influence: Ensuring【5】______of every task. 【5】______.
Offering employees clear job performance standards.
Creating a sense of【6】______in a bureaucracy. 【6】______.
Negative influence: Leading to goal displacement, i.e. rules becoming
more important than achieving certain objective.
【7】______ 【7】______.
Duty is carried out without personal consideration of people as individuals.
Positive influence: ensuring【8】______of each person 【8】______.
Negative influence: leading to cold and uncaring feelings of modern organizations
Employment Based on Technical Qualifications
Hiring is based on technical qualifications, and performance is measured against specific standards.
Positive influence: 【9】______can be more open and fair. 【9】______.
Loyalty to the organization can be encouraged.
Negative influence: talented people being promoted continuous till they get
to positions【10】______ 【10】______.
【1】
Characteristics of a Bureaucracy
When we think of the term bureaucracy, a variety of unpleasant images come to mind. In order to develop a more useful and objective definition of bureaucracy, we must turn to the writings of Max Weber. Weber viewed bureaucracy as a form of organization quite different from the family-run business. He argued that every bureaucracy--whether its purpose is to run a day care center, or army--will have five basic characteristics. In our lecture today, we’ll take a brief look at these characteristics.
The first characteristic Weber identified is division of labor. Specialized experts are employed in each position to perform specific tasks. Thus, the president of the United States need not be a good typist. A lawyer need not be able to complete an income tax form. By working at a specific task, people are more likely to he-come highly skilled and carry out a job with maximum efficiency. This emphasis on specialization is so basic a part of our lives that we may not realize that it is a recent development in western culture.
Although division of labor has certainly been beneficial in the performance of many complex bureaucracies, in some cases it can lead to trained incapacity; that is, workers become so specialized that they develop blind spots and fail to notice obvious problems. Besides, specialization is especially disastrous for the person who loses a job during layoff. The third problem is that division of labor may actually contribute to sex discrimination by creating unnecessary and inappropriate distinctions between female and male employees.
The second characteristic Weber found for bureaucracy is hierarchy of authority. Bureaucracies follow the principle of hierarchy; that is, each position is under the supervision of a higher authority. Large medical groups, for example, have boards of directors, executive committees, and administrators.
Recent research suggests that bureaucracy may be a positive environment for women at the lower but not the upper echelons of the hierarchy. It is believed that many traits traditionally associated with women are conducive to participation in a bureaucratic organization. However, women may find their career progress hindered because they function more as facilitators than as innovators, and then are not viewed as aggressive enough to serve in higher management posts. Consequently, although traditional feminine values may be functional for women in the lower levels of bureaucratic structure, they appear to become disfunctional as women aspire to greater power and prestige.
What will be the third feature, then.’? That’s written rules and regulations. Rules and regulations, as we all know, are an important characteristic of bureaucracies. Ideally, through such procedures, a bureaucracy ensures uniform performance of every task. This prohibits us from receiving an extra $ 20 at the bank, but aim guarantees us that we will receive essentially the same treatment as other customers. If the bank provides them with special services, such as monthly statements or investment advice, it will also provide us with those services.
Through written rules and regulations, bureaucracies generally offer employees clear standards as to what is considered an adequate performance. In addition, procedures provide a valuable sense of continuity in a bureaucracy. Individual workers will come and go, but the structure and past records give the organization a life of its own that outlives the services of any one bureaucrat.
Of course, rules and regulations can over-shadow the larger goals of an organization and become disfunctional. If blindly applied, they will no longer serve as a means to achieving an objective but instead will become important in their own right. This would certainly be the case if a hospital emergency room physician failed to treat a seriously injured person because he or she had no valid proof of United States citizenship. Robert Merton has used the term goal displacement to refer to overzealous conformity to official regulations.
The fourth characteristic on Weber’s list is impersonality. He wrote that in a bureaucracy, work is carried out without hatred or passion. Bureaucratic norms dictate that officials perform their duties without the person- al consideration of people as individuals. This is intended to guarantee equal treatment for each person; however, it also contributes to the often cold and uncaring feeling associated with modem organizations.
We typically think of big government and big business when we think of impersonal bureaucracies. Interestingly, during the most turbulent years of the 1960s, student activists bitterly protested the bureaucratic nature of the American university.
Employment based on technical qualifications is regarded as the last feature of bureaucracy. Within a bureaucracy, hiring is based on technical qualifications rather than on favoritism, and performance is measured against specific standards. This is designed to protect bureaucrats against arbitrary dismissal and to provide a measure of security. Promotions are dictated by written personnel policies, and people often have a right to appeal if they believe that particular roles have been violated. Such procedures encourage loyalty to the organization.
Unfortunately, personnel decisions within a bureaucracy do not always follow this ideal pattern. According to the Peter principle, talented persons receive promotion after promotion until, sadly, they finally achieve positions that they cannot handle.
Well, with that we’ll end today’s lecture. Today we talked about the five features of bureaucracy, namely division of labor, hierarchy of authority, written rules and regulations, impersonality, and qualification-based employment. Hope this discussion can trigger your exploration of the intricacy of bureaucracy. Thank you, and see you next time.
选项
答案
maximum efficiency/highest efficiency
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/ut4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
TheearliestcolonialsettlementinAustraliais______,whichwasformerlyknownasPortJackson.
______isthefounderofthedomesticnovelsinEnglishliterature.
AllstatesofAmericaaregovernedbythecommonlawexcept______.
ThewarinwhichAmericalostmoresoldiersthananyotherwarinAmericanhistoryis______.
"Manyoftheworld’slesser-knownlanguagesarebeinglostasfewerandfewerpeoplespeakthem.Thegovernmentsofcountriesin
Thesmallestlinguisticunitthatcanbeusedindependentlyis______.
Manisoneofanumberofanimalsthatmakethings,butmanistheonlyonethatdependsforitsverysurvivalonthethingshe
TheLandofDisneyPredictingthefutureisalwaysrisky.Butit’sprobablysafetosaythatatleastafewhistorianswill
Certainlyfewpeopletodayendorsetheblankslateinsomanywords,andIsuspectthatevenfewerbelieveitintheirheartof
NoEnglishmanbelievesinworkingfrombooklearning.Hesuspectseverythingnew,anddislikesit,unlesshecanbecompelle
随机试题
A.花椒B.藏红花C.细辛D.泽泻E.牡丹皮可与蕲蛇同贮的是()。
呼吸机辅助呼吸的目的不包括
刘某将自己的电脑交赵某保管,后赵某将该电脑非法占为已有,拒不退还刘某,刘某多次索要无果后因病去世。刘某之女以侵占罪向人民法院提交了刑事自诉状。代其父亲控告赵某。对于刘女这种代其父亲告诉的情况,人民法院不正确的做法是?
水利工程建设项目的质量监督期为()。
组合管理者在强式有效市场中选择消极保守型投资。()
在处理游客死亡事故时,必须有死者的亲属、领队、使馆人员及旅行社有关领导在场。()
价值规律的作用是()。
2010年,全国国有建没用地土地供应总量42.8万公顷,比上年增长18.4%。其中,工矿仓储用地15.3万公顷,增长7.9%;商服用地3.9万公顷,增长40.4%;住宅用地11.4万公顷,增长40.3%;基础设施等其他用地12.2万公顷,增长10.2%。全
某公司董事长孙某当选为区人大代表。下列关于孙某履行义务的说法,正确的是()。
患者,男性,76岁,无牙颌,要求全口义齿修复。既往曾多次要求全口义齿修复,均不适。检查发现:下颌牙槽嵴极度低平,上颌牙弓窄于下颌牙弓,舌体增大,黏膜薄,下颌呈习惯性前伸,张口不受限,旧义齿固位差,关系不稳定。为了减轻34所受的扭力,可以采取以下措施,除了(
最新回复
(
0
)