He disliked that many European organizations were managed on a “personal” familylike
basis and that employees were loyal to individual supervisors
rather than to the organization. He believed that organizations should
be managed impersonally and that a formal organizational structure,
where specific rules were followed, was important. In other words, he
didn’t think that authority should be based on a person’s personality.
He thought authority should be something that was part of a person’s job and passed
from individual to individual as one person left and another took over. This no
personal, objective form of organization was called a bureaucracy.
Weber believed that all bureaucracies have the following characteristics:
A well-defined hierarchy. All positions within a bureaucracy are structured in a
way that permits the higher positions to supervise and control the lower positions.
This clear chain of command facilitates control and order throughout the
organization.
Division of labor and specialization. All responsibilities in an organization are
specialized so that each employee has the necessary expertise to do a particular
task.
Rules and regulations. Standard operating procedures govern all organizational
activities to provide certainty and facilitate coordination.
Impersonal relationships between managers and employees. Managers should
maintain an impersonal relationship with employees so that favoritism and
personal prejudice do not influence decisions.
Competence. Competence, not “who you know,” should be the basis for all
decisions made in hiring, job assignments, and promotions in order to foster
ability and merit as the primary characteristics of a bureaucratic organization.
Records. A bureaucracy needs to maintain complete files regarding all its
activities.
4. System Approach:
The systems approach to management indicates the fourth major theory of
management thought called modern theory. Modern theory considers an organization
as an adaptive system which has to adjust to changes in its environment. An
organization is now defined as a structured process in which individuals interact for
attaining objectives.
Meaning of "System": The word system is derived from the Greek word meaning to
bring together or to combine. A system is a set of interconnected and inter-related
elements or component parts to achieve certain goals. A system has three significant
parts:
1. Every system is goal-oriented and it must have a purpose or objective to be
attained.
2. In designing the system we must establish the necessary arrangement of
components.
3. Inputs of information, material and energy are allocated for processing as per plan
so that the outputs can achieve the objective of the system.
Fig. The Design of a basic system
