Mouzelis N. Organisation and bureaucracy: An Analysis of Modern Theories

Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1967. — 230 p.It has become a commonplace to emphasise the proliferation of large-scale organisations in modern society. This emphasis is not unjustified. As Etzioni puts it, 'we are born in organisations, educated by organisations, and most of us spend much of our lives working for organisations'. 1 Our society has been called 'bureaucratic' or 'organisational' as, in fact, there are very few crucial problems today which do not pertain more
or less directly to its organisational features. The volume of the literature on this subject and its rate of increase is as impressive as the magnitude of the phenomena which it tries to analyze and explain. 3 Moreover it is not only the sheer volume of studies which is enormous and bewildering
but also the multiplicity of points of view from which organisational phenomena have been examined. Contributions to the theory of organisations have come from many sides : psychology, social psychology, sociology, political science, economics, business administration, and so on. Indeed a major characteristic of the literature is the variety of theoretical angles from which organisations are studied. This being the case, the
novice in this field has great difficulty to make sense of, or to see some order and connection between studies ranging from the analysis of the bureaucratisation process in western societies to the examination of individual motivation or decisionmaking in industrial contexts. The present study tries to provide some guidance which may help students to orient themselves with greater ease in the labyrinth of organisational writings. More specifically, it tries to identify and examine critically some of the major approaches to the study of organisations, and the ways in which such approaches are linked with each other.The study of bureaucracyThe classical approach to the study of bureaucracyThe Marxist position
Weber's political sociology
Bureaucracy and oligarchy
Some critical remarksThe ideal type of bureaucracySome comments on the characteristics of bureaucracy
The mode of construction of the ideal type
The modern uses of the term 'bureaucracy'
Final considerationsThe post-weberian theories of bureaucracyThe conceptual framework
The 'dialectics' of bureaucracy
The empirical re-examination of the 'classical' problems
Critical remarksThe managerial traditionTaylorism and formal theories of administrationThe main features of Taylorism
Criticism
Formal theories of administration
The general framework of the 'universalist' theories
Some critical remarksThe 'human relations' approach to the organisationHawthorne and the evolution of empirical research in industry
The various subschools
The evolution of the human relations school as a whole
CriticismOrganisation theory: decision-making in organisational contextsDecision-making and the rational aspects of behaviour
The social psychology of organisational decision-making
Decision-making and organisational structure
Empirical 'content' and methodology
CriticismConverging trendsTowards a broadening of scopeTheoretical convergence
The organisation as a social system
The organisation in terms of power and conflict
Concluding remarksTheory of organisations : an overall view
Theory of organisations and the problem of values
Theory of organisations and levels of analysis
Theory of organisations and the comparative approach
Theory of organisations and history
The relevance of theory