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Definition: bureaucracy from QFinance: The Ultimate Resource

rigid organizational structure an organizational structure with a rigid hierarchy of personnel, regulated by set rules and procedures. The term bureaucracy has gradually become a pejorative synonym for excessive and time-consuming paperwork and administration. Bureaucracies fell subject to delayering and downsizing from the 1980s onward, as the flatter organization became the target structure to ensure swifter market response and organizational flexibility

Bureaucracy

From Encyclopedia of Political Theory
A bureaucracy is an organization characterized by hierarchy, fixed rules, impersonal relationships, strict adherence to impartial procedures, and specialization based on function. Bureaucratic organizations can be found in the private sector as well as the public sector. This definition of bureaucracy as a type of organization overlaps with other ways in which the word is used. Bureaucracy can be used as a synonym for a hierarchic mode of coordination—a usage based on the hierarchical nature of such coordination. It can be used as a synonym for the public administration—a usage that suggests the public sector is the archetype of a hierarchic organization. It can refer to the bureaucrats who work in the public sector or other large, hierarchic organizations. And it can describe bureaucratic conduct that rigidly applies general rules to particular cases—a type of conduct associated with officials in hierarchic organizations. Etymologically bureaucracy combines bureau , which referred to…
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Full text Article bureaucracy

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
A particular system of administration. Historically it was associated with the rule of government and governmental officials, but sociologists regard it as a form of administration that is found in organizations pursuing a wide variety of goals. As a technical term in sociology, bureaucracy is…
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Full text Article Bureaucracy

From World of Sociology, Gale
The term bureaucracy refers to the administrative structure of an organization—usually a large one. French in origin and dating from the 1700s, bureaucracy initially implied efficiency and suggested a fixed hierarchical organization , within which people were promoted according to merit and salaries…
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Full text Article bureaucracy

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
While bureaucracy as a practice stretches back into antiquity (especially the Confucian bureaucracy of the Han dynasty), and while Max Weber in Economy and Society (1922 [trans. 1978]) explored its traditional origins (see tradition ), the modern rational-legal conception of bureaucracy emerged in…
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Full text Article bureaucracy

From Collins Dictionary of Business
a structured ORGANIZATION formed to achieve specified goals. The term is commonly used in a pejorative sense to refer to those organizations which appear to have an excessive number of levels in the HIERARCHY , where job roles are narrow and sharply defined and where rules are rigidly adhered to, …
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Full text Article Bureaucracy

From Key Concepts in Work
Bureaucracy refers to ‘the control and co-ordination of work tasks through a hierarchy of appropriately qualified office holders, whose authority derives from their expertise and who rationally devise a system of rules and procedures that are calculated to provide the most appropriate means of…
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Full text Article Bureaucracy

From Key Concepts in Governance
DEFINITION A bureaucracy is an organization characterized by hierarchy, fixed rules, impersonal relationships, strict adherence to impartial procedures, and specialization based on function. Bureaucratic organizations can be found in the private sector as well as the public sector. This definition…
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Full text Article bureaucracy

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(byʊrŏk'rӘsē), the administrative structure of any large organization, public or private. Ideally bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical authority relations, defined spheres of competence subject to impersonal rules, recruitment by competence, and fixed salaries. Its goal is to be rational, …
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Full text Article bureaucracy

From Encyclopedia of American Government and Civics
The word bureaucracy comes from the word bureau , or the covering on a desk used by French government employees. Later, the word was used to signify the desk itself and, later, to the person working at the desk—a bureaucrat who worked in a bureaucracy at a desk. The bureaucracy has become a…
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Full text Article Bureaucracy

From American Governance
© HULTON ARCHIVE/STAFF/GETTY IMAGES Max Weber...
Bureaucracy is a modern term used to describe the structure and administration of large organizations. Specifically applied to government, bureaucracy has an ancient lineage. The empires of Rome and the dynasties of China could not have functioned without elaborate bureaucracies. Although…
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Full text Article BUREAUCRACY

From The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism
The increasing scale of industry and commercialisation in the nineteenth century required the rapid expansion of government administration. In US and British usage, the terms ‘public service’ or ‘civil service’ are used in order to imply impartiality and professionalism, whereas the foreign term…
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