Bureaucracy and Society: An Institutionalist Perspective

Thompson, Randal Joy

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-1396-0_10

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The strategy to implement change first in these easier groups can hopefully generate positive demonstration effects and successful stories for the other groups in the government. The building up of a critical mass and cultivating peer pressure is indeed very useful to act as horizontal peer pressure to produce greater momentum of change than relying solely on top‐down decisions alone (see Thompson, 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a way to tackle reluctance and to survive the change brought about by technology, Thompson (1993) proposes that the power of teams and peers should be employed. He reveals that “horizontal pressure of colleagues is being employed to reinforce performance instead of vertical authority by position” (Thompson, 1993, p. 197). This suggests the importance of pilot testing and building up of critical mass.…”

Section: Resistance To Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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HKSAR government civil servants: a non‐Drucker organisation?

Leung

Adams

2010

Management Decision

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PurposePeter F. Drucker (1909‐2005) was an influential modern management theorist. This paper, however, aims to challenge his diagnosis and prescriptions on the public sector for over‐simplifying several complex issues and not being sufficiently comprehensive. With the support of the empirical findings of a survey in the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG), the authors seek to supplement Drucker's discussion on government and to propose managerial actions for implementing change.Design/methodology/approachAn e‐mail questionnaire survey of 700 randomly selected government employees in Hong Kong was conducted. Additional information was gathered from senior management to validate the survey results.FindingsIn line with Drucker, HKSARG employees, as a whole, are reluctant to change. But statistical tests show that there are heterogeneous behavioural groups. Specifically, younger and more educated staff are more willing to change. The existence of these groups has both practical and managerial implications for implementing change.Research limitations/implicationsThe usable sample is relatively small (n=66).Practical implicationsThe government should not be viewed and understood unidirectionally. Management should target the younger and more educated users first to build up sufficient user mass and adopt peer pressure for a more successful level of implementation of IT usage across all staff. Job rotation and flexible entry and exit options are worth considering, too.Originality/valueThis research validates empirically the nature of HKSARG. It demonstrates that researchers' challenges to Drucker's views on government are well founded. More research on the characteristics of the public sector is required for better understanding of the real nature of these large, bureaucratic organisations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resistance To Changementioning

confidence: 99%

HKSAR government civil servants: a non‐Drucker organisation?

Leung

Adams

2010

Management Decision

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“…Its dominance as the rational way of efficiently organising resources as well as its many perceived contributions to our societies is keenly debated in many circles. Arguments range along the continuum of those in praise of its many abilities, especially its administrative capacities (Hunter, 1994;du Gay, 2000;Thompson and Alvesson, 2005;Reed, 2005) to those who claim it is undemocratic, unresponsive to people and normalises corruption and amorality in our economic life (Hummell, 2007, Jackall, 1983, Drucker, 1988, to the extent that its demise is often predicted in favour of newer organisation forms able to meet the needs of our changing world (Dopson and Stewart, 1990). But, bureaucracy has long been seen as a cornerstone of advanced industrial society that typifies the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Clegg, Harris, Hopfl, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Bureaucracy Stifle Moral Agency?

Adewale

2017

International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age

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Bureaucracy has been around us since the earliest human societies and has been the cornerstone of ancient and modern civilisations. Literature documents its several merits and demerits but little attention has been given to its moral ramifications. This is essential in these critical times that have recorded increasing numbers of corporate scandals globally. If bureaucracy is at the foundations of our modern societies, its role in this trend cannot be ignored hence the purpose of this paper. First, a historical review of bureaucracies from the industrial revolution era through the first and second world wars to our modern capitalist society is presented. Second, bureaucracy is conceptualised with a clear focus on Weber's ideal type. Arguments surrounding its rationality and efficiency were critically looked into as a basis for discussing emerging moral issues. It concludes by submitting that indeed bureaucracy can stifle moral agency.

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The Presence of Bureaucracy in the Balanced Scorecard

Oliveira¹,

Rodrigues²,

Craig

2019

RC-SAR

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Despite being widely pilloried, bureaucratic processes are present in many organizations as a form of neo-bureaucracy. In this paper, we analyse whether a technique used in Management Accounting Systems (MAS), known as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), represents a bureaucratic order. We propose the following set of concepts to identify a bureaucratic order: authority, jurisdiction, professional qualiﬁcations, knowledge, rationality, discipline, accountability, systematization and transparency. We discuss the presence of such a set of concepts in the design and implementation of the BSC and conclude that the BSC is an example of a neo-bureaucratic order. This paper also underlines another important finding, the value of bureaucracy in attaining good MAS. The theme we explore is overlooked in the accounting literature. This paper can be a starting point for further research. A pesar de haber sido ampliamente criticado, los procesos burocráticos están presente en muchos modelos organizacionales como una forma de neo-burocracia. En este artículo analizamos si una técnica utilizada en los Sistemas de contabilidad de gestión (MAS), conocida como Balanced Scorecard (BSC), representa una orden burocrática. Proponemos el siguiente conjunto de conceptos para identificar una orden burocrática: autoridad, jurisdicción, calificaciones profesionales, conocimiento, racionalidad, disciplina, responsabilidad, sistematización y transparencia. Discutimos la presencia de dicho conjunto de conceptos en la concepción e implementación del BSC y concluimos que el BSC es un ejemplo de un orden neo-burocrático. Este trabajo también subraya otro hallazgo importante, el valor de la burocracia para lograr un buen MAS. El tema que exploramos se pasa por alto en la literatura contable. Este artículo puede ser un punto de partida para futuras investigaciones.

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Bureaucracy and Society: An Institutionalist Perspective

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

HKSAR government civil servants: a non‐Drucker organisation?

HKSAR government civil servants: a non‐Drucker organisation?

Does Bureaucracy Stifle Moral Agency?

The Presence of Bureaucracy in the Balanced Scorecard

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