Bureaucratic Structure

By: Brittany Ziegelbaur

If you’re anything like me, you have no idea what “Bureaucratic Structure” refers to in terms of Organizational Structure.  To clear things up, I did a little bit of research to find out what it is and how it works!

To start things off, bureaucratic structures in the business world “are designed for efficiency and rely on high levels of work specialization, formalization, centralization of authority, rigid and well-defined chains of command, and relatively narrow spans of control” (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2011).  To create an effective bureaucratic structure, there are several different aspects that have to go into implementing the “plan” to make it work.  One of the main components of the “plan” is work division.  By using work divisions, the company is able create differentiation between different jobs to get more accomplished.  Work division allows jobs to get done at different times, which in return allows tasks to be accomplished in a logical sequence (Graham Astley, 1985).  Being able to complete the tasks one at a time makes the work get done more effectively.  Employee’s can concentrate on getting the job done correctly rather than rushing to have the job done immediately, like in the past (Graham Astley, 1985). 

To help fill the gaps of work divisions, businesses implement Hierarchical Shape into the structural plan.  A hierarchy in a business is basically what determines how authoritative an employee is over other employees in the business.  Large scale administrators in the business are to coordinate the work and tasks for the other personnel in the business (Marriner, 1997).  By using this technique, the business is able to split the company up into work groups that are ranked on a hierarchical scale.  The employees are grouped together based on the tasks they are working on with the use of job division (Graham Astley, 1985).  This can help to ensure that all employees are staying on schedule and in a logical sequence for completing all of the necessary tasks.  Research has shown that a typical business or company has about seven to eight levels of hierarchy that they split their employees into (Graham Astley, 1985).  Blow is an example of implementing a Hierarchical Shape into a hospital (Marriner, 1997).

Another important element of a Bureaucratic Structure is Administrative Intensity.  For this type of business structure, it is particularly important that there is a supervisor to administer all of the different levels of the hierarchy within the business.  In smaller businesses, the supervisor will do more than just administer the company; they will also help to accomplish tasks within the different departments or divisions of the company (Graham Astley, 1985).  Supervisors of a company typically take on the role of “defining, guiding, and executing tasks” (Graham Astley, 1985).   As I mentioned before, the supervisor will also take on the roles of helping to execute specific tasks.  These tasks are typically extremely important jobs that the company needs to complete.  While working on these tasks, the supervisor will usually be the “expert” that helps other employees learn the proper techniques for completion (Graham Astley, 1985).  It is also important for a supervisor or administrator of the company to be available to all of the employees as much as possible; to assist on whatever is needed.  This is why there are typically a lot of administrators and supervisors within a company, which ensures that the task are being completed effectively. 

To help maintain the Administrative Intensity, businesses with Bureaucratic Structures use Mechanisms of Control.  There are two main focuses for administrators under these Mechanisms of Control.  These include surveillance and direction, and appraisal and discipline (Graham Astley, 1985).  We will first start out by discussing surveillance and direction.  This means that the administrators are to watch over the employees, or specific group of employees, to ensure that their work is being accomplished.  The direction part refers to teaching and administering the employees with the proper techniques to accomplish the job correctly (Graham Astley, 1985).  The appraisal and discipline components of control deal with actually observing the employees.  While administering the employees, the supervisors evaluate them on their performance as a whole (Graham Astley, 1985).  This means efficiency, effectiveness, and how they perform overall as an employee of the business.  The discipline aspect refers to both punishments and rewards (Graham Astley, 1985).  The administrators and supervisors can reward their employees for performing at exceptionally high levels, or even discipline them for not properly completing a task. 

Although bureaucratic structures do seem to be heavily controlled by upper administration, it has actually been found in a study that a structured organization positively correlates with the job satisfaction of the individual employees.  This particular study found that higher levels of job autonomy and lower levels of job ambiguity result in high levels of satisfaction at the work place (Finlay, Martin, Roman, & Blum, 1995).  The three characteristics that were looked at were job variety, job ambiguity, and job autonomy (Finlay et al., 1995).  Even though they are under great control in a bureaucratic structure, individual employees have felt high job satisfaction while working for these companies. 

So, bureaucratic structures are actually not that much different than what you think of for a typical business.  They first start out with creating divisions of work within their company, to effectively split up the tasks into a logical sequence for the jobs to be completed.  To keep closely related tasks on a level playing field, the businesses create a hierarchical shape for the company so that employees working on similar tasks are working close together.  To keep control and over look all aspects of the company, there are defined administrators and supervisors that are in charge of all the different divisions of the business.  The administrators have mechanisms of control that they typically follow to keep good surveillance and control of the company as a whole.  So, now that you have an overview of bureaucratic structures, you will know what to potentially expect when entering into the business world. 

References

Colquitt, J., Lepine, J., Wesson, M.  (2011).  Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace.  New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Finlay, W., Martin, J., Roman, P., and Blum, T.  (1995).  Organizational Structure and Job Satisfaction: Do Bureaucratic Organizations Produce more Satisfied Employees?.  Administration and Society, 27(3).  (427-450).  http://aas.sagepub.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/content/27/3/427.full.pdf+html

Graham Astley, W.  (1985).  Organizational Size and Bureaucratic Structure.  Organization Studies, 6(3).  (201-228).  http://oss.sagepub.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/content/6/3/201.full.pdf+html

Marriner, A.  (1997).  Organization Process and Bureaucratic Structure.  Supervisor Nurse, 8(7).  (54-59).  http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/sp-3.8.1a/ovidweb.cgi?WebLinkFrameset=1&S=PDFKFPCPINDDDJHNNCOKPDFBDMCIAA00&returnUrl=ovidweb.cgi%3fMain%2bSearch%2bPage%3d1%26S%3dPDFKFPCPINDDDJHNNCOKPDFBDMCIAA00&directlink=http%3a%2f%2fgraphics.tx.ovid.com%2fovftpdfs%2fFPDDNCFBPDHNIN00%2ffs046%2fovft%2flive%2fgv025%2f00007699%2f00007699-197707000-00009.pdf&filename=Organizational+Process+and+Bureaucratic+Structure.&navigation_links=NavLinks.S.sh.18.1&link_from=S.sh.18%7c1&pdf_key=FPDDNCFBPDHNIN00&pdf_index=/fs046/ovft/live/gv025/00007699/00007699-197707000-00009&link_set=S.sh.18%7C1%7Csl_10%7CresultSet%7CS.sh.18.19%7C0