Bureaucratic Features Research Articles

UMA ANÁLISE MULTINÍVEL SOBRE O IMPACTO DAS NORMAS E PRESSÕES INTERNACIONAIS DE DIREITOS HUMANOS: EXPLORANDO EFEITOS INTERATIVOS PARA ALÉM DO MODELO ESPIRAL

Abstract: This study conducts a multi-level analysis on the impact of international human rights norms and pressures, criticizing the spiral model from the field of International Relations. Using an analytical framework beyond state-centric perspectives, we explored three critical dimensions: the social origins of human rights violations, the political-legal intermediation within civil society, and the internal bureaucratic features of international human rights organizations. While influential, the spiral model falls short in comprehensively addressing these dimensions. Thus, in this article, we introduced theoretical and analytical reflections partly drawn from Global South studies to address these limitations.

Bureaucratic Features and Job Performance in Nigeria: A Study of Delta State Civil Service

The study was premised on Bureaucratic Features and Job Performance in the Civil Service of Delta State. Bureaucracy as a concept was popularized by the German Sociopolitical Philosopher, Max Weber. Ideally speaking, the principles of bureaucracy, fit a very large organization, like the civil service. However, the practice of it in Nigeria is somewhat of a challenge, due to certain unnecessary delays and strict adherence to protocols. Bureaucratic bottlenecks cum red tape, has been a hydra problem in most large organization (the civil service, in particular), touching all aspects of its activities. Bureaucratic bottleneck, refers to the unwarranted stampede in getting things done, in the civil service. It has affected the level of productivity in no small ways. It ranges from, stunting productivity level and/or job performance in various organizations (the Civil service mostly affected). One of the myriad of factors responsible for job performance, is motivation. Motivation, is a major determinant in productivity. If people are happy, fairly treated or so, it goes onto influencing their working attitude. Aside the problem of bottlenecks in the civil service, other factors affect job performance. As earlier established, lack of motivation in the civil service, is a major cause for the epileptic nature of job performance. The structure of the civil service, does not give much room for the welfare (psychological, mental, emotional, etc) of the servants. Another major determinant on job performance in the civil service, is managerial style. Managers are leaders, in an organization. There is a high level of recklessness on the top echelon of the civil service. Rather than, for managers to be up and doing, they end up mismanaging, embezzling, squandering, and looting public funds. There is a very high level of corruption, nepotism, what have you. There is also, the problem of age falsification. Age falsification, which is the deliberate misrepresentation

Israeli Policy on Immigrants' Housing in the 1950s: Problems and Contradictions

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, in accordance with UN Resolution №181, announced the establishment of the State of Israel on the territory of Palestine, which caused an armed conflict known as the "War of Independence" in Israel and as the "Nakba" in Arab historiography. At the same time, in parallel with the creation of the state and the outbreak of war, the mass immigration began that increased Israeli population from 600 thousand to 1.4 million people by 1951. The acceptance of such a large number of repatriates was a unique historical event, and naturally presented a serious challenge to the economy, culture and security of the Jewish state. This article attempts to analyze the mass immigration with an emphasis on the measures taken by Israel to house such a large number of immigrants. The first part of the article examines the original housing plan, taken in 1948, especially its settlement policy, and the reasons of its failure, covering the housing crisis, and the formation of a new plan in 1950, which implied the transition to a new policy of settlement building – maabarot and development towns. In the second and the third parts of the article, the author gives a detailed description of new settlements as well as the bureaucratic features of their planning and implementation. Although the process of housing mass immigration was formally completed by the 1960s, de-facto some of the problems were not overcome, becoming prerequisites for a number of domestic political tensions in the 1970s.

The Forms of Organizational Structures in Pupblic and Private Universiteis in Kenya

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of managers on the forms of organizational structures that existed in public and private universities in Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey research design with a target population of 705 senior managers which included the Deputy Vice-Chancellors (DVC’s), Deans and Directors, Heads of teaching and non-teaching departments (HOD’s). Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting six universities out of seventeen which were fully fledged universities, on the basis of size and location. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to obtain a total of 248 representative sample from each category of managers. One questionnaire document was used to collect data from the respondents. The instrument was pilot tested and reliability coefficient was calculated from collected data and found to be 0.90 qualifying the research instrument as reliable and acceptable. Data from the research was analyzed using descriptive (percentages and means). Overall index score of six organizational structure dimensions was done and the findings was that bureaucratic features in public universities was manifested at 61.2% and 67.8% in private universities. This was not a very high degree of bureaucracy and therefore it was concluded that there was a mixture of both the mechanistic and organic organizational structures in the universities in Kenya. The study recommended that structural flexibility in the universities was achievable and management could strategize on the initiative. Universities could equip managerial staff with managerial competencies to endow them with skills to implement structural change in response to uncertainties in the environmental situations and conditions. Keywords: Organizational Structures, organic organizational structure, Bureaucratic organizational structure, structural flexibility. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-32-02 Publication date: November 30 th 2021

Designing E-Government Legal Institutions

The aim of this article is to understand the way digital government laws are designed through the analysis and comparison of general objectives, governance mechanisms and roles assigned to stakeholders of six local state digital government laws in Mexico. Our findings reveal a strong degree of similarity between general objectives and implementation mechanisms in those six laws, showing a mix of traditional bureaucratic features and new public management features. We also find significant differences between those laws in the mobilization of behavior-constraining rules to fulfill e-government processes and solution-guiding mechanisms to foster innovation.

Bureaucracy and the balanced scorecard in health care settings

PurposeWe explore the relationship between the balanced scorecard (BSC) and neo-bureaucracy by investigating whether the operationalization of the BSC incorporates “neo-bureaucratic” ideas and whether the BSC implemented in a Portuguese Local Health Unit (LHU) demonstrates a neo-bureaucratic approach.Design/methodology/approachWe conduct semi-structured interviews with LHU staff and analyse documents to assess whether features of bureaucratic organization were evident in the use of a BSC by the LHU.FindingsWe found nine bureaucratic features evident in the LHU's BSC. These were systematization, rationality, authority, jurisdiction, professional qualification, knowledge, discipline, transparency and accountability. The BSC used at the LHU demonstrated a neo-bureaucratic approach.Originality/valueOur study helps to demystify bureaucracy and overcome prevailing prejudices regarding some of its principles. Health care managers should recognize and endorse neo-bureaucratic principles in developing a BSC. They should recognize the BSC as involving a neo-bureaucratic approach. The BSC is a valuable management tool that hospital managers should find useful in fostering flexibility, collaboration, innovation and adaptation – all of which should help lead to improved healthcare outcomes.

Lessons Learned from Cultural Features in Kibbutz Industries

Abstract Research was conducted in a non-privatized community at T Kibbutz Industries. Its aim was to analyze the unique T factory culture and to understand its covert source. The study develops a typology of cultural features observed at kibbutz industries (based on four previous case studies, with focus on T Industries) that can also be applied to other businesses. Research was conducted using qualitative methods, namely a case study including ethnographic interviews and document analysis. The findings identified an organizational culture embodying two contradicting traditions: socialistic and capitalistic values and norms. The former comprised collective principles, transparent information, teamwork, egalitarian and amicable human relationships and future management orientation, while the latter upheld professionalism, innovation, creativity and global aspirations. The managers’ ability to overcome the conflictual culture yielded an open and innovative organization that responded well to competitive environmental markets. The case study was analyzed through development of the typology first devised by Cameron and Quinn (1999, reprinted 2010), perceiving T Industries according to its clanlike, bureaucratic and competitive market attributes, whereas other kibbutz industries studied are more compatible with the combination of bureaucratic and competitive market features.

Persistence of bureaucratic over-representativeness or under-representativeness: experience of the civil service in Malaysia

What contributes to the persistent nature of bureaucratic over-representativeness or under-representativeness? Answers to such a question are necessary because, while there have been many empirical studies of the relationship between different types of bureaucratic representation (gender, ethnic, class) and/or different features of bureaucracies (levels, types of agencies, unitary or federal) and possible policy outcomes, the studies have largely been silent when it comes to identifying antecedents to bureaucratic over-representativeness or under-representativeness. Accordingly, by studying Malaysian experience involving a largely mono-ethnic bureaucracy in a highly plural and fragmented society, this discussion identifies factors that have contributed to the persistent nature of an under-represented and over-represented bureaucracy. The underlying findings are that there is a need to move away from a monolithic argument that mono-ethnic representation of the bureaucracy is solely due to a state’s interventionist policy, and that the stickiness of administrative tradition, perception, socialisation and attractiveness of alternative sectors of employment can contribute to the persistent nature of bureaucratic representation.

Reconstructing the past in a state-mandated historical memory institute: the case of Albania

ABSTRACTLegitimisation strategies of post-Communist regimes are interlinked with practices of addressing their non-democratic past. Specific state-mandated institutes emerged in post-Communist countries to create an institutionalised historical memory of the Communist dictatorship. The institutional model of a historical memory institute is characterised by organisational hierarchies, layered institutional practices, and bureaucratic features. This model was implemented in most countries, including Albania. However, the Institute for the Study of the Crimes and Consequences of Communism (‘The Institute’) in Albania exhibits a different practice of historical reconstruction. The main questions asked by this article are: What has conditioned the distinct approach the Albanian Institute had adopted in its reconstruction of the past? And how can the institutionalisation of a particular social memory in a state-mandated institution be explained? The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork at the Institute. To understand the specific practice of historical reconstruction, the data collected includes semi-structured interviews with leading heads of the Institute, and collected testimonies. Discourse analysis is used to interpret the data.

Interdisciplinary Promises and Hierarchical Ambiguities in a Danish Hospital Context

The public health sector in welfare states is increasingly subject to organisational changes, particularly in hospitals, as organisations comprise coali-tions of various (healthcare) professionals. In this context, due to interprofessional competition, knowledge claims play an important role in achieving jurisdictional control. In this paper, we investigate the manifestations of and health professionals’ reactions to competing institutional discourses. Through qualitative interviews with hospital management, middle managers, and staff employees at three hospitals in Denmark, we demonstrate how managerial attempts to control tenacious profes-sional bureaucracies are exercised through both bureaucratic forms of control and cultural-ideological modes of control with an introduction of new discourses of in-terprofessional teamwork. The findings suggest that hospitals seek not only to con-tain ambiguity through bureaucratic features of control, but also to cultivate it when seeking to strengthen cooperation between professions. Thereby, ambiguity itself becomes a mechanism for management.

Analysing the Adjectival Museum: Exploring the bureaucratic nature of museums and the implications for researchers and the research process

The proliferation of titles for types of museum has resulted in an adjectival explosion in recent years (with museums being engaging, relevant, professional, adaptive, community, national, universal, local, independent, people’s, children’s, scientific, natural history, labour, virtual, symbolic, connected, trust and charitable, amongst many other labels). This paper argues that the adoption of an organizational focus on bureaucratic features such as hierarchical authority, centralisation of power, functional specialisation and research processes can show commonalities in the understandings and challenges linked to museum function. The emphasis on museums as a specific institutional and organizational form allows for the identification and explanation of similarities and differences in their operational existence that extends beyond their particular individual natures. This also implies that the bureaucratic nature of museums has implications for researchers as they are organizations that reflect gender and power dynamics on a micro-level within the research process.

The American School and Prospects for Critical Thought

The current "thinking skills" movement proceeds under the assumption that students do not emerge from schools as critical thinkers and offers increased instruction in thinking skills as the solution. While attention is needed on the pedagogical front, and current theorists have contributed to the awareness of the need for critical thought in the curriculum, the nature and context of the school encounter in relation to critical thinking have gone largely unexamined. The author argues that the authoritarian and bureaucratic features of the existing system have a significant influence on the thinking of the young. Not only do these controlling elements of the enterprise restrict the thinking that is possible under such conditions, they also affect the views of knowledge and roles of learners which can be accommodated by the existing structure.

Reinforcing Charisma in the Bureaucratisation of Indonesian Islamic Organisations

Many studies of Islam in Indonesia have focused on the mass Islamic organisations that form the backbone of civil society and Indonesian religious life. However, studies of these organisations have not appreciated the central place of charisma amid their bureaucratic features. This article looks at the case of Alkhairaat, a mass Islamic organisation headquartered in Central Sulawesi but spread throughout eastern Indonesia, as a bureaucracy built to reinforce and perpetuate the charisma of its founder, Sayyid Idrus bin Salim al-Jufri. The case of Alkhairaat demonstrates how mass Islamic organisations in Indonesia bureaucratise Islam but also, in doing this, defy the broader trend of legalisation. Instead, the on-going veneration of the founder's charisma helps to make sense of the continuing attention to supernatural occurrences among traditionalist Indonesian Muslims and the power of organisational leaders over their followers.

The Bureaucratic Harassment of U.S. Servicewomen

Focusing on the U.S. military as a gendered and raced institution and using 33 in-depth interviews with U.S. servicewomen, this study identifies tactics and consequences of workplace harassment that occur through administrative channels, a phenomenon I label bureaucratic harassment. I identify bureaucratic harassment as a force by which some servicemen harass, intimidate, and control individual, as well as groups of, servicewomen through bureaucratic channels. Examples include issuing minor infractions with the intention of delaying or stopping promotions, threatening to withhold military benefits for reporting sexual abuse/harassment, and revoking servicewomen’s qualifications in order to remove them from positions or units. The manipulation of administrative rules and regulations is made possible by the interplay between a gendered and raced organizational climate and bureaucratic features such as discretion, hierarchy, and the blending of work and personal life. I show that bureaucratic harassment has both raced and gendered implications. Ultimately, harassment that is enacted through bureaucratic means is often overlooked but carries distinct consequences for the professional careers and workplace experiences of the victims.

Improving school administration through information technology? How digitalisation changes the bureaucratic features of public school administration

Digital media and digital data processing have substantially influenced public institutions in recent years and changed their efficiency, effectiveness and organisational set-up (nature of organisations). Based on Fountain’s Technology Enactment Framework (TEF), this paper argues that, firstly, in a circular process, digital requirements transform the bureaucratic features of school organisation, and that the effects of digital technologies on the performance and efficiency of schools as bureaucratic organisations are ambivalent. We use interview data from a sample of 51% of the head teachers of vocational school centres in the jurisdiction of Bavaria in order to substantiate these assumptions by means of structured qualitative analysis. Email technology seems particularly significant from a quantitative perspective. Indications for the transformative nature of objective digital technologies with regard to the school bureaucracies can be found for all bureaucratic categories under consideration in this analysis, particularly for the feature ‘standardisation’. The examples presented here seem to highlight that gains in efficiency or reductions of losses in efficiency caused by digitalisation are mostly caused by the concrete use of digital technology within the respective school organisation.

The effects of hierarchy, centralization and formalization on municipal fiscal health: An empirical test of the bureaucratic ideal

This research examines the effects of three defining features of bureaucratic organizations – hierarchy, centralization of decision‐making, and the formalization of administrative procedures and rules – on the fiscal health of city governments in the US. It utilizes data from a national survey of top appointed city officials in the US to measure the bureaucratic features of city governments, and assesses budgetary solvency using actual financial data from audited financial reports. Using factor analysis to develop a composite bureaucracy index, and addressing unobserved heterogeneity and possible simultaneity bias through least squares dummy variable regression and instrumental variable regression, the empirical analysis shows that excessive bureaucracy leads to poorer fiscal health. Analysing the effects of the individual components of the index, the results indicate that centralization and formalization exert a statistically significant and negative effect on city budgetary solvency.

The Effects of Hierarchy, Centralization and Formalization on Municipal Fiscal Health: An Empirical Test of the Bureaucratic Ideal

This research examines the effects of three defining features of bureaucratic organizations—hierarchy, centralization of decision making, and the formalization of administrative procedures and rules—on the fiscal health of city governments in the U.S. It utilizes data from a national survey of top appointed city officials in the U.S. to measure the bureaucratic features of city governments, and assesses budgetary solvency using actual financial data from audited financial reports. Using factor analysis to develop a composite bureaucracy index, and addressing unobserved heterogeneity and possible simultaneity bias through least squares dummy variable regression and instrumental variable regression, the empirical analysis shows that excessive bureaucracy leads to poorer fiscal health. Analyzing the effects of the individual components of the index, the results indicate that centralization and formalization exert a statistically significant and negative effect on city budgetary solvency.

Change Leadership and Public Sector Organizational Change

The implementation of organizational change is a considerable challenge for public organizations. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of leadership in change processes in public organizations, but limited empirical evidence exists. Moreover, the contribution of change leadership in organizational change is likely to be dependent on the particular characteristics of public organizations. This study concerns the relationship between direct supervisors’ change leadership and the commitment to change of change recipients, and examines to what extent this relationship is related to the bureaucratic features that often characterize public organizations. The findings indicate that change leadership contributes to change recipients’ commitment to change by providing high-quality change communication and stimulating employee participation in the implementation of change. However, the findings also indicate that red tape perceptions of change recipients and a low reliance on a transformational leadership style impede the potential of change leadership to bring about employee participation in the implementation of change.

Introduction: understanding the consequences of the Arab uprisings – starting points and divergent trajectories

This introduction sets the context for the following articles by first conceptualizing the divergent post-uprising trajectories taken by varying states: these are distinguished first by whether state capacity collapses or persists, and if it persists, whether the outcome is a hybrid regime or polyarchy. It then assesses how far starting points – the features of the regime and of the uprising – explain these pathways. Specifically, the varying levels of anti-regime mobilization, explained by factors such as levels of grievances, patterns of cleavages, and opportunity structure, determine whether rulers are quickly removed or stalemate sets in. Additionally, the ability of regime and opposition softliners to reach a transition pact greatly shapes democratic prospects. But, also important is the capacity – coercive and co-optative – of the authoritarian rulers to resist, itself a function of factors such as the balance between the patrimonial and bureaucratic features of neo-patrimonial regimes.

Routines do matter: role of internal communication in firm-level entrepreneurship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between routine communication practices and corporate entrepreneurship (CE). Drawing upon CE theory and neo-bureaucratic theory, the paper provides insight into all the directions of routine corporate communication and their potential influence on CE. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews past and current literature from which hypothesis are developed. Applying the competing values framework and data from 64 Polish manufacturing firms, we used multiple power regression to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings – The study provides evidence for a positive relationship between routine communication practices and CE. The analysis reveals different levels of influence of various communication aspects on CE. Practical implications – Many organizations’ common objective of their redesign efforts is to get rid of the bureaucratic features of the organization. This study suggests that the challenge is to reconfigure certain routine processes and formal requirements within the organization to better suit CE purposes. The paper specifies which routine communication practices can significantly impact CE. Originality/value – Very few prior voices articulate the need of routine practices study in CE research. This paper extends CE theory by providing a new perspective on CE factors and opening new avenues for further research.