Large Bureaucratic Organizations Research Articles

The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century

In 1930 Business Week alerted its interested readers to a new professional service: management consulting. As the writers at Business Week explained, the existing system of business professionals had become so complicated that, according to James McKinsey at the University of Chicago, a new type of professional was “increasing in numbers and influence . . . the adviser that tells business what other advisers to use and when.” Although Business Week would go on to chronicle the rise of management consulting over the next seventy years, consultants would continue to style themselves as an emerging profession through the end of the twentieth century.My dissertation title, “The World's Newest Profession,” plays off both the longstanding perception that consulting is an emerging profession and the widespread apprehension that consultants' advice is little more than corporate pandering. In response to these concerns, I address both the origins of management consultants and their influence on the strategies, structures, and operations of large bureaucratic organizations. Because the institutionalization and professionalization of management consulting occurred within firms, not among solo practitioners, I focus on management consulting firms like McKinsey & Company; Booz, Allen & Hamilton; and Arthur D. Little, Inc., which have advised large corporations since the 1920s. During the 1920s and 1930s these consulting firms were integral in reorganizing many of the largest companies in the United States, including General Motors, Swift, U.S. Steel, and Sears. By the 1960s the use of American management consultants had expanded beyond their initial domestic corporate clients to include international nonprofit organizations, businesses, and governments as diverse and influential as Air France, the Bank of England, Volkswagen, the University of Liberia, and the Government of Tanzania.

Behavioral influences of bureaucratic organizations and the Schumpeterian controversy

The behavioral influences of large bureaucratic organizations that were noted by Schumpeter would seem to weigh heavily against the plausibility of the Schumpeterian hypothesis that large corporations are more powerful engines of technological innovations than small competitive firms. But those influences also offer clues about how cultural differences between the United States and Japan resulted in large Japanese corporations in the later post-WWII era conforming closely to the Schumpeterian hypothesis.

When the “Haves” Hold Court: Speculations on the Organizational Internalization of Law

Marc Galanter's 1974 essay, “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead,” portrayed large bureaucratic organizations as the archetypal repeat players in the legal system; Galanter's account, however, devoted relatively little attention to the distinctive legal capacities of organizations as organizations. This article extends Galanter's analysis by considering the ability of large bureaucratic organizations to “internalize” legal rules, structures, personnel, and activities. Specifically, we posit that the relationship between law and organizations has undergone four interrelated shifts in recent years: (1) the legalization of organizational governance, (2) the expansion of private dispute resolution, (3) the rise of in-house counsel, and (4) the reemergence of private policing. These processes interact with one another to transform the large bureaucratic organization from being merely a repeat player in the public legal system to being a full-fledged private legal system in its own right. Although “have not” groups may gain some short-run advantages from the introduction of citizenship norms into the workplace, the organizational annexation of law subtly skews the balance between democratic and bureaucratic tendencies in society as a whole, potentially adding to the power and control of dominant elites.

Marshall Dimock’s deflective organizational theory

Marshall Dimock offers students of organizational theory a potpourri of concepts, approaches and arguments. His career began in the founding era of American public administration during President Roosevelt’s new deal administration. He initially supported the administrative state, but became disillusioned with problems inherent in large bureaucratic organizations. Dimock eventually embraced pre‐modern approaches to organization that relied upon strong leadership and personal ethics. He was particularly opposed to behavioural approaches to organization because they relied on management techniques rather than individual integrity. With the pre‐modern approach, Dimock swam against the current of modern organizational theory which depicted modern organization as an inherently powerful, superior institutional form. His latter works argued that organizations must conform to nature and that they wither if they do not take the natural qualities of people into account.

Historical and epistemological trends in public administration

Begins with a brief overview of how public administration emerged as the positivist theory and technocratic practice of the modern administrative state. The question then becomes: To what extent has public administration been affected by the societal shift toward postmodernism? The author argues that public administration has moved some distance away from its positivist origins; however, the transformation of public administration is still incomplete. The author concludes that public administration should pay more attention to the recent developments of post‐positivist methods of analysis rather than attempting to adopt all the tenets of postmodernism. Large bureaucratic organizations remain typically modern, but they should not be either conceptualized or managed as small machines.

Motivation to manage in Hong Kong: modification and test of Miner Sentence Completion Scale‐H

Examines the construct validity of the Miner Sentence Completion Scale form‐H (MSCS‐H for hierarchic) as a measure of managerial role motivation theory in Hong Kong. Managerial motivation or motivation to manage has been shown to be a major cause of managerial effectiveness and success in large bureaucratic organizations in the USA and elsewhere. Data were collected from a sample of Hong Kong business students. A three‐part questionnaire containing the MSCS‐H, demographic and educational background information, and objective measures relating to the MSCS‐H and its subscales was used as the research instrument. No significant influence of demographics and educational variables on levels of managerial motivation were detected. As hypothesized, the objective measures including the preference for managerial jobs and employment with a large company positively correlated with levels of motivation to manage. In addition, relevant questionnaire measures positively correlated with the underlying constructs of MSCS‐H. Overall, analyses provide further support for the construct validity of the theory’s main construct (MSCS‐H) in Hong Kong.

REFRAMING MANAGERS' CONTROL ORIENTATIONS AND PRACTICES: A PROPOSED ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING FRAMEWORK

This paper presents an organizational learning framework for reframing management practices within large bureaucratic organizations. Reviewing the relevant literature, the paper argues managers' control orientations and practices effectively stifle learning and personal development by severely limiting the ability of employees to exert control or change the nature of their work activities. To encourage organizational learning, a number of reframing tools are proposed The paper concludes by discussing how reframing tools may be used in conjunction with other psychoanalytic techniques to challenge and change managers' control orientations and practices.

The Reproduction of Class Relations by Gender in Canada

Abstract. This paper builds on the research on occupational mobility and class reproduction in Canada and elsewhere by drawing on a national representative sample of Canadians surveyed in 1986. It evaluates the effect of mother's and father's class on class position of male and female Canadians, controlling for education, age, ethnicity, language, and region. The analysis shows that the tendency for class--defined in terms of relations of production and exploitation--reproduction in Canada exceeds that which could be expected by chance alone, that the level of class reproduction is about equal for the ownership and the new middle classes, that class reproduction is same-sex directed, and that father's effect is stronger on sons than on daughters and that mother's effect is stronger on daughters than it is on sons. Resume. Cette communication vient s'ajouter aux recherches sur la mobilite professionnelle et de la reproduction des classes au Canada et ailleurs. Pour ce faire, elle s'inspire d'un echantillon national representatif des Canadiens ayant fait l'objet d'un sondage en 1986. Elle evalue l'effect de la classe du pere et de la mere sur la position sociale des Canadiens et des Canadiennes, en prenant en consideration les etudes, l'age, l'ethnicite, la langue et la region. L'analyse indique que la tendance a reproduire les classes, definie en termes des relations de production et d'exploitation, depasse les niveaux qu'on aurait pu prevoir en tenant compte uniquement du hasard. De plus, elle montre que ces niveaux de reproduction sont a peu pres les memes pour les classes des proprietaires et les nouvelles classes moyennes, que la reproduction des classes est dirigee par les parents du meme sexe et que l'influence du pere aupres des fils est plus forte que celle qu'il exerce sur les filles, alors que la mere exerce une plus grande influence sur les filles que sur les fils. There have been substantial shifts in the class structure of Canadian society. Whether these changes are rooted in technological innovations or the development of corporate capitalism, they have resulted in the growth of large bureaucratic organizations in which professional-administrative and managerial positions (i.e., a new middle class) have multiplied while the proportion of labourers employed in farming, low-skilled manual, and non-manual occupations has either decreased or remained the same (Clement and Myles, 1994; McRoberts, 1985a: 76; Porter and Blishen, 1971). (2) The increasing differentiation of the Canadian labour force and the expansion of professional-administrative and managerial positions necessarily produces a certain level of forced mobility. What is not clear, however, is whether access to these new positions is more or less equal than before. Has the recent transformation of class structure produced a significant shift in the way in which the class of origin influences the class of destination? This paper intends to address this issue by evaluating the extent of class mobility in Canada using a neo-Marxian conceptualization of class concept. Review of the Literature A subject of vigorous debate is the degree to which placement in various class positions is influenced by a rational procedure of social selection or some type of ascribed sponsorship. Writers in the liberal-pluralist tradition, rooted in the work of Spencer (see Carneiro, 1967) and Parsons (1951: 76-98, 183-189; 1960: chs. 3 and 4; 1967, ch. 4) and that elaborated by Treiman (1970) and Erickson and Goldthrope (1992), argue that with advanced industrialization, such as that in Canada, there occurs a decreasing rigidification of the class structure and increasing likelihood of inter- and intra-generational mobility. Industrialization entails technological advancement, more differentiation of division of labour, and more rational organization of employment. Traditional authoritarian ascriptive norms are replaced by new norms, based on universalism and equality of opportunity, which are congruent with the expanding division of labour. …

When it comes to product innovation, what is so bad about bureaucracy?

In theory, bureaucracy is said to be “bad” for innovation. Yet large bureaucratic organizations often need to be both adept at innovation and capable of ongoing routinized production. Unfortunately, little is actually known about how bureaucracy hinders innovation, since research on the relationship of structural characteristics of organization and innovation is ambiguous. This study attempts to illuminate the specific relationship between bureaucracy and innovation so as to permit progress beyond the innovation-bureaucracy stalemate. Building on an interpretive rather than structure perspective, we analyzed 134 people's experiences with product innovation in 15 large bureaucracies. We found four patterns of bureaucratic thinking and acting that systematically inhibited effective action in defining, organizing, evaluating, and staffing the innovation effort. These patterns are described and illustrated at some length. Then, drawing on Weber's original theory of bureaucracy and other classics of innovation, we theorize that it is an interpretive system of instrumental rationality, not only a bureaucratic structure, that creates and maintains these patterns. From this insight we speculate on how large bureaucracies can become more innovative without losing their efficiency.

Organizational Attitudes of Senior Professionals

The literature review indicates that architects tend to solve problems differently than students from the physical sciences and engineering. Because architects and engineers often fulfill similar roles in project development, should appropriate management training take into account differences in organizational, professional, and client commitment? A survey was designed using the organizational and professional commitment scales developed by Mowday et al. (in 1979) and Aranya and Ferris (in 1984). Another scale was also designed to test client commitment. A survey of 61 architects and engineers in management roles in a government department reveals that the two professions are virtually indistinguishable in these areas. It would seem that the organizational requirements that come with higher roles and positions override the speciality-professional referent. There are significant findings in “use of profession as referent,” but the question set “client commitment” requires extensive review of its internal validity. Further research is suggested on the effect of large bureaucratic organizations on the professional and organizational commitment of employees.

Making It In and Making Out: Women in Professional Occupations in Britain and France

The relationship between gender, work and organization in professional occupations can be shown to vary according to different work environments and national contexts. The career patterns of women in chartered accountancy and law in Britain and France are explored in different types of organization in order to determine whether the societal structuring of these occupations is gendered and whether women fare better in small professional practices or large bureaucratic organizations. The findings are derived from a comparative study which combined macro‐level data with in‐depth qualitative analysis of work and family life histories of a small number of women professionals. While women in the two countries and two occupations were found to share many of the same problems in establishing and pursuing a career, the evidence suggests that women in France may have a marginal advantage over their British counterparts, not so much because they have access to more extensive statutory employment rights but rather because they are more often employed in small practices where they are able to use their independence and their control over working conditions and work‐time arrangements to structure their careers according to their own requirements and interests.

USING SECONDARY DATA TO RAISE REVENUE: A CASE STUDY OF A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DATA BASE PROJECT

In an era of large-scale budget cuts, community development practitioners face the continuing challenge of finding revenue for not only maintaining existing programs, but initiating new projects as well. This article describes a revenue-raising project created at the University of Georgia. The development of the initial project is presented using a case study approach. The spin-off programs created from the original project and the problems encountered with implementing innovative ideas in a large bureaucratic organization are reviewed. The importance of developing entrepreneurial skills is stressed throughout the article.

Technological flexibility, financial fragility and the recent revival of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship

SummaryThe technological stagnation of large bureaucratic organizations in the seventies led to a revival of “Schumpeterian” entrepreneurship. This is explained as a consequence of the search for flexibility induced by an increase of structural uncertainty. The role of credit in promoting technological flexibility is also considered. Its basic function today is seen to consist not so much in a rapid redistribution of productive resources, as Schumpeter maintained, but rather in a proper reallocation of technological risk.

Self-Help Groups and Consumer Participation: A Look at the German Health Care Self-Help Movement

Institutionalized rights for the participatioii of consumers in the decision-making processes or provision of health and social services do not exist in West Germany. However, consumers have begun to voice their concerns about this state of affairs and have undertaken more involvement in the planning and implementation of their own forms of health care, while concurrently pressuring the health care and social services systems to become more responsive to their needs. We note two reasons for the existence of such opposition to such participation. We argue that self-help associations (several types of which are described herein) are at present the only relevant form of consumer participation in West Germany, by focusing our attention on the tasks and accomplishments of health relevant to self-help associations. These associations offer effective ways of dealing with the rigidity and heaviness of large bureaucratic organizations such as political parties and unions. We conclude by identifying newer pro-active roles and responsibilities of the patient as consumer both within and external to the official health care system.

A Public Choice Approach to Motivating People in Bureaucratic Organizations

This paper examines the problem of motivating people in organizations from a public choice viewpoint. A number of propositions are derived deductively from assumptions regarding individual goals, discretion, and preferences. These suggest how managers can improve productivity by changing either incentive systems or work group size, job design, and personnel rotation practices. Public choice is the application of economic analysis to the study of political behavior. Within public administration, public choice has formed a theoretical basis for a critique of government bureaucracy and for an examination of market and quasi-market mechanisms for the delivery of public services, including privatization, voucher schemes, contracting out, and competing bureaucracies. This growing body of research has been reviewed by Straussman (1981) and Weschler (1982). Little attempt, however, has been made to apply public choice methodology to the problems facing those who must manage people in large bureaucratic organizations. This is surprising because a central concern of public choice focuses on how rational individuals cooperate to

WORK AND LEISURE: THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY AMONG PROFESSIONAL WORKERS

ABSTRACT What is the impact of alienating work on the value of leisure time to professionals? The assertion is tested that for workers in large bureaucratic organizations, leisure is seen as a more dominant source of intrinsic rewards and personal identity. Emphasis on leisure for central identity is often assumed for manual and blue collar workers because their work is dull and routine. They compensate by seeing themselves in terms of roles they fill in leisure. Today many suggest that the work of professionals lacks fulfillment in ways similar to blue collar workers. Looking at over 400 aerospace engineers, this study addresses the relationship of intrinsic work rewards to work and leisure identity. Is leisure used as a compensatory source for work that is intrinsically unfilling? Findings indicate that, indeed, leisure is rated higher than work as a source of intrinsic satisfactions and self identity, not, however, as compensation for deprivations felt at work.