Weberian Model Research Articles

Do the Advantages of the Weberian Bureaucracy Outweigh Its Disadvantages?

Bureaucracy is a highly misunderstood and infamous concept which has been taken in varied perspective by public at large. For a state, the rule of law is the most important prerequisite to its contributory existence and bureaucracy act as a tool to it. This essay attempts to bring out the good and bad part of Weberian model of bureaucracy and then analyzing them to find out whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not. There are various schools of thoughts which are having different ways of looking at bureaucracy and finding its pros and cons as per their interpretations and convenience. People of a society enjoy the benefits of the civilized system by virtue of the effective role of the bureaucracy, however they are always finding themselves comfortable in coming out with negative and positive criticism of the bureaucracy. This essay attempts at finding out both the sides of the arguments and leaves with the readers the scope of interpreting them as per their extent of understanding them.

Beyond Weber: Conceptualizing an alternative ideal type of bureaucracy in developing contexts

AbstractThe study of public administration in developing countries requires that we look beyond the Weberian model as the only ideal type of bureaucracy. When we assume that there exists only one gold standard of public administration, all other organizational forms that do not conform to the Weberian ideal are dismissed as corrupt or failed. Drawing on neo‐institutional economics, I introduce an alternative ideal type of bureaucracy found in contemporary China. This model, which I call bureau‐franchising, combines the hierarchical structure of bureaucracy with the high‐powered incentives of franchising. In this system, public agencies can rightfully claim a share of income earned to finance and reward themselves, like entrepreneurial franchisees. Yet distinct from lawless corruption, this self‐financing (or prebendal) behavior is sanctioned and even deliberately incentivized by state rules. Although such a model violates several Weberian tenets of “good” bureaucracy, it harnesses and regulates the high‐powered incentives of prebendalism to ameliorate budgetary and capacity constraints that are common in developing countries like China.

BUROCRACIA BRASILEIRA, REFORMA ADMINISTRATIVA E ESTADO NOVO: O PAPEL DO APARATO ADMINISTRATIVO NO GOVERNO VARGAS.

O papel exercido pelo aparato administrativo através do Departamento Administrativo do Serviço na política do Governo Vargas é o objeto posto em debate, a partir da investigação do contexto patrimonialista, autoritário e ineficiente que marca a formação e desenvolvimento da burocracia administrativa, das propostas de profissionalização e eficiência trazidas pelas reformas administrativas da década de 1930 e 1940 com a contraposição das limitações da importação do modelo weberiano no contexto brasileiro e da análise da criação do DASP no Estado Novo e suas atribuições, definindo a função de controle que exerceu de forma direta e através dos Departamentos Estaduais na Administração Pública Brasileira garantindo a política centralizadora e desenvolvimentista do governo.

Public Administration Narratives and the Deveopment of Future Tendencies: Towards Neo-Weberian State

The authors present in the article the historic-cultural analysis of the most important public administration narratives and problematically define their future projections. Having done cultural public administration analysis, they define the cultural epoch, in which public administration now develops, and call it as post-post-modernism. The return to Weberian model under new conditions, as the intermediary, connecting stage from New Public Management to values based New Governance, is characteristic to the present situation. This Neo-Weberian model implies in itself not only more clear principles, but also more practical elements (components), which may lead to more concrete implementation methods, the lack of which is felt under the search for New Governance, but not for New Public Management. In the end of the article the authors argue for the positive evaluation of New Governance, because its social dimensions are not overcome, and according to the authors opinion, it is necessary to return to them back as well.

The Chinese Paradox of High Growth and Low Quality of Government: The Cadre Organization Meets Max Weber

Much research has argued for the importance of state's administrative capacity for development. Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China—the cadre organization. Instead of rule following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development.

A Cross-Country Study of the Relationship between Weberian Bureaucracy and Government Performance

This paper challenges the long-term criticism of the efficiency of the Weberian model of bureaucracy, on the hypothesis that its performance or competitiveness might be context specific, as what works best in some bureaucratic settings is unlikely to work to the same degree in others. To perform this assessment, this study analyzes relationships between characteristics of the Weberian model of bureaucracy and government performance in nations possessing different levels of democratic development. The key finding of this research is that the Weberian characteristic of bureaucratic professionalism is most strongly and positively associated with good government performance in nations where democracy is less developed. This can have special implications for developing countries, where democracy is usually not well established and furnishing good governance with a well-functioning bureaucracy is an urgent goal for effective implementation of development programs.

OF BUREAUCRATS AND PASSIONATE PUBLIC MANAGERS: INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS, EXECUTIVE IDENTITIES, AND PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION

Over recent decades, a number of managerial reform initiatives in continental Europe have aimed at moving away from the traditional Weberian model of public administration. Such shifting bases of legitimacy are brought about by changes in the institutional logics in place, which not only provide frames of reference but also social identities and vocabularies of motive for the actors in the field. In this article, we approach the expanding research on public service motivation (PSM) by employing an institutional prism. Based on an executive survey in a continental European context, we examine the assumption that highPSMis associated with the traditional ethos and social identity in the public sector. What we find is that a Weberian legalistic‐bureaucratic logic supports neither a high attraction to policy‐making nor a high level of compassion. A managerial orientation, on the other hand, entails significantly higher scores on these two dimensions, as well as on overallPSM.

The dynamics of corporate brand charisma: Routinization and activation at Carlsberg IT

Summary This article describes how Carlsberg Group’s IT unit (CIT) made use of Carlsberg’s corporate brand to develop its identity following centralization and downsizing of the IT function. Our observations suggested using the concept of brand charisma and thereafter we framed our analysis with Weber’s theory of the routinization of charisma. The study took place in the relatively unusual context of a truncated rollout of a formal corporate branding program, which allowed us to study the processes by which brand charisma was routinized. Findings indicate the important intermediary role played by middle managers who selected and systematized the set of brand beliefs taken up within the CIT project, and how employees accommodated these beliefs to their everyday work life. Accommodation was found to take place within four subdomains of activity: subculture, communication, technology, and hierarchical control. A key finding is that, through their reception and activation of brand charisma, the CITemployees contributed greatly to the endowment of charisma their brand carried. A revised Weberian model of the dynamic relationships between the routinization of charisma and its reception and activation constitutes our contribution to corporate branding theory. The article also offers empirical evidence in support of extending Weberian scholarship further into the field of brand management.

Charisma and Counterculture: Allen Ginsberg as a Prophet for a New Generation

The cultural role of Allen Ginsberg does not fit a typical Weberian model of charisma. The avant-garde poet was an outstanding personality and possessed an unusual ability to affect people. He played a vital role in expanding the boundaries of personal freedom in America of the 1950s–1990s, blazing new paths for spiritual, communal and artistic expression. Serving as a father figure for the counterculture—a symbol of an alternative set of cultural norms, lifestyles and literary forms—Ginsberg was a charismatic counter-leader, with no clearly defined followers or movement. As a leader in a more liberated era, he offered energy, ideas, inspiration, and color, but no structure or authority. Instead he was a prophet of freedom, calling on people to express themselves openly, to expand and experiment. This role demanded charisma but of a different kind—one that was more spiritual and less organizational or hierarchical. This article follows Gary Dickson’s essay “Charisma, Medieval and Modern,” in offering a suggestive analysis of and supplement to Weber’s understanding of charisma. The article grapples with the concept of charisma in relation to a generation that resented rigid structures and authorities.

The Framework of Casualty Care during the Anglo-Dutch Wars

The framework of casualty care during the Anglo-Dutch Wars has been found severely wanting by historians of naval medicine. This judgement is grounded on the fact that naval hospitals were constructed eventually in the 1750s, and because the hospitalization of sick and hurt mariners conforms better to a Weberian model of state and military modernization. This article argues that the measures for casualty care erected during the Dutch wars adhered to an early modern model of state formation. The framework of care extended the scope and social depth of politically involved people. It failed because the carers were consistently underfunded, not because locally based care was inherently unworkable or insufficiently bureaucratic and centralized.

Legitimacy, shared ethos and public management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to learn from the Jewish concept of the “public emissary” about how to contend with the contradiction that underlies the formal authority accorded in the Weberian approach when applied to public service.Design/methodology/approachThe first part of the article explains this contradiction and the second part offers a new way of thinking about the roles of people serving the public by means of the Jewish concept of public emissary – shaliah tzibbur – and exemplifies this in the role of the charity trustee, with reference to Jewish sources.FindingsThe article finds that the model of the “public emissary” constructs a deep emotional commitment to the role, public loyalty and strict ethics. At the same time, the model allows the individual engaging in public service greater autonomy in his work.Originality/valueThis article offers an alternative to the Weberian model of formal authority, which has proven to be less than ideal. In practical terms, it offers a new definition and profile for people serving the public, from which it follows that different areas should be emphasized in their training.

Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America (review)

Latin American Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajio and Spanish North America. By John lutino. (Durham: Duke University Press. 2011. Pp. ix, 699- $99-95 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-822-34974-7; $29.95 paperback, ISBN 978-0-822-34989-1.) Despite the intense specialization that has fashioned historical research over the last four decades, which has often produced monographs narrow in scope and timid in conceptual reach, historians still relish big history that is empirically sound, theoretically innovative, and lyrically rendered. For historians of colonial Mexico, John lutino 's long-awaited book on the foundations of early-modern capitalism in Spanish North America is precisely the kind of big history that shifts the paradigm to such a degree that historians in other fields- particularly world historians- will take notice and revisit the conventional wisdom that has shaped the direction of their own research. Tutino's book is that good. The author argues that the world became whole in the sixteenth century just about the time Hernan Cortes had toppled the Aztec confederation and Ming China developed a ferocious appetite for silver. Trade expansion linked Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, while European colonization of the Western Hemisphere, coupled with the rise of the African slave trade, initiated a global dynamic that facilitated capitalism. American silver- especially that which was mined in the Bajio region of Mexico, what Spaniards called New Spain- was key to global trade between 1550 and 1810; the vast quantities of the metal fashioned a protean capitalist society in Spanish North America composed of merchants, entrepreneurs, investors, miners, ranchers, and farmers- an ethnically and racially diverse lot, to be sure- most of whom looked to the Catholic Church for sanctifying power and grace. As lutino makes quite clear in his tome, Catholicism provided an ample arena where religious piety comingled with debate and dissent, paving various pathways for these social groups to adapt, modify, alter, or discard what disrupted production, exchange, and social relations. In short, lutino 's colonial Mexico is the corrective to an older Weberian model that explained change from an Anglo-Protestant-capitalist perspective. Tutino's work also complements quite nicely a larger body of knowledge that shows us that the Spanish colonial enterprise functioned primarily as a judicial mediator, one that sought to resolve disputes and soften the impact of colonialism on the indigenous and racially mixed populations, with an eye toward fostering equity and the common good among local communities and, in the process, maximize the revenues that come from stable commercial relationships. …

The Duplicity of Paper: Counterfeit, Discretion, and Bureaucratic Authority in Early Colonial Madras

Shifts in writing technology are usually taken to mark a shift from discretionary to rule-bound, impersonal forms of government. Equating writing technology with rules, however, obscures how counterfeiting, both alleged and real, and the exertion of official discretion can consolidate a government of writing. In his important study of Yemeni scribal culture,The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Brinkley Messick modifies Weberian models of domination by calling for the study of textual domination that intersects in diverse ways with other dimensions of authority. Messick relates the demise of the calligraphic state to the advent of legal codification and print technology. With the arrival of impersonal documents of government and a form of rational law, he argues, writing itself ceased to be the “non-arbitrary mark of the person” and the relationship between the sign and signified was no longer connected by an intermediary figure. Similarly, the notion that the innovations of disciplinary writing constituted a new assemblage of control exercised through the “unavoidable visibility of subjects” has been extremely productive in delineating the colonial career of modern infrastructural power. Following the work of Bernard Cohn, the colonial state's “investigative modalities” have been shown to be integral to colonial command and the production of an ever-accumulating corpus of reports. Statistical surveys, reports, and censuses in colonies did not create a uniform template of rule but did enable the operation of inherently selective, targeted, and differentially articulated projects of governance. These gains notwithstanding, the debates over colonial governance have remained limited to differing estimations of the state's successful mastery of information, and whether its taxonomies were collaboratively authored by intermediaries or imposed upon the colonized. We need to give more attention to the complex articulation of records and reports with the law under conditions of exogenous rule.

Government lawyers and the training of senior civil servants. Maintaining law at the heart of the French state

To assess the influence of law and jurists in the conduct of contemporary French state, this article examines the role of the Council of State at ENA (École Nationale d'Administration), the main school for top civil servants. Although the study reveals the decreasing part of law in the bureaucratic capital over the past fifty years, it also shows how government lawyers have resisted this downsizing process. The teaching of a subject called ‘legistics’ provides top officials with a different view of law. Dedicated to promoting the political utility of law, legistics complies with managerial values while it sticks to the Weberian model of bureaucracy. As a result of the introduction of legistics, new techniques of legal drafting have been spreading within French public administration. Legistics thus plays a role in the contemporary reshaping of public legal practices, as well as in the renewing of legal legitimacy in the reform of public affairs.

Medieval Religious Rationalities: A Weberian Analysis , and: Rationalities in History: A Weberian Essay in Comparison (review)

Reviewed by: Medieval Religious Rationalities: A Weberian Analysis, and: Rationalities in History: A Weberian Essay in Comparison Jeffrey Bowman Medieval Religious Rationalities: A Weberian Analysis. By D. L. d’Avray. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. x, 198. $85.00 cloth-bound, ISBN 978-0-521-76707-1; $29.99 paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-18682-7.) Rationalities in History: A Weberian Essay in Comparison. By D. L. d’Avray. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2010. Pp. x, 214. $85.00 cloth-bound, ISBN 978-0-521-19920-0; $29.99 paperback, ISBN 978-0-521-12808-7.) In Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion (Tübingen, 1920–21) and Economy and Society (Tübingen, 1925), Max Weber developed a taxonomy that distinguished four types of rationality. In the pair of studies under review, D. L. d’Avray argues that Weber’s four rationalities (instrumental, [End Page 89] value, formal, and substantive) might be fruitfully applied to the study of history. The two volumes are closely related and best understood as parts of a single argument. In Rationalities in History, the more theoretical of the two volumes, d’Avray reviews the Weberian framework and suggests the rewards of using it to interpret diverse historical evidence. In Medieval Religious Rationalities, he applies Weber’s schema to case studies from the European Middle Ages. In both volumes, the author rejects readings of Weber that describe the rise of rationality as a defining feature of modernity. D’Avray argues convincingly that to accept such readings is to misunderstand both Weber and the premodern world. Gratian’s Decretum, for example, serves as a compelling example of the operation of formal rationality in the medieval period. The Weberian approach has benefits aside from allowing us to cultivate a subtler understanding of the differences between the modern world and the Middle Ages. The diverse examples adduced in Rationalities in History (Azande witch oracles, Hume’s essay on miracles, and Buddhist asceticism, to name a few) dramatize the appealing prospect that Weber’s model can foster broadly comparative approaches to the study of religion and history. D’Avray is especially interested in the interface of different rationalities. In Rationalities in History, the Congregation of the Council, a body formed to interpret the decisions of the Council of Trent, serves as an example of how value rationalities informed formal legal rationalities. In Medieval Religious Rationalities, the interplay of rules and exceptions to rules in canon law illustrates the interface of Weber’s types. In a particularly learned and engaging discussion, d’Avray shows how papal dispensations for marriages within prohibited degrees of consanguinity reflect a symbiosis of formal and substantive rationalities. D’Avray is to be applauded for his range of reference and his eagerness to confront thorny questions about the relation between history and other social sciences rather than indulging in the opportunistic cross-disciplinary borrowing that too often characterizes the boundaries among history, sociology, and anthropology. The works under review are richly thought provoking, but not entirely convincing at every point. The decision to pursue the argument in two volumes is puzzling. Organizing the material in a single volume would have allowed the author to knit the empirical evidence more tightly to the broader theoretical agenda. One also might hope for a more decisive report of what we gain from looking at the past in this way. D’Avray shows that Weber’s scheme might be coherently applied to historical evidence, but it is not always clear what benefits are derived from such applications. One could, for example, read with keen appreciation d’Avray’s insightful account of how medieval religious convictions were parts of inter-locking, mutually reinforcing belief systems without believing that recourse to Weberian models is absolutely necessary. D’Avray’s overarching claim that Weber can help us hone a more precise analytical vocabulary for describing [End Page 90] the choices, preferences, and values of people in societies unlike our own should inspire lively discussion among medievalists, historians in general, and students of religion. Jeffrey Bowman Kenyon College Gambier, OH Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

The Protestant Ethic and African Pentecostalism: A Case Study

In 2008 South Africa’s Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) produced a report on Pentecostalism, Under the Radar: Pentecostalism in South Africa and its Potential Social and Economic Role, which makes great claims for the public effects of Pentecostalism, proposing that Pentecostalism will do for South Africa what Max Weber argued Calvinism did for eighteenth-century Europe. The report is influenced by “the claims of sociologists of religion that Pentecostalism has a special affinity with market-based development, and a kinship with what historians call the “Protestant ethic”: a cluster of beliefs, attitudes and habits that underpinned the spectacular economic growth of north-west Europe during the industrial revolution.” This article will review the results published by the CDE visa- vis the construction of a “Pentecostal Ethic” and present a case study of an African Pentecostal church, Winners’ Chapel, which challenges the assertions made by the CDE. As an example of the prevalence of “victorious living” within African Pentecostalism, Winners’ Chapel does not conform to the Weberian model of the Protestant Ethic.

State-building in Afghanistan: a case showing the limits?

AbstractSince the 1990s, the concept of ‘state-building’ has become the means by which intervenors have attempted to tackle ‘state failure/fragility’. The ‘ideal’ referred to when attempting to do this – both theoretically and in practice – has been that of the classic ‘nation-state’ as developed by Max Weber. To answer the question posed by the title above, the article first looks generally at the evolution of the current state-building paradigm and global governance discourse. Second, a background of historical attempts at state-building in Afghanistan is given. Third, an assessment is made of the international community's approach to Afghanistan since 2001. Finally, the appropriateness of replicating a Weberian state-building model onto more traditional societies such as Afghanistan – where modes of governance and authority are often informal, complex, and characterized by historical and charismatic sources of legitimacy – is addressed. Until now, such contexts have barely been acknowledged, still less understood, by intervenors. Today, however, some academics are beginning to outline an alternative response to state fragility, recognizing more traditional sources of legitimacy and a hybridity of political order.

How to Maintain Peace and Security in a Post-conflict Hybrid Political Order – the Case of Bougainville

After a decade-long large-scale violent conflict, the Pacific island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea has gone through another decade of post-conflict peacebuilding and at present is confronted with the task of state formation. Peacebuilding has been a success story so far, and the prospects of state formation look promising. The maintenance of order, security and justice in post-conflict Bougainville is based on legal pluralism, with strong customary law and strong customary non-state policing. The violent conflict on Bougainville was a hybrid social-political exchange, with the causes and motivating factors stemming from both the sphere of statecentred politics (‘war of secession’) and the local societal realm in which non-state customary issues (land conflicts, pay back etc.) played a major role. This article explores the specific features of post-conflict peacebuilding on Bougainville that flow from this context, focussing on the local capacities, but also acknowledging the contribution of international peacekeeping, particularly through the United Nations and a regional Peace Monitoring Group. Based on the Bougainville experience, the article develops a critique of the conventional Western peacebuilding-asstatebuilding approach to fragile post-conflict situations, and it critiques the accompanying focus of external actors on capacity-building of state institutions for maintaining order and internal peace. It makes a case for an alternative approach which acknowledges the hybridity of political order and the co-existence and interplay of state and non-state providers of security and justice. Positive mutual accommodation of state and non-state customary institutions are presented as a more promising way to sustainable internal peace and order than the attempted imposition of the Western Weberian model of the state.

Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie Rossii s kontsa XVII do kontsa XVIII veka: Evoliutsiia biurokraticheskoi sistemy , and: Administrativnye struktury i biurokratiia Urala v epokhu petrovskikh reform (zapadnye uezdy Sibirskoi gubernii v 1711–1727) (review)

Reviewed by: Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie Rossii s kontsa XVII do kontsa XVIII veka: Evoliutsiia biurokraticheskoi sistemy, and: Administrativnye struktury i biurokratiia Urala v epokhu petrovskikh reform (zapadnye uezdy Sibirskoi gubernii v 1711–1727) Brian L. Davies Liubov′ Fedorovna Pisar′kova, Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie Rossii s kontsa XVII do kontsa XVIII veka: Evoliutsiia biurokraticheskoi sistemy [The State Administration of Russia from the Late 17th to the Late 18th Centuries: Evolution of the Bureaucratic System]. 743 pp. Moscow: Rosspen, 2007. ISBN 5824307873. Dmitrii Alekseevich Redin, Administrativnye struktury i biurokratiia Urala v epokhu petrovskikh reform (zapadnye uezdy Sibirskoi gubernii v 1711–1727) [The Administrative Structures and Bureaucracy of the Urals in the Age of the Petrine Reforms (the Western Districts of the Governorship of Siberia in 1711–27)]. 608 pp. Ekaterinburg: Volot, 2007. ISBN 5890880381. In recent years much effort in Russia has been invested in enlisting scholars and intellectuals in constructing a new post-Soviet "national idea" and reviving popular interest in Peter I as one of its emblems. This renewed attention to Peter's era—and concerns that it may lead to exaggerating and idealizing his achievement—has encouraged several leading Russian historians to weigh in with ambitious new studies of Peter's reforms of central and provincial government.1 These studies emphasize the discrepancy between the intentions and expectations of the Petrine reforms, on the one hand, and the performance of reformed institutions, on the other. They also pay considerable attention to the persistence of corruption. The studies by Liubov′ Pisar′kova and Dmitrii Redin represent the two most recent additions to this literature. L. F. Pisar′kova offers a comprehensive and very detailed study of the development of both central and provincial government in Russia from the prikaz/voevoda system of the late 17th century to the "counterreforms" of Emperor Paul I, which she considers to be both a reaction against the Catherinian system and the foundation for the ministerial reform of Alexander I. She aims at devoting equal attention to the sociology and organization of the 18th-century Russian bureaucracy, arguing that past studies have not [End Page 173] been explicit enough in showing the linkages between changes in personnel policies (recruitment, training, terms of service, and remuneration) and changes in the structure and internal organization of administration. The reorganization of administration was necessarily shaped and limited in great part by the quality of cadres available to it. The single greatest challenge facing administration was finding the optimal balance between centralized control and accountable local initiative, and experimentation to find this balance point is why the course of administrative development over the 18th century tended to be convulsive and oscillatory rather than progressively linear. To support this argument Pisar′kova devotes unusually great detail—sometimes stupefying detail—to the organs of provincial government, particularly the less-studied lower fiscal and judicial offices. Despite its subtitle, The Evolution of the Bureaucratic System, her book is not interested in weighing the development of Russian administration against some ideal Weberian model of emerging "rational bureaucracy." Hence there is no effort here to typologize late Muscovite administration as "pre-bureaucratic" and Petrine administration as "protobureaucratic" or to identify the point at which Russian imperial administration became "rationally bureaucratic." Nor is Pisar′kova much interested in following the historiographic tradition of generalizing from changes in administrative organization a succession of stages in sociopolitical development expressing the changing class character of the Russian state (such as Lenin's "chinovnik–dvorianstvo monarchy," or B. N. Mironov's model of a 17th-century "patriarchal popular monarchy" that was succeeded in the 18th century by a "paternalist noble monarchy").2 Her approach is more cautious and limits itself to assessing the effectiveness of administrative modifications in relation to changes in the declared "functions of rule": that is, changes in state policy that in some cases involved centralization and systematization and in others required devolution of authority and exceptions from the system. Her book is not entirely successful in fulfilling this goal, because it devotes so much detail to description of administrative organization that it sometimes allows space to discuss the development of policy only in the broadest terms. The impact of policy needs on organization and personnel policy is...

De l'entreprise virtuelle à l'entreprise écosystémique

Using Kasper-Fuehrer and Ashkanasy (2004)’s definition of the virtual firms as a weberian model, we consider it as an original organizational form, but also as a modality of realization and performance of ecosystemic enterprises, these firms (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) that are trying to develop vast innovating communities in order to impose their technical, processing and organizational standards. Ecosystems’ abilities to grow virtual firms within themselves strengthen them.